Got 5 mins to kill and want to understand where you should be focussing your social media marketing skills? LOOK NO FURTHER! Get the kettle on, get your feet up on the desk and impress your colleagues when you recite 2015's biggest social media marketing related trends. Enjoy. Love from us!

1. Stay ahead of
the curve with
our top 20 social
media 20 trends
in 2015.

2. Augmented reality has come on in leaps and bounds in the past year; aided by the Oculus Rift. 2015 is the year
it cements its place in history as the future of video, not to mention the opportunities there are for gaming.
If you haven’t heard of Oculus Rift but want to experiment with AR, we highly recommend spending a little
money (around 10 British pounds on Amazon - http://amzn.to/1Iqofg1) on Google Cardboard
(https://www.google.com/get/cardboard).
Designed for Android phones but now available on iOS - this simple technology (literally cardboard and a couple
of lenses) is great fun and won’t break the bank. You will not be disappointed!
Virtual reality

3. Snapchat was reportedly the fastest growing social network in 2014 and they appear to have conquered the ‘flitty’
but highly prizes teenage demographic. In fact 15% of teens globally using the app!
If you fancy getting in front of these guys, then you’re going to need deep pocket’s approx 550,000 GBP per day
should do it. Like anything new and buzzy, ads were always going to start off at a crazy price allowing for the
brands that can afford it to claim the glory of a ‘world first’. It was the same story for Twitter in 2013-14 if you
remember.
Look out for new, more affordable ad formats for Snapchat in Q4 and Q1 od 2016 and beyond.
Trend 2
Teens make it Snappy!

4. Facebook has repeatedly decreased organic post reach for the past couple of years, and sadly for brands, this
trend will continue in 2015. Of course Facebook claims it is so that their users only see the best high quality
content, however the general consensus is that it is a money making ploy. Either way, if you want your brand
to be seen in the Facebook ecosystem you are going to have to spend more money.
According to Fox News, Facebook’s ad revenue increased 64% in 2013 and that was before the drastic decline in
organic reach!
- don’t leave out a Facebook ad budget in your marketing plan for 2015!
Facebook is officially
no longer FREE for brands!

5. Neck Nomination, ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, No Makeup Selfie, Feeling Nuts, Coffee Moustache Challenge - believe
it or not, they were all in 2014.
In 2014 we were inundated with these nominations and, challenges and to be perfectly honest, we got bored of
them. Any brand that seeks to utilise this mechanic to make a campaign go viral is treading on thin ice. Perhaps
in 2015 a new style of nomination will rise, but please, please don’t ask me to nominate anyone else, I’ve lost
enough friends as it is!
Oh no... did I just see a nomination for my first ever Facebook photo to go back up!!!??? GRRRRRRR!
We're bored of nominating

6. Digital (and specifically, social) marketers now have to fully embrace all forms of marketing, both offline and
online, above and below the line. If there is an advert on television, it needs to link to social media. If there is a
Facebook App designed for a brand, it needs to be synonymous with the brand message. If you run a press
campaign make sure it drives people to your social to get the most value.
People are now cross-platform, therefore strategies need to be focused on cross platform targeting; it simply isn’t
enough to gain traction in one area and ignore the rest.
Multi-format content marketing

7. As Facebook loses its ‘cool factor’ with the 16-26yr old audience, these digital trend setters go in search of new
and cooler social networks to join. This is driving a rise in new, niche (and often well funded) social networks.
These networks will promise the world; no brands allowed, no advertising, full security and anonymity, etc. –
Sites like Ello have emerged in the past few months that claim to have all the benefits of Facebook with none of
the draw backs, but can this model really work?
We have our doubts, without ad revenue income streams these new social network, may struggle... unless they
can perhaps use Jedi mind tricks to convince their members to pay a subscription!?
Social networks go niche!

