Audience-first, Influencers and Trust: 3 Social Trends

Social media is dynamic. That’s certainly the case today with Facebook always in the news.  To see the real trends, past the hype, it’s best to look a bit further.

Through the noise of Social Media Week here in New York and recent news, here’s three topics to take note of today.

  1. Audience-first: Remember when all marketers talked about was “social-first campaigns?” Well that’s evolving into an individualized approach. As much as people are talking negatively about data these days, it also has its pros. Today more than ever, we’re able to serve up customized content and experiences to specific individuals because of data. And let’s be honest, that’s what we all expect. So as marketers, we need to move away from trying to reach everyone (quantity) and shift towards a small group (quality) with specific content that will resonate and prompt measurable action with quality customers for our clients.
  2. Invest more in influencers: Budgets aside, as brands and marketers we need to hand the reins over a bit more to influencers. I’ve heard this over and over again recently. Influencers are content creators and as such, we should trust a bit more in their process, smarts and ability to deliver content that will resonate with their own audiences. There’s a reason for their 250K+ Instagram followers – they work hard and cater towards their fans. Longevity is also important when it comes to brand partnerships. More recently, one-off projects are out and true multi-year partnerships are on the rise.
  3. Erosion of Trust: It’s not my intent to focus on this too much, because Facebook’s recent events have not really changed usage of this platform. It cannot be ignored though. So what can we do? As brands and marketing partners, we have a responsibility to try to rebuild trust – to shed a bit more transparency in our processes and our targeting. Especially from a paid media perspective, marketers can help guide brands in this process with the help of the latest guidelines out of Europe and self-regulatory groups like AdChoices.

What other social trends are you seeing out there?

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