Visual content like videos on platforms like Vine, Snapchat, and Instagram will continue growing in popularity in 2015. Short videos under a minute are effective at targeting the right audience and sharing key information quickly. Social commerce also took steps forward in 2014 and will continue evolving, making the purchase process simpler through features like "Buy" buttons on social networks. However, brands must focus on customer engagement and building genuine relationships before engaging in social media sales. Contextual targeting of social ads will also continue improving in 2015 based on user data and behaviors.

2. *Hootsuite.com: Evolution of social media 2014

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*qmee.com: online in 60 seconds 2014

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5. Visual content is still on a growing trend. Vine, Snapchat, Hyperlapse,
Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, they all prove that social video is here to
stay and holding two major benefits for brands: 1, Audio-visual
storytelling is emotionally compelling so share your story and display your
products; 2. Vloggers are a great way of getting your message in front of
your audience. But don’t collaborate with influencers only, common users
produce a lot of content too.
There’s a big spike in short videos. They are meant to: Target the right
audience; Share the right information under a short time; Provide value
and brand visibility.

6. Social commerce already took some big steps forward in 2014. And some more
is yet to come. We saw increased efforts to simplify the social network-
driven buying process for online shoppers with both Twitter and Facebook
pioneering the testing of “Buy” CTA buttons.
Allowing users to purchase directly on networking sites is the must next step.
However, there is a trap in opening this new streamlined sales channel.
Social media is about customer engagement and building genuine
relationships. So you need to master these two before to engage in social
media sales.

7. The social advertising trend from 2014, which saw a large set of
improvements to the advertising and conversion traking in
Facebook, Snapchat’s first ad, video ads on Instagram, auto-play
video ads on Facebook and a greater variety of Twitter cards, will
continue in 2015.
In addition to new and enhanced social advertising channels, we should
also expect to see exciting new ways of firmly integrating social
advertising with brands’ data bases and strategies for advanced
and contextual targeting.

8. All of us advertisers and social media marketers felted this year. Facebook is
forever changing their policies and this makes advertising even harder. With
Facebook depending so much on advertisement, the cost will go skyrocket
in no time.
Facebook has a database of over 1 billion users across the world and tons of
hours spend by those on the social network. So yes, they have the upper
hand in this case, holding your consumers online.

9. Mobile means always with your consumer. Wherever he is, you are,
provided there’s mobile signal in there. Mobile lets brands create
compelling micro moments at different stages of the purchase
journey, be it through SMS, push notifications or in-app product
recommendations. Retailers should put mobile at the core of their
marketing activities reaching their customers with timely and highly
contextual messages on a one-to-one basis.
Studies show a worldwide mobile penetration of 93% and major social
networks are constantly improving their mobile presence. Social
websites and apps being among the most used features on mobile so
2015 will inevitably see optimized web and social media sites as a
must strategy.

10. Remember those days where we could just repeat the same content (for
advertising) over and over again? Ditch this idea in 2015. This won’t
help you business.
Take an example of Facebook. A new algorithm will be rolled out in January
2015 where advertisers who are constantly promoting the same
content will be have a lower reach. Indirectly, companies will need to
make sure the right message rolls out to the right audience at the right
time. Yup, three “rights” in one sentence.

11. We know how powerful Instagram I has become and with the recent
achievement of hitting the 300 million mark, you know they are not
stopping anytime soon.
Backed by Facebook, Instagram is expected to be number one in image-
based social marketing. If your brand is empowered by image, consider
being in Instagram as it is going to grow massively in 2015.

12. If your target market is the business industry, you need to get involved in LinkedIn
…now! Over the past few years, LinkedIn is growing rapidly in the business
niche and 2015 will be no different. They are going to dominate and widen
the gap in B2B, as well as B2C industries.
Do you know why Facebook is creating Facebook at Work services? Because even
the largest social network has its eyes open to B2B. And because such
networking means laser-targeted audiences, especially in the business niche.

13. Social media in 2015 will be about relevancy over quantity. Many of the
updates by various social media channels in 2014, have been focusing on
relevancy. Social media in the coming years will be all about sharing the
right information at the right time and to the right people.
That’s why Facebook and Twitter have tested trending feeds to be visible on
the timeline. We are not there yet, but there is way too much spam on
social media and the only way to remove the noise is by creating
algorithms, content agendas, communication strategies based on
relevancy.

14. ’s
Use this to your brand’s advantage. Keeping track of how people behave online,
how they’re browsing, social networking, shopping, planning, researching,
what they like, what they hate, where they check-in, what they post about.
This is the most important piece of intelligence that should always guide
your social media marketing choices.

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