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4 Social Media Trends To Follow in 2019

Wednesday 26 December 2018

7 minute read

By Sarah Burns

The social media landscape consistently develops at the rate of a cheetah. We agree it's both hard to keep up and incredibly competitive.

But it doesn't have to be impossible and if you're the CEO of a North East SME that is feeling daunted by the prospect of social there are ways to ease the stress and fear of engaging with social media effectively.

Keeping up - and ahead of - the trends with social can have a great impact for both your own peace of mind and to provide a strategy for your in-house marketer/s, should you have a team around you for marketing support.

It's important to remember a key piece of Thrive advice - don't ever do something "just because", question the value of what you're doing and what the immediate and long-term reward/risk may be.

Two easy ways of seeing the worth of a social media activity:

  • Your audience is ready to engage in this way/on this platform
  • The financial budget allows you to do so

If you do conclude there's value to be gained from putting the time and resource towards the following efforts, let us know how you get on and feel free to ask us questions or seek our support.

01. Instagram

Instagram is here to stay (for now). There's certainly no stopping the platform with Stories, Shopping and IGTV all making major waves in 2018.

If you are a B2C business make a considerable effort to produce an Instagram strategy that delivers on brand reach and audience engagement using the visual platform for 2019.

02. Chatbots

Chatbots are IN right now. There are many varieties out there and you can start small with Facebook's Messenger bot option, or explore web chatbots - some of which can be paid to do all the conversation and legwork for you - just reap the rewards of warm, engaged leads!

03. UGC

Customers are looking for authenticity in 2019. We had a bit of a murky year in 2018, social-wise, with GDPR and uncomfortable Facebook-related findings. We're at the other side and need to know brands really care about us as consumers. Think about engaging some loyal customers for feedback, with things like Canva-created images showcasing your finest testimonials, or video clips, if you're really striving for success!

If you're in the retail industry, make Instagram your priority and engage with active, relevant Instagram influencers who may be able to widen your reach.

Consider making 2019 the year you will engage your fellow business community and build legitimate partnerships with others to cheerlead and support each other online and around networking circles.

04. Social

As in, CEOs and senior management team members should become more active on social. Depending on your sales and marketing strategy, as well as, of course, your industry and product/service structure, your CEO should most definitely be active in relevant circles.

A great place to start is to get your CEO's LinkedIn profile up-to-date and regularly engaging with others' content and updates, even if there's a bit of shyness about posting yourself in the big bad world safe confines of LinkedIn.

Start reaching out to relevant LinkedIn Groups and engaging with those who you may know from networking circles or from existing relationships on your business park, etc. The key, as with everything new, is to start small and keep going!

Need support? Thrive is a leading provider of social media management, paid social advertising strategy and delivery, plus social media training workshops and 1-to-1s. Get in touch for a bespoke solution.

If you're looking to embark on a website build project, whether it's completely from scratch or a site refresh, our ebook will give you the knowledge to make your project as stress-free as possible.

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