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marketing strategy

When you’re running a business, there’s no denying how much is involved in the process. From organising insurance, selecting the right staff and building a website, it can all seem very overwhelming, especially if you’ve never dealt with a start-up business before.

If you have a business, one way to start getting discovered in your local area is via your Google Business. This listing that is created directly with Google. If you do a search for a business in your local area, you may see a map and the various businesses placed on the map. This is a part of the Google Business listing. It’s one of the easiest ways for your business to appear on the first page of Google search results when people search for your type of business locally.

Recently, there have been a few different additions to this particular listing, helping you to showcase your business and be found when people do a search for your type of business. With the new features coming into play, optimising your Google Business listing is an important part of being found online.

Ensure you have created a listing

One thing that many people don’t do is create a Google Business listing in the first place. Creating one is simple and is just like registering your business with a directory such as the Yellow Pages. Head to https://business.google.com/ and do a search for your business. If it’s listed, claim it and claim ownership of the business. If you’ve acquired the business and it is already registered by someone else, you may need to wait 7 days to claim it back off the previous manager. You may need to validate your listing with Google, which requires sending a code via postcard to the business.

Update your details

Once you have claimed the business, it’s time to start optimising. The key here is to ensure everything is up to date. Something as simple as your opening hours can help potential customers know when you’re open. It’s never fun to see a business is open only to head to their store and it’s closed, all because the opening times were listed incorrectly on Google. Make sure your address details are up to date and people can contact you with the right phone number. We all know how annoying it is to ring the wrong phone number, for personal or business reasons (and how embarrassing it can be to explain that you’ve called the wrong number. Ick!)

Add highlights

A new feature added to the Google Business listing is highlights. Generally, you can add specific highlights to your listing that apply to your business. One such highlight is one added by Google named “women-led”. It’s designed to showcase a business that is led by women and helps you to find businesses that are run by other women, too. Be sure to add it to your listing! It’s always great to see strong women running their business, so why not make a point of it?

Add services

No matter what business you’re in, adding a list of services can help other people understand what you do. If you own a day spa, services might include facials, massages and therapies. If you run an internet marketing business, you may include copywriting services, website building, and so on. Whatever service you’re offering, be sure to add a great description of what you can offer and a price if applicable.

Add a description

Your description is a great way to let the world know what you do, who you’re doing it for and why. It’s also a great way to add some excellent copy and provide a call to action to get people to contact you. Whether you want more people in your door, people to call or want some online enquiries, explain in this section what you have to offer and how to get in touch.

Get creative: This is also a good opportunity to show off a little bit of your personality. Create a description that not only tells people what you do, but what sets you apart from your competitors. Whether you regularly donate to charity, have funky wallpaper in your store or your hair colour matches your shoes, whatever it is, don’t be afraid to include these interesting perks about your business!

Provide some great photos

People love to see who you are and what your business is all about! If you can, provide and upload some photos to share on your listing. Team photos work well to show people who they’re contacting, but if you’re a one-woman-band, some photos of your interior is also a nice touch. Not relevant to you? Even some simple, nice-looking stock images can work. Depending on your business, you can upload some great images to show a little bit of personality. Adding regular photos also helps your business listing tremendously.

Get creative: Take a photo of customers in your store, your favourite item for sale or even some great images of your team. If all else fails, upload an image of your business logo to help improve your branding.

Create posts

Posts via Google Business are like short social posts to help people who find you on Google to read about your latest news. Whether you have a special offer, a sale or just want to let everyone know about a great new blog post on your website, here’s an opportunity to do so. You can add a post with an image and include a button to head to your website or blog page. Whatever it is you want to share, this is a great place to post it. Just note that these posts don’t last forever and become greyed out after approximately 7 days. Therefore, this makes them a great opportunity for short promotions and news updates.

Get creative: Tell people online about something interesting that happened at your business or perhaps share the news of a new client. Whatever it is, don’t be afraid to add a splash of who you are and write in a conversational tone if it’s appropriate to your business.

Attend to reviews

If you’ve just started your listing, chances are there won’t be any reviews. However, after some time, you may find people start to add reviews on your listing about your business. Of course, you will want 5-star ratings all round. But, there will come a time when people give you a bad rating when they may have a not-so-nice experience. If this happens, the best way to deal with it is to address the concern.

You can respond to reviews in your listing and offer support where it’s needed. Your rater might find they change their tune or they may remain unsatisfied. Either way, by responding to the review, you can show other searchers online that you’ve made an effort to address an issue and you are actively trying to help.

A Google Business listing is something that many business owners forget about or don’t understand the potential it has to create more traffic for your website. With regular updates and attention to some of the boring bits on this listing, you’ll be able to help people find you, find out more about how amazing you are and get people onto your website to find out more about you.

