[The Course]
Jerry Daykin, contributor of “The Guardian”, describes the main trends of social media marketing expected for 2016 in his article “Five things great brands will do differently on social media in 2016.” The author emphasizes the importance of social media management for business: the money earned by Facebook in the third quarter 2015 reached $4.5 billion, which is 41% more than the corresponding period of the year before. Nevertheless, the total spending on social in marketing budgets is still only 1% of overall marketing budgets ($611 billion for the whole world). Therefore, a lot of work is still to be done. And Jerry Daykin suggests that there will be five strategies in social media, which will be definitely in use in 2016.
According to the article, the first thing to focus on is ensuring that content generated in social media will surely reach potential customers. The author states that efforts made by business in this sphere today are not enough, therefore companies should pay more attention, time and money in attracting customers to their pages in social networks.
Producing high-quality video content offering more reach stories comparing to plain texts and images will also be in trend in 2016. Companies are going to focus on the quality of video rather than their quantity in order to increase brands recognition.
As the author implies, if the business wants to increase its reputation, it will be necessary to change social media management methods in sense of more personal approach to customers. Any cases of successful interaction publicly available in social media will certainly boost the company’s popularity as well as customers’ loyalty.
It is stressed that the usage of messenger apps is relatively new way of reaching potential clients. The author emphasizes that 2016 will become a turning point for messengers’ capabilities. The leading social media like Facebook have already started testing the systems, which will allow customers to be able to receive only those pieces of advertising being useful personally for them.
And finally, though the new methods of getting people’s attention (e.g., 360-degree videos) constantly emerge, companies should not forget about proper management of social media basic functionality. As an example, the author discusses the cinemagraph technique, which can be organized through basic Facebook functionality but still not used by the most of businesses. And in general companies still have to make efforts relating to very basic things like published content quality and high-quality media planning.
Works Cited
Daykin, Jerry. “Five things great brands will do differently on social media in 2016.” The Guardian, 5 Jan. 2016. Web. 19 Mar. 2016.
