Hit the ground running in 2018

When it comes to reaching audiences, building a following around your brand, social media offers a wealth of possibilities. It's important to keep a pulse on trends. To help, here are six social-media trends you need to prepare for. We're only four months away from 2018, so what are you planning for?

1. More robust social analytics signal more opportunity for content personalization.

Improved personalization for audiences is a major trend in content marketing, and it extends to social media, too. As social platforms evolve, their analytic tools and business-specific features will become more detailed and valuable to brands.

This kind of data means marketers will have the insights to craft better and more personalized content for their audiences. It's past time for marketers to be creating and distributing content that truly speaks to and engages audiences on a personal level; social media will help make that easier.

2. Platform feature overlap means you'll have to be more selective.

Instagram feature timed videos and visual content, so the main points of differentiation are audience and reach. Instagram Stories has a significantly wider reach and receives more engagement; Instagram influencers see up to 10 percent of their audience members open their Instagram Stories on a daily basis. As more platforms continue to offer overlapping features, brands and marketers will have to be increasingly selective about which ones they invest in. Take advantage of analytics and reporting features to identify which platforms could offer you the best return, and start there.

3. Social listening will give brands an edge to their messaging online.

Instead of just tracking what kind of content your competitors are developing or what they're sharing on social media, you should also monitor their mentions and what people are saying -- and use it as a metric to compare your performance. monitoring these social mentions can show you what people in your shared audience like and don't like, which can give you insight into where your brand can improve. Social listening can give you valuable information about your competitors' performance and your own audience that you can use to your advantage in your content strategy.

4. Video will only take a stronger place in content strategy..

As social algorithms keep updating, video will only grow more valuable for generating engagement and building your following. As videos on Facebook receive higher engagement; we see more people com

menting on them, and they get more likes and more shares. Having the ability to create that kind of content -- and the strategy to tie it to your written content for your blog and outside publications -- will be critical for brands in 2018.

5. Facebook is becoming almost entirely mobile.

Sure, mobile optimization has been an industry best practice for savvy marketers for a while, but with Facebook not far from being dominated by mobile use, brands will (finally) have no excuse for creating or distributing content that's not optimized for mobile.

6. Chatbots will make customer service faster and easier.

Instant connection and widespread internet access have conditioned us to want things yesterday or, when that's not possible, in the next five minutes.

Chatbots give you the chance to interact quickly with your audience in a way that feels personal; you can customize your brand voice and send personalized content directly to users. Maybe that's why there are at least 100,000 monthly active bots on Facebook Messenger -- and the reason two billion messages are exchanged between brands and their audiences each month. If you aren't already, 2018 might be the year to test chatbots for your business.

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