Social Media marketing saw a huge rise in 2015. Now it’s time to pay attention to the upcoming marketing trends of 2016. Though it’s unlikely to foretell how the Social Media landscape will change over the course of a year, here are some developments which marketers should look out for in the year ahead.

• Real-Time Engagement: This has witnessed a declining trend in the recent past. Consumer complaints against major brands went up to 879 million in 2014. In 2015, a majority of the brands failed to respond to seven out of eight messages within 72 hours. As evident from these statistics, brands should place a heavy emphasis on improving their response time. Social listening and automation tools can contribute here; so get going before your competition does.
• Live Streaming Video: Live streaming video is a solution to catch up with the new trends or real-time offline events. This is largely thanks to two influential apps of 2015 – Periscope and Meerkat. A live stream goes a step beyond communication and reveals a much more authentic side of our business.
• Social Media Becomes Private: Most of the social activities – shares, likes and comments are common in the private groups or communities. Whether it is on Facebook or LinkedIn, we can see a growing trend in people creating and joining such groups, as we tend to interact with like-minded people and share our opinions, likes or dislikes with them.
• Video would be the natural choice: Videos are likely to go viral faster than other sources. Snapchat has achieved remarkable success in 2015 and is continuing to generate plenty of buzz this year as well. According to the International Business Times, Snapchat gets 7 billion video views in a day, only 1 billion less than Facebook with just 15% of the audience size.
• Virtual Reality will continue to create buzz: Affordable pricing of Google Cardboard and numerous other virtual reality goggles can make this happen. However, virtual reality will not have enough value to advertisers until it’s a mainstream experience. This can take a lot longer to materialize.
• Mobile Messaging Apps will gain popularity: According to statistics, we have approximately 2.6 billion smartphone users worldwide. With the growth of mobile messaging apps (WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger), it is becoming increasingly likely for businesses to integrate them into their social media strategy. Earlier this year, Uber made headlines for announcing a partnership with Facebook Messenger, which allows customers to get a ride through the mobile app.
• Social Commerce will rise further: In 2014, the overall sales achieved through social media went up to $3.3 billion in the US. Recent research shows that more shoppers are inclined towards social influences rather than retail websites. 360 Ads were introduced by Facebook and YouTube and buyable pins were publicized by Pinterest. This year can see a spur of initiatives to integrate such features into social media strategies.

Going Forward: We can anticipate major social media changes in 2016. But in order to achieve success, we should also introspect what has worked out so far and what hasn’t.

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