8. With a minimum spend of 15,000 GBP per campaign, Twitter advertising used to be ludicrously expensive for
most. However this is not the case anymore (and hasn’t been for the past 2 years).
It is now on a par with Facebook advertising, and some say far more user friendly, targeted and beneficial from
a ROI standpoint. As Facebook decreases organic reach to around 1-2%, brands may decide that it makes more
sense to spend their money with Twitter instead.
Twitter has a new fee structure that allows brands to pay for performance rather than just clicks and re-tweets
meaning that you can get more bang for your buck.
Hurrah for Twitter!
Better ROI
from Twitter advertising?

9. Instagram has been popular with the millenial generation Ys for the best part of 4 years now, and we expect to
see 2015 be another year of growth for both image and video content.
For those that market to the millenials generation, it will be essential to make your presence known on
Instagram, Vine and/or Pinterest and to grow a following. It may even be worthwhile sponsoring a highly
influential Instagrammer who will promote your message to your target audience. Don’t leave this channel out
of your strategy for 2015!
Instagram is no
longer a hangout for hipsters

10. According to research by Edison, nearly a quarter of American internet users (12yrs and over) who have
contacted a brand through social media expect a reply within half an hour, even if they sent a message at one
in morning on a Sunday!
Statistics like this put shivers down the spine of even the most hardened marketer, as it just reinforces the need
for social networks to be managed 24/7 - 365 days a year.
It will be essential in 2015 for brands to be even more vigilant in communicating with their audience and not
at them.
Trend 9
Social media becomes
essential for customer service

11. Ellen DeGeneres did it, so did Kim Kardashian - they ‘broke’ the Internet, obviously not literally! No doubt in
2015, celebrities will try it again. Any brand/agency that can orchestrate virality on this scale will cement their
place in history!
Recently, Gangnam style broke YouTube as it exceeded the number of views allowed with 2,147,483,647. Since
then, YouTube has made a new video cap of 9 quintillion, we shall see what happens when this limit is reached!
Now... what can we break next!?
Let’s break the internet...again!

12. Marketers are caught between a Dwayne Johnson and a hard place; pictures simply don’t convey enough
information anymore so they must use videos. However, most audiences don’t have an attention span longer
than 30seconds so the video has to be as enthralling as possible, while conveying the brand message. No easy
task!
However, there may be another way! Companies such as Hooplr (http://www.hooplr.co/) are releasing special
static GIFs that blur video and images together. These are images... videos... that move when a mouse/finger is
passed over them, when the mouse/fingers stops so does the video. This means that every user’s experience is
different.
Pictures will always have a place in the social sphere, however we believe that soon the online
world will look similar to a newspaper from a Harry Potter novel.
Pictures are so last year
it’s all about short punchy videos!

13. When John Lewis released it’s emotionally charged penguin advert for Christmas, the ad showed how a toy
penguin is for life, not just Christmas. Shortly after, Penguin Biscuits released a simple image, which stated,
“This penguin is for lunch, not just Christmas”, needless to say - the ad went viral immediately.
This style of clever, responsive marketing is the holy grail for most marketers, but it does require a finger on the
pulse, with some capacity/budget available to help the cause when the opportunity arises.
Think about how quickly brands put a crown on the ‘head’ of their product when they found out there was a
royal baby on the way?

14. Before Marketers have long speculated that Google+ was on the decline, and after the highly publicised departure
of Google+ chief evangelist Vic Gundotra last year, along with TechCrunch declaring Google+ “The Walking Dead”,
the platform is quickly making the descent into obscurity. In fact social butterflies spend more time on Myspace
than Google+!
ComScore suggests that users spend only an average of 3 minutes on Google+ whilst Facebook users on average
spend 405 minutes per month.
Could 2015 be the year we see G+ suffer the same graveyard fate as Google Answers, Google Buzz and Google
Wave?
Will Google+ go the way of the
Dodo?
Trend 13

