We’re on the brink of a new year, and with that comes new social media trends. Trends social media managers are eager to start incorporating into their ever-changing social media strategy. In 2019, social media is reverting back to social’s roots: real, personal, and authentic.
According to Hootsuite’s 2019 Social Media Trends predictions, there are five key trends to be watching for:
1. Rebuilding Trust
- 60% of people don’t trust social media platforms
- Brands should be focusing less on maximizing reach and more on generating transparent, quality engagement
- Sharing insightful & researched content
- Tapping into internal experts & employee (faculty/staff) advocate
- “There’s an increasing emphasis on the critical role of context in delivering that content so that it’s important, interesting, and timely for the individual while being authentic and genuine to the brand.”
2. Storifying Social
- Vertical, ephemeral content is growing 15x faster than feed-based sharing
- This means a focus shift needs to happen in social strategies
- “Stories are second nature for a new wave of digital natives & news feeds might be coming a thing of the past.”
- This trend is crucial for universities/accounts to capitalize on and if you’ve been on the fence about jumping on the Instagram train, this is your cue.
3. Closing the Ads Gap
- We’re in the pay-to-play era and getting yourself heard on Facebook is becoming increasingly difficult
- The solution? “Paid social teams are recognizing the importance of pairing ad money with an equivalent investment of time, creativity, and targeting savvy. And they’re amplifying the best performing organic content with paid boosts.”
- Repurpose concepts from top-performing organic content
- Embrace new ad formats
- Split-test for success
4. Cracking the Commerce Code
5. Messaging Eats the World
- Consumers/followers demand better 1:1 social experience
- People are spending more time on messaging and less time-sharing news on social
- Main customer service tool
- Use messaging apps for high-value conversations