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5 Ways Social Media Marketing Is Changing Before Our Eyes

  • Nicholas Scalice

    • Okay, I’ll say it. This is going to be a controversial post. I’m going to cover some stuff that some of you will disagree with. But that’s alright. In fact, that’s what I’m hoping will happen.

    You see, as marketers, we’re at our finest when we’re challenging the status quo. If we’re just going with the flow, we’re falling behind, and that can have a devastating effect on our career or business.

    And as far as social media marketing is concerned, nothing seems to be changing faster. Think back to just a half decade ago (not a long time, really). Snapchat and Instagram were literally just getting started. Pinterest and Vine were not even created yet. Facebook had a measly 500 million users, and Twitter … well, Twitter was just being Twitter.

    My point is, it’s difficult enough just keeping up with the social platforms we all use, but it’s even more difficult keeping up with how to use them as marketers.

    But have no fear. That’s what this post is hopefully going to assist you with. As you’ll see below, I’ve outlined five ways social media marketing is changing and what we should do about it.

    1. Speed often beats production quality

    Have you noticed how quickly some brands have reacted to current events in recent years? Probably the most famous case is the brilliant tweet by Oreo during the Super Bowl XLVII blackout. Talk about being quick on their feet!

    Other brands have leveraged speed in some very interesting ways over the years. The takeaway is, social media is a medium that allows us to communicate with our audiences very rapidly. We need to appreciate that.

    Sometimes that means we’re better off releasing very timely content even if it isn’t as polished as we’d like it to be. Most people don’t seem to mind content that is rough around the edges. In fact, a timely tweet containing a hastily-created meme can appear to be much more authentic and relatable than a stuffy, stock-photo-filled slide deck.

    2. The moment is more important than the memory

    This trend is brought to you by Snapchat, and Periscope, and Meerkat. But mostly Snapchat.

    They were the first to tell the world that social media can be used as a means of communicating rather than as a means of making memories for our digital scrapbooks.

    The whole idea of ephemeral media is still slightly rebellious, and many brands don’t even know where to start with something like Snapchat. “What do you mean we can’t save our snaps!?”

    But give it a little time, and more and more people will come to see the brilliance behind Snapchat and related platforms. We’re moving out of the era of creating social content for our future selves to look back on and into the era of creating social content for our current selves to use as a means of communication. Boom. Welcome to the future.

    3. Say goodbye to “one size fits all” marketing

    The more personalized our experiences on social platforms are, the more likely we are to engage. That’s just human nature. So, as marketers, we need to try to deliver a customized experience to our audience segments whenever possible.

    Did you notice I said audience “segments?” That’s where our thinking needs to be headed. We should stop looking at our audience as one giant blob and start looking at it as a bunch of tiny blobs.

    Just one real-world example of this would be Facebook targeting for organic posts. Did you know, you can configure a regular Facebook page post so that only a specific group of your fans see it? Want to write content in multiple languages all from the same Facebook page? Facebook targeting for organic posts will let you do that.

    4. Engagement is the new following

    Oh, this is a tricky one. For as long as I can remember, many of my clients would come to me and ask for “more fans” or “more followers.” And we’d have a nice chat about the value of a fan, and how engagement is what really matters. But people were still stuck on this notion that our success with social media is directly connected to our fan growth.

    Well, thankfully, that attitude is starting to be replaced by a more engagement-focused mindset. In other words, marketers are realizing that it’s much more advantageous to have 1000 raving fans who are engaging with our content than to have 10,000 fans who don’t even know what we do or why they liked our page in the first place.

    Make sure you’re focusing on the right metrics. For the most part, the brands that can consistently get people to take action will be the winners for the foreseeable future.

    5. Pay-to-play or fade away

    Lastly, I’m going to end on the most controversial point of all. Social media advertising! Gasp! We’ve all probably met an “organic marketing purist.” You know, the marketers who absolutely positively will never ever pay one cent to advertise their social channels. Ugh.

    I’m sorry, but the days of a purely organic social strategy are quickly disappearing. Yes, it could work if you’re Coca-Cola or Disney, but for most of us, we’re going to have to pay-to-play.

    I’m not talking about breaking the bank on social advertising. Rather, think about social ads as an efficient way to get your engagement engine started. Running a small social ads campaign can be especially helpful for new brands who are looking to get that initial burst of exposure.

    So if you’re not at least testing social advertising (especially on Facebook), you’re really missing out on a whole new untapped market.

    What do you think?

    Well, there you have it. Times are changing. That’s not a bad sign. The important part is to keep up on trends like the ones I’ve outlined above, and use other best practices to keep your social media campaigns running strong. Keep learning, keep testing, and keep challenging new ideas as well.

    In fact, I’m waiting to hear your thoughts on what I’ve covered in this post. Jump into the conversation below or on Twitter and let’s hear what you have to say about where social media marketing is headed!

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    Nicholas Scalice

    Founder at Earnworthy
    Nicholas is an inbound marketing consultant and the founder of Earnworthy. He focuses on helping brands get attention, gain trust, and generate sales using powerful inbound marketing tools and technology.