15. According to Mobile Statistics, 378,000 iPhones are sold every single day! To put that into perspective, less
babies are born in the world every day than this (Source: mobilestatistics.com)
More than 1.75 billion people use a smartphone, which is nearly 25% of the population of Earth! The point is,
smartphones are big business and before any marketing activity takes place, they need to be taken into
consideration (especially since 30% of Facebook users use their phone).
With new wearable technology such as the Apple Watch being released in 2015, we expect this figure to increase
significantly - smartphones are now the primary channel for checking social updates.
Marketers can
no longer avoid mobile

16. In 2014, Facebook and Twitter trialled their beta ‘buy’ button with the assistance of selected retailers, Amazon
US being one of them. The posts were limited for testing purposes so you may not have seen them, but essentially
the selected few who did see them and could use them merely had to click the button, input their payment details
and hey presto they had bought that item.
It is unknown whether the trials were successful, but we’re confident 2015 will see Twitter & Facebook roll out
this service for brands and take a healthy commission for transactions whilst they are at it!
Social “buy” buttons could be extremely lucrative for social networks, BUT every effort will need to be made to
make the transactional process as quick and easy as possible.
Social retail therapy

17. Vlogging, or video blogging, has become extremely popular in recent years. The idea links back to people not
wanting to read a blog and preferring to watch a video, hence bloggers stopped writing and started talking.
Vlogs often have the same if not more influence as a regular blog, so expect to see forward thinking brands
signing 6 figure deals with the most influential. With the growing emphasis on unpolished, human-centred and
consumer generated content, companies are realising that customers want to hear the truth from real life
customers, not so much brands themselves.
The rise (and further rise)
of the vlogger

18. The launch of iOS 8 and its various health apps have driven the fitness technology market no end. If you haven’t
already got a FitBit or Jawbone, then it’s likely you’ll have one by the end of the year and you’ll be competing with
your mates (through social networks) to complete more steps and burn more calories a day than them.
These genius Bluetooth devices sync directly with your phone so that real-time progress can be seen, creating a
more competitive you!
Can social technology
really make us healthier?

19. Before you think this is the lazy man’s option to posting content, think again - 6-7 years ago brands were
posting perfectly good quality content on one or two social networks.
We now have many more proven ways to distribute content successfully to far larger communities and a wider
selection of social networks. So, instead of creating swathes of new content and hoping it engages your
communities, have a search through your old content, tweak it (if needs be) and bring it back to life. There’s big
savings to be made here!
Don’t be afraid to
recycle old quality content

20. We recieve on average, 3000 promotional messages per day. To say bombarded with marketing is an
understatement!
With all of this noise, it’s time to take a more riske stance in order to stand out from the crowd. But as each
brand adopts this principle, the bar for normality moves up.
Consider that in the 1930s it was inappropriate for a woman to be nearly nude in a picture, now it is considered
the norm. Rightly or wrongly consumers have become desensitised to shock campaigns and taboos, which means
that if you really want cut through you need to be prepared to take a few more risks every now and then.
Riské isn’t risky anymore

21. 2015 will see people customising as many facets of their life as possible, on and offline. People want one of a kind
phone covers, they want clothing they designed themselves and they want this to continue right through their
online presence also. Social networks that start to oblige these users and offer full customisation options will be
valued far more than those that offer a one size fits all format.
Due to this desire for individuality, internet users will favour social channels that let them express themselves
visually.
“i want a double mocha,
skinny decaf latte with sheep’s
milk and cinnamon”-welcome to
the age of individuality

22. Thank you for reading...…
We hope you’ve taken something
from these fascinating trends.
2015 is certainly going to see a
huge amount of change as
social media explodes even
more and into
the tangible goods market!
To this end, we’re poised and
ready to provide guidance on
your own social media
exploits and would like to take
the opportunity to invite you to
take advantage of our offer of
coffee and cake with a member of
our incredibly sociable team!
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To redeem call Hayden Allen-Vercoe on 0203 411 9111
(ext 901) or email hayden@orbitalmedianetwork.com
FREE COFFEE & CAKE!