Social Media Marketing Is Evolving, Here's How To Keep Up

Social media is influencing the world like never before. In fact, it has an over 49% penetration rate means over half of the world’s population is using social media. There is no better medium to promote your product/services to the right audience other than social media channels.

However to unveil the true potential of social media networks you need to keep with its latest trends and changes. Those who know social media marketing well, know that keeping up with the new social trends is the most important thing to stay ahead in the marketing game.

Social media is changing constantly, there are now so many platforms with so many complex features. It becomes a difficult task for marketers to get aware of the changes.

How to step up your marketing game?
You may get aware of the big launches like Instagram stories, but when it comes to the smaller updates like Algorithm, Instagram stories ads or elimination of like buttons of Pinterest etc you might not get aware of it until a few days, weeks or the worst-case months. If you plan to stay ahead in the social media marketing game even the smallest updates can be really effective.

In this blog, we will take you through some efficient methods to keep up with the constantly evolving social media trends. These methods will eventually help you to step up your marketing game and stay ahead of your competitors.

Increased connectivity and mobile consumption
With the rise of the internet, the amount of time people spend on the phone is immense. With the use of mobile devices, people are constantly connected with each other, and for that, they majorly use social media platforms. At the start of January 2021, 4.66 billion people use the internet and over 4.1 billion people are active on social media channels.

People with smartphones are adversely using social media channels which lead to the immense competition of social media marketers. Connectivity and constantly changing the environment on an online medium makes it difficult for marketers to stand.

Considering the current scenario marketers have to optimize strategies and campaigns which is more appealing and less intrusive. Although the competition is tough, targeting a potential audience has become easier. Summing creativity and efforts will lead to better production.

Create a stream on Twitter with popular hashtags
Twitter is one of the best mediums to find the latest news and trends on social media and for that, it has the best pawn which is hashtags. Use social media hashtags. Start with popular hashtags like #socialmedia, #inboundmarketing, #smchat etc. You can also use third-party tools to find relevant hashtags for business.

While using hashtags for your search make sure you do not use too common hashtags like #marketing, as it will flood your feed with tweets that will majorly include non-useful contents. It is very simple to search for hashtags, type a term that is relevant to the social media term on the search in the top-right corner of your twitter’s homepage. When the result page appears on the screen click on the gear icon and choose “Save this search”

This will save important hashtags, so the next time you open Twitter search bar, your saved hashtags will quickly appear and will be easily accessible.

Make a Twitter list of influencers in the industry
One of the prominent things about social media networks is that it houses everyone which includes profession and industry experts too. When a new social media trend or feature is introduced in the market, influencers and experts will talk about it and discuss it with their followers on online medium like Twitter.

Hence you must dig into Twitter and search some famous social media experts, use the same hashtag method we discussed in the previous method. After you find some potential names curate a list, spare some time each day to look into their feed and see what they are talking about. You can even ask them questions on the matter.

Set up Google Alerts on terms and influencers
Google alert is an excellent tool to keep track about important events or individuals on social media platforms. It will also come handy when you want to keep track about popular influencers. Set up a google alert for some of the experts in your list which you created through the above steps. You will then receive notification whenever they post something new, or are live, or interviewed on social platforms.

Start with setting google alerts for three of your most favourite experts or hashtags. Google alert is a great way to get updates on breaking news in the industry without spending too much time on social media search.

Google alerts are pretty easy to up. You just have to type in a term or trend and then select a frequency i.e how time you want to be notified. We recommend you set alerts once a day, so you inboxed doesn't end up getting flooded with notifications. That’s all you are all set with the alerts.

Google alerts can be set for any social media trends and terms. The term you specify will define the number of alerts you receive.  For instance the term ‘social media‘ is verywide term and may not alway get you right updates instead be a little specific like ‘social media trends in california’. This will get you more targeted alerts and be more effective in strategizing your social media plan.

See what's trending on Instagram's Explore tab
Instagram is immersed with content, anything or everything that people do on online platforms is visible on the explore tab. To find a trending post or news on social media go to the explore tab and type-in relevant terms or news and you immediately see matching content that people are sharing on the medium that day. You can also use the explore tab to search trending discussions and news around the world.

Join Groups on LinkedIn
LinkedIn is one of the mainstream social media sites for business. Experts and professionals of every industry indulge here for discussion. This involves social media experts as well. Whether there is a launch of a social media platform, a new instagram update or a trending discussion on Twitter, you will surely find it in LinkedIn groups.

Participate in Events
Influencers and social media experts are invited to numerous social media events and conferences taking place all around the world. If you want to stay on top marketer trends visiting these events in a few months or at least once in 6 months will be beneficial. The best thing is many of the events are hosted on virtual platforms, so you can attend it from the comfort of your home. 

Although most businesses discuss the current and future market trends, it is important to do your research before you decide to visit. Majority of exclusive events on social media will require you to pay, hence you must be sure if it's actually worth your money or not.

Here are a few steps to check if the conference or event is good enough or not:  
•    Check the edition of the event, it’s not that the first editions are not good but it is not worth investing a lot of money on an event if the organizers have no experience or are unestablished brands.
•    One of the most important things to check for any event is the line-up. After all their knowledge is the prime reason who will be attending the event.
•    It is also important to acknowledge the topics of the events. If you are an intermediate or pro in your industry it’s not worth to waste your money on the basics, similarly don’t opt for advanced topics if you are unaware about the basics.
•    Ask for recommendations on online mediums, if it's a monthly or annual event you may find reviews or blog regarding it online.

Listen To Podcasts
Podcasts are new essentials which have got everyone’s attention presently. It is audio and episodes which includes educational or entertaining content. You can download it on your computer or mobile phone, access it through application, RSS feed and more.

Podcasts are now a prominent medium to listen to experts and educational content. Even for social media expertise and trends you can rely on Podcasts. The best thing about listening to podcasts is that you can listen to it anytime while you do your chores, on daily commute, in office breaks, morning walks etc.

Here are some of our favourite social media podcasts which can be useful to you to learn new with social media:
•    Social Media Today
•    The Next Web (TNW) Daily Dose
•    Lifehacker
•    Six Pixels of Separation
•    Marketing Smarts
•    The Growth Show
•    Hashtagged:

Subscribe to YouTube Channels
YouTube is a mainstream medium for videos and also to learn anything new. Several app developers and software development company, influencers as well as industry experts choose this medium to educate their followers. Type-in Social media keyword in YouTube search to find relevant videos. Once you get a relevant channel click the subscribe button or the bell icon if you want to be notified about new content.

These are our favorite ways to stay updated on social media, try them yourself and let us know which are your favourite from the list. If you have any other tip in mind do let us know in the comment section below.