The prevailing trends in social media marketing

Social media marketing in simple terms is a procedure of getting website traffic or ranking

through the social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, YouTube etc.

The Social Media Marketing (SMM) is a type of internet marketing that utilizes the social

networking or social media sites as a marketing tool. SMM is helping companies to get direct

feedback from their customers/potential clients while making the companies more reachable

or personal to the concerned customers or clients. The interactive aspects of the social

media gives customers/clients an opportunity to ask questions, voice complaints to their

respective companies under the aegis of social customer relationship management or social

CRM.

Off late, the energy of SMM has gone sky high with the year-2013 becoming the most

exciting year with the digital platforms presenting the marketers with endless opportunities

to connect and engage with their respective customers and clients. According to the

research from Social Media Examiner, about 70% of marketers are planning to increase their

use of visual assets in 2014. People are spending more time on visual networks as they are

attracted towards the powerful effects of the visual content on the social web. The visual

content is helping enterprises in enhancing their brand’s marketing objectives by generating

more customer interest and in promoting firms to take desired actions.

For instance, through the power of picture sites like Tumblr, Pinterest, and Instagram each

of them have gained over ten million visitors in 2012. Americans usage of social networking

sites continues to be dominated by Facebook that accounts for every five out of every six

minutes being spent online on this site. YouTube emerged as the second largest search

engine (after Google) in terms of videos uploaded and doing well in search and boosting the

concerned site’s SEO ranking.

Business blogging is the other SMM strategy that has saw meteoric rise and this trend would

continue in 2014 and beyond. About 58% of the marketers opine that original content is still

the most important content asset for their businesses. Google+ is finding prominence with

social marketers as an SEO option rather than as a marketing tactic. About 14% of

marketers are giving preference to Google+ in 2014. About 62% of B2B marketers are

betting on LinkedIn as the most effective platform for them as an SMM option. Thus, with

social media evolving at jet speed, it is quite important for businesses to stay updated about

SMM to get the most value from their social marketing investment.