5 Social Media Marketing Practices That Are Dominating 2018

Digital content marketing is reaching maturity. Companies have a pressing need to ensure that their content marketing strategies and campaigns keep up with the times.

More importantly, it is necessary to remember that great content is great content. The kind of technology you have in place, or the systems you implement, don’t matter if your content is not resonating with your target audience.

Digital marketing is advancing and evolving, just the same way traditional publishing evolved decades ago. Content marketing will follow the same trajectory. The only significant difference is the speed at which things will change. Many digital brands, in a bid to be more efficient, forget to be human.

Whether you write on stone tablets or papyrus scrolls or are using augmented reality to pass your message; it must be relevant and interesting enough to motivate a desired reaction from the customer.

From a branding perspective, generating and distributing compelling content via social media is not just important but necessary. The key to creating a bright future for content marketing on social media is to use modern approaches that embrace being human.

Below I have listed five important social media marketing practices you need to be aware of this year.

1. An increase in talent investment

As it is now, from a consumer-engagement and brand awareness standpoint, many companies have realized how crucial social media is.

For this reason, you will notice an investment of tangible resources in social strategies. There is a continued emphasis on finding and hiring individuals who can create consistent streams of quality content for social platforms.

Image Source: Chronus

Automating and promoting similar content on every social platform is not going to cut it any longer. In 2018, the savviest companies are employing individuals who know how to grow audiences for their brands across social platforms and also know how to create engaging content to keep that audience glued across every channel.

They need to be highly organized, tech-savvy and have sufficient communication skills that go beyond the use of acronyms. This requires dynamic specialization. In the digital ecosystem, an editor-in-chief in publishing yesterday can become a content strategist today. You still need people to create your image and brand story.

Automation by itself is not the way to go in 2018. You need to be human.

2. More content becoming mobile ready

ComScore reports that mobile now represents about 7 out of 10 digital media minutes. Smartphone apps alone account for half of all the time spent in engagement with digital media.

According to ComScore’s 2017 report, Facebook ranks as the top mobile application of the year (measured by its penetration of the US mobile application audience). Snapchat and Instagram follow closely in the top 10. This obviously implies that consumers are spending quite…