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SM Trends in the Marketplace


Social media (SM) has claimed its rightful place and has become a huge part of most marketing strategies around the world. There are many reasons why this has been happening and they all have to do with the fact that SM provides a high level of interactivity, is always changing and is the most exciting thing happening right now. I will discuss some of the influences currently being observed through the use of SM in modern-day marketing campaigns.


SM has created a new niche that people are filling called influencers. There are people that have become very popular on these platforms as a result of their views, opinions or from just posting content that people like to see. Due to this, they have a large number of people that follow them or subscribe to their channel. This following is what marketers are interested in and this is why branded content is pushed on the influencer’s platforms or endorsements sought to influence their followers as they are almost guaranteed to see it. This is called influencer marketing as influencers are used to market products and brands to their followers.

Live video streaming is another feature of SM platforms that has evolved to get content in real-time to consumers. Platforms allow a live event to be streamed or shown on the SM platform which allows persons to attend/participate in the event as it is happening. For some events, a segment is created where questions/comments are taken from SM via posts on the pages, tweets or even a live two-way conversation if the platform allows it. This innovation is changing the way events are held and the technology used at these events with increasingly more attention being given to bandwidth and the quality of the internet connection as well as multimedia to tap into end-users as they interact with presenters as both sides are shown in realtime on huge displays for all participants to see and even further interact. A spinoff of the live video streaming is what is called stories. A video recording is made, which could have been a live stream as the source, which is then posted as a story on the platform which is available to be viewed as many times as followers like within a 24-hour window. The platform owner also now has the ability on some platforms to
make these stories a permanent part of the platform videos that will always be available.

Sponsored advertising is also a trend that has become popular and has been seeing increased budget allocations to use this form of advertising to get the word out. Sponsored ads are paid ads that are put out by brands, companies or persons to highlight a message, ad or product that they want specific content to be seen by potential consumers. Unlike the normal way of paying for ads to play and hope that it is viewed in whichever timeslots they were set to be aired on, targeted ads are set to pop up only for a specified demographic and only when they are online and actively on the platform or using an internet browser. These ads always clearly show that they are sponsored ads as a disclaimer so that the person being targeted is aware that it is a paid ad and would not have normally been shown in their feed otherwise. You might not give any thought to this but this disclaimer is very important to some persons that value their privacy and have gone the length to customize their security settings to keep unwanted people and content out of their feeds. It reassures them that the ad didn’t get past their security and is a one-time thing.

SM messaging has great potential for increasing engagement and interactivity between companies and their customers. Instead of waiting in long lines, at the customer service desk or being frustrated going through the interactive automated attendants in order to reach a real person, you could send a message on the SM platform and an agent would respond to your query, complaint or question. Imagine the power one would now wield being able to interact with companies by staying anywhere you want and just using your devices to get business done! A variation of this is the live-chat feature that a few companies have implemented on their websites. While browsing, a popup would appear asking if you would like to speak to an agent and if you click on it or say yes, it starts up and interactive chat session with an agent where you can speak to them about what it is you wanted to get done or have them provide you with the information you were hoping to get from the site. Both these forms of social media use are steadily on the rise and the benefits to both the business and consumer clearly explains why.


There are other trends that are being created by SM but the ones mentioned are having the largest impact to date. Feel free to go and check out some of these for yourselves. If you like the information in this post or have something to add, please feel free to leave a comment below and we can talk more about it.

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