Social Media For Companies: 6 Key Predictions For The Year 2014

There have been many phenomenal changes during the year 2013 in the way businesses use social media. Some key factors spurring such change include the increase in popularity of video content and mobile usage. Moreover, social marketing has become a key component of social media for companies.

Here are 6 Key Trends in Regard to Social Media for 2014:

1. Google Plus Set To Hit the Tipping Point

The 2-year old social site, Google Plus, has gained as much as 300 million active monthly users. This is substantially more than its 190 million users in May, which is definitely more than Twitter’s 230 million users. What this means is that Facebook becomes the next logical target. It may not pass Facebook in the year 2014, but it is set to hit the “tipping point” sometime later in the year. This makes it a real threat to Facebook’s social media dominance in the year 2015.

2. Advertorial Set To Return

The social ads in 2014 will mostly be native ads: promoted news feed ads and content-based ads are likely to play a key role in social marketing. This is one trend that will reach full maturity in 2014. It is also likely to give a considerable impact to social media for companies. Such native advertising will greatly impact the overall social sphere.
The days of “free” marketing by social media are soon to end. Key social sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram are all geared to fully monetize all marketing options. This means that companies interested in reaching a wider fan, customers or prospect base through these venues will have to pay a fee for the service.

3. Compulsory Inclusion Of A Mobile Strategy

Mobile usage has the potential of overtaking desktop usage. This is likely to happen between the year 2014 and 2015. Therefore, businesses must necessarily integrate mobile marketing strategies into the overall social media strategy. This is more than just having a mobile-friendly site, rather the businesses have to consider how the site is accessible through mobile platforms. Key aspects to consider include: a responsive design, mobile apps and mobile-versions of the site.

4. Wide Adoption Of Good Customer Care Through Social Media

The year 2013 saw a woeful insufficiency of dealing with client queries through social media. Basically, only 65% of client inquiries got answered by companies, yet 58% of all such questions were answered by only 1/10th of all the companies present on social media.

5. Dominance Of Visual-Based Content

The trend in 2013 indicates that visual-based content has been a major hit on social media. Undoubtedly, this popularity is set to continue on and even increase in 2014. Generally, posts that contain videos or images outperform plain text. Such visual-based content usually gets more likes, comments, shares, and retweets. Therefore, any company that ignores the huge impact of visual-based content in its social media strategy will lose out on a huge potential for great engagement.

6. Establishment Of Employee Advocacy

A key strategic initiative in 2014 for company social media strategies will involve employee advocacy. This is because many of the most passionate advocates for any large company are the employees. Moreover, each employee has significant influence in his/ her personal social network. In fact, employees have been sharing the messages of companies on social media, only that companies are now seriously seeking to harness this rich resource.