Social media marketing is far from being a novelty in 2019. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram have become a mandatory communication channel for brands and businesses, which is why almost 90% of companies are using social media for marketing purposes.

At the same time, users demand social interaction these days. A report shows that over 60% of customers actually expect companies to offer customer service via their social media channels. But in order to create a successful social media marketing strategy, you have to follow the latest social media trends in this field.

Our job is to give you a hand here and present you with the 15 hottest social media trends. Let’s take a look!

Must Read: Step By Step Guide To Successful Social Media Marketing Campaign

1. Transparency

With all the data privacy scandals surrounding Facebook in 2018, transparency becomes a critical social media trend this year. Each company has to take care of customers’ information and learn how to deal with it in the digital environment.

2. Brand Humanization

Marketers who want to strengthen relationships between brands and followers must humanize content to make it more appealing. For this reason, a lot of businesses started hiring professional writing agencies such as Essay Mama or Essayshark to craft unique content strategies and deliver compelling social media posts.

3. Personalization

This trend goes hand in hand with the previous one. If you want to prove that there are some real people working behind the curtains, you also need to personalize messages. The goal of social media marketing in 2019 is to tailor content so as to fit the interests of specific users or micro-groups.

4. Closed Groups

Major networks such as Facebook or Instagram already launched a new feature that comes in the form of private and closed groups. It’s a huge trend because it enables businesses to build closer relationships with the fans and drive additional engagement.

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5. Employee Advocacy

We all know the potential of influencer marketing, but the new tactic is to turn your employees into brand advocates. They are the ones who can talk about the company from the inside, thus allowing followers to understand how things work behind the scenes.

6. Conversational Commerce

A large portion of modern communication is automated thanks to the incredible rise of chatbots. The new technology enables 24/7 availability, while it also stores user-related information that your sales agents can use to approach potential customers and seal the deal, eventually.

7. Stories Are Omnipresent

Ever since Snapchat invented the story feature, it keeps getting more and more popular. Today, you absolutely have to take advantage of Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram stories. At the same time, don’t forget that YouTube and WhatsApp are projected to launch their own stories relatively soon.

Must Read: Mobile Commerce Trends to Rule in 2019

8. Organize Quizzes

Not too many things can engage social media users as successfully as quizzes. Quizzes are simple and easy to administer, fans simply love them, while you get to collect tons of valuable user-related information this way.

9. Vertical Videos

Do you know that 91% of users access social platforms via mobile devices? It’s a huge figure that clearly shows you have to optimize video content for the mobile experience. Video production is a complex process, but the best start is to shoot vertical videos that fit the dimensions of an average smartphone.

10. Live Video

We stated already that the content has to look more human and natural. It turns out that there is no better way to achieve this goal than streaming live videos. People love when there is no real acting and polishing, so make sure to use this feature whenever appropriate.

11. LinkedIn Images

LinkedIn has always been recognized as a place of high-quality educational articles. However, the new trend is to freely add a beautiful profile and cover photos to refresh your profile. Although it’s mainly a B2B channel, it can’t hurt you to play with visual elements.

Must Read: Free Tools To Create Viral Content That Stays Forever

12. B2B Platforms

Speaking of the B2B market, we expect that LinkedIn and Twitter are going to keep growing and gaining more influence in the business universe, so you definitely don’t want to neglect these two channels in the months to come.

13. Interactive Instagram Stories

Instagram stories can become even more popular if you can inspire users to tap or swipe through the content. It’s a big booster of user interaction that you can achieve by adding graphics components, textures, and similar details.

14. Create Podcasts

Podcasts are not really a new trend, but they are so popular that you certainly don’t want to miss the chance to capitalize on this format. It’s a great solution for brands with busy consumers who can afford to listen to the content, but not to watch it.

15. Thumbnail Unification

If you have a YouTube channel, you might consider unifying all thumbnails so as to make them instantly recognizable. Doing so, you will strengthen your branding and maximize the discoverability of the content.

Conclusion

Social media can be an extremely powerful weapon in your marketing arsenal, but only if you use state of the art tricks and tactics. In this post, we showed you 15 social media trends to follow in 2019, so make sure to use them and breathe new life into your digital marketing strategy.