Micro-targeting: In 2014 we saw marketers start using micro-targeted social ads. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn all give you the ability to get your content in front of your target audience. You can target people based on a number of different things, ie: Location, age, sex, marital status, income, interests, career, etc.
In 2015 expect to see almost every marketer take advantage of micro-targeting. Long gone are the days of targeting a “mass audience” in hopes your content hits the right people. I predict we will see more social lead generation and list building tools come about now that marketers can target and build “lists” through social media. Micro-targeting gives you the ability to do a lot of A-B testing with your content too. You can now get real time results and social data, from your own audience. What was the main question in 2014 regarding social media? What’s the ROI? Well- With micro-target ability, we now have a way to show better impact and ROI.
The Growth of LinkedIn: Expect to see a major boom with LinkedIn advertising in 2015. LinkedIn as vowed to up their advertising game to try and stay more relevant, and so far, they have done just that in 2015. Expect companies to try and make more “professional connections”. Brands and companies will try and use LinkedIn as a source to get their connections to play as brand ambassadors.
Since LinkedIn is such a professional setting, it gives your brand the ability to speak in a different voice. A lot of companies are using LinkedIn to play as “thought leaders” in their industry. This gives executives a platform to speak from. You can speak from your CEO’s voice, push thought leader tailored content, and give your followers an inside business perspective to your company. LinkedIn allows us as marketers to brand a company in a more professional setting. Focus less on engagement, and more on high quality content when it comes to LinkedIn.
Visual Content: Having compelling and visual content is no secret. It’s now almost mandatory in today’s digital world. Just last year the amount of video from people and brands in Facebook’s news feed increased 3.6X year-over-year.
Look at all the major social platforms. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+. They all have one thing in common- Strong visual content. Consumers rarely “social share” text. They social share images, infographics, and video. Personally, as a marketer, I almost NEVER publish any kind of social post without an image. I use images as a digital billboard to attract consumers, then follow up with strong content and calls-to-actions to convert and close.
Also, with the emergence of mobile marketing, responsive visual content will also play a huge role in 2015. You only have six seconds to catch someones attention- Make it happen.