Well, here we find ourselves nearly halfway through 2019 and by golly gosh, where did that first 6 months disappear to… I hope everyone’s business has been running well and you’re effectively utilising Social Media in your marketing endeavors. I know it can be a lot of work at times but hey, it works. So keep at it.
While not a whole lot has changed through the year in the world of social media marketing thus far, it’s worth re-hashing the state of the landscape and where to invest time and effort marketing and promoting your brand.
Here are just a few of the quick winners and losers so far. Note, I’ve only included platforms that I use and know anything about. I have never sent a Snapchat and am not up to date on any emerging platforms so if you’re after that information, you’re probably in the wrong place.
The Winners
LinkedIn (Organic)
LinkedIn seems to be one of the few platforms left that makes it possible to reach people organically. LinkedIn ads have always been incredibly expensive (at least comparatively), so the organic reach factor is a big plus. Although I haven’t utilised it myself as much as I should, I’ve heard a number of marketers suggest that this is their number 1 platform for acquiring leads and bringing in clients at the moment. Definitely something I’ll be spending more time on in 2019.
This is a really interesting strategy from Gary Vee that applies to practically any Social Media Platform (if you create the time)…
Facebook Ads
There was a concern amongst many not too long ago, that Facebook ads were dying out. The major concern was that the price was going to skyrocket into the realms of Google Adwords and make them completely unviable. While that has happened to a degree, Facebook ads are still tremendously effective both in terms of results and cost-efficiency. This is where the majority of my marketing budget goes for myself and clients. Who knows how much longer that will be the case, but for now, I say go all in!
Providing Value
This is not a trend for 2019 but a maxim that has been relevant since the advent of Social Media. If you are providing value to your audience without directly asking for anything in return, you will succeed. I believe this is particularly relevant to 2019 however, as there is more and more content being created every second and let’s be honest, the majority isn’t providing value to anyone.
If you can do this well, you’ll stand out from the crowd and reap the dividends long term.
Video Content
Video seems to just grow..and grow..and grow… If you’re not producing video content in 2019, you’re really missing out. This seems like a trend that’s only going to keep rolling on into next year and beyond.
The Losers
Facebook Organic
This has been a trend for quite some time now, ever since the algorithmic changes Mark Zuckerberg introduced after the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Time hasn’t improved this situation. If you want to reach your audience on Facebook, you simply have to pay for it.
Instagram Organic
I think the majority of us have realised by now that Facebook has made it more and more difficult to reach fans organically from a business page. What may not be so obvious however, is that Instagram has done the same thing.
Notice your likes going down every time you post compared with say, a year ago? Yeh, that’s because Instagram is now showing that post to fewer people (a contributing factor may also be the shear scale of content being released at the moment that’s drowning out your individual posts).
I’m very interested to see where Instagram goes in the next 18 months…
Complete Personal Transparency
This one will certainly be a controversial one and will perhaps go against the grain as to what’s being said by others out there.
I for one, believe people are sharing far too much on Social Media, particularly on Instagram from what I’ve seen. Look, it’s absolutely a positive to be sharing aspects of your life that aren’t always positive, particularly if you do have a significant following and have genuine influence over them. The problem is that far too many people are literally documenting every aspect of their daily lives.
I blame Gary Vee for this phenomenon. This concept works for people who are genuinely doing something interesting with their lives on a daily basis, or have enough interest in their brand already (i.e a sports start or business icon) for people to actually have an interest in this. There’s the hope that we can learn something from how they go about their daily lives and whether we can take away aspects to incorporate into our own. Or there’s just pure curiosity. Simply speaking, they are providing value in some form.
The majority of us (myself certainly included), have no need to be documenting every aspect of our lives and flooding Instagram with 5 posts a day. We’re far better off, I believe, getting on with our goals and creating value in terms of outcomes, not simply exposure.
It will be interesting to see what happens with this over the next few years. It’s my bet that the tide will turn and people will begin sharing less and less of their daily lives and go back to posting only what’s actually interesting or valuable. I can’t help but see that as a positive.
There we go. A very brief wrap up. I will endeavor to do a more in depth write up in the lead up to 2020. For the time being though, it’s generally the case that what was working is still working and vice versa, besides a few small tweaks.
As always, any thoughts, leave a comment below v
