07 Jan Top 5 Social Media Trends for Business in 2014

Top 5 Social Media Trends for Business in 2014

Social media sites have made some big changes over the last year and there are some big plans in place for 2014. But how will business owners adapt to these changes and can you get ahead of the game? You can if you understand social media usage trends in 2014.

1. Businesses Are Still Going to Get it Wrong

Too many people still don’t understand social media marketing. They think that it should be used as a distribution channel and use it as an extension of their email marketing strategies. Yes social media can be leveraged as a marketing tool but it isn’t traditional marketing.

Social Media takes advantage of participative marketing strategies and is all about engagement. You can’t just get on Facebook and speak at people in your posts and expect them to like your content. Instead you have to show your followers that there is a human being behind the Facebook account. You need to ask questions and listen to the answers. Interact with others and offer them useful information, not just advertising blurbs.

2. A Social Media Account Does Not Make an Expert

It seems like almost everyone has a Facebook account these days. Just because your intern Jake has a Facebook account this doesn’t mean he can run your Facebook page for the business. Many business owners don’t understand that they need a real social media expert with a proven track record of creating engaging content and increasing followers.

This can give you a real advantage in 2014. If you search for a marketing expert to run your social media campaigns, whether in-house or sub-contractor, you will be able to meet your sales goals while your competitors will fall behind.

3. Sorry Twitter, Not Your Year

Twitter has made a lot of changes since its inception in 2008. People can hashtag; add images and even short videos on this site. It merged with Vine and has made its analytics accessible to small business owners. That’s the good news. The bad is so many people just don’t get it. And with the limited time businesses owners are going to have for social media, most people are going to prefer Facebook and LinkedIn for their social strategies.

In 2014 you need to focus your social media efforts to the sites where your clients are. If you are a B2B company, you will need to focus on LinkedIn and Facebook. If you are a B2C business you can focus on Twitter. With other companies focusing on different sites you have the added benefit of less competition.

4. YouTube’s Time in the Sun

Video in general and YouTube in particular will be a huge hit in 2014 for businesses. Videos are a great way to market to consumers because individuals like the get in, get the facts, and get out approach to Internet browsing. Video as a social media trend is important because it is easy to produce and they will impact your SEO for a long time with the right keywords. Many businesses don’t think that they can include SEO practices in their business videos but they can be optimized just like any other form of online content.

You can add videos to your web page, which can increase views and decrease bounce rate. While only 60% of views go below the fold on a webpage people will view 100% of a video. You can also make them without a lot of fancy recording or editing equipment, making video cost effective even for small businesses. If you are an Apple fan, iMovie comes standard with Apple products and it is easy to use.

When looking to take advantage of this 2014 trend you want to keep a few things in mind. First, you want to keep your videos short, no more than 90 seconds long. Second it is better to spread 10 points on a specific topic into 10 short videos instead of 1 long video. And finally you will want to make sure your video has some structure but shows personality. Have fun with your videos and your views will enjoy watching them.

5. The Year of Professional Business

Professional business, those who cater their products and services to businesses as a whole will be seeing some growth with 50+ year olds being the fastest growing demographic. Despite the fact that big sites like Facebook and Twitter have been around for eight years, this is still the ground floor for social media for business. This means that you can start now and get a leg up on your competitors who decide to wait another year or two to learn how to use social media for their business. LinkedIn will see a big increase in its use as a business tool because it is the place for professionals to connect. So 2014 is the year to to familiarize yourself with LinkedIn and how you can leverage it to maximize the growth of your business

So many people take a wait and see approach to social media marketing or they leave it to lay people to handle instead of hiring marketing experts and getting aggressive with area of marketing. If you want to get a leg up on your competition in 2014 you need to understand SMM and all the ways it can help grow your business in the New Year!