Valerie Inkersole is the owner of online marketing and SEO agency, Ink Marketing. She has been involved in the world of SEO and content creation for over 5 years and aims to provide businesses with the knowledge and skills to succeed online. She’s passionate about helping small businesses and empowering women to reach their goals.

Business owners are often tempted by the idea of large target markets. They think that creating products or services that appeal to many, means more sales and greater revenue.

But the reality is more complicated than this. When you have a product with broad appeal, you often face greater competition. Other companies will have similar products and they’ll be targeting huge swathes of your market with their promotional strategy.

This is why developing a market niche is so important to businesses, particularly smaller ones. In deciding what it is that makes your product or service unique, you can appeal to a smaller but more receptive audience, making your marketing efforts much more effective.

So how can you go about finding your own market niche? Here are a few steps you should take in order to find the right business niche for you.

Look at your Own Interests, Passions and Values

When you’re working far beyond the standard 9 to 5 to get your new business venture off the ground, it’s all a lot easier if you’re excited about the idea you’re working towards.

Think about your own personal interests and passions. How do you like to spend your free time? What publications do you like to read? What topics are you passionate about? What values would you like your enterprise to embody?

When something is exciting to you it feels less like work. Your enthusiasm will also translate into more imaginative products, services and marketing strategies.

Assess the Competition

In order to develop your market niche, you have to provide something that very few others (ideally no one else) is currently providing. You can only do this by looking at and analysing the competition.

Who is offering a similar product or service? Are there any limitations to the product or service they provide? These questions should lead you to establish what you can do differently – in terms of customer service, product capabilities or branding.

Develop an Understanding of your Target Market

Niche products tend to have very specific target audiences. You need to understand the values and priorities of a potential target market. You also need to know where you can go to reach them with your marketing materials.

By delving into a target market, you can learn more about the problems they encounter. For instance 1300 Rubbish found that hoarders could benefit from their cleaning services, whilst Active Mum found that pregnant women and new mums were struggling to find appropriate opportunities for exercise. Once you understand the problems faced by your target market, you can further develop your product or service to solve those problems effectively.

Conduct Market Research

Once you’ve set upon a product or service and a target market, you should conduct thorough market research to determine the viability of your niche within the market. You may be passionate about your product or service. But the real question you need to answer is whether anyone else shares your enthusiasm!

Any research you undertake should be combined with a comprehensive projection of the sales you require to make your business sustainable. How many people are likely to be interested in your product? Will they buy from you just once or multiple times over the course of the year? Establish demand and potential revenues in order to determine whether your niche market has the potential to be successful in the long term.

Following these four steps should bring you closer to your market niche. You’ll develop ideas that perfectly solve the problems faced by a small but still potentially lucrative target market. In doing so, you’ll find ideas that you’re passionate about, that will be easy to market and that will help you to convert more potential customers into loyal brand advocates.

Melanie Saunders is a blogger and content manager at 1300 Rubbish – experts in the field of rubbish and junk removal. Personally, a huge fan of sustainability and green living.

These days, small businesses are competing to be heard through a lot of noise, and grabbing the attention of prospective customers isn’t as simple as it used to be. Consumers want to be drawn in by your story, not bombarded with sales-focused messages akin to late night infomercials. They want unique, valuable and actionable insights – and they expect to get it from you for free.

So how can a small business achieve this?

Simply put, through content marketing.

When you’re new to the game, building brand equity needs to be a priority. Content marketing can help you increase awareness of your business amongst relevant target audiences at the top of the funnel, and build trust with them so you can start moving them through the buyer journey, towards more conversion-focused strategies.

As long as you have a strong strategy behind what you’re creating, you can use content marketing to kick start your digital growth – for low cost and with high impact.

Let’s take a closer look at how.

Write about things people are searching for

It sounds obvious, but your content is only valuable if people actually see it, and unfortunately it’s not as simple as hitting publish and watching the traffic flow in. One of the best (and most cost-effective) ways to keep people coming back to your content is to optimise it for search engines. You want people who are searching for the exact problem that your business fixes to find you.

Putting search engine optimisation (SEO) into practice takes time and research. To get started, make sure you’re using tools such as Google Keyword Planner to find relevant long-tail keywords with high search volume. This will tell you the right kinds of topics to focus on, the words to weave into your content headings, subheadings and paragraphs (where it makes sense to). As well as trying to rank your specific pieces of content, remember that the simple process of having relevant, fresh content published on your site regularly can help the rest of your site rank in search engines for relevant keywords. Over time you’ll see that this is invaluable for sending ongoing, qualified traffic to your site, at no extra cost to you.

Spread the word on social media

It’s no secret that social media is a powerful tool to promote your content. It allows you to be personal and creative with your message, and invite consumers to share and engage with your content. Done right, the potential reach for social media content is huge.

So where to start?

This will depend on your brand and business idea, but Facebook is generally a useful place to begin. With over two billion users, it’s safe to say that the platform’s potential reach is astronomical. And with its highly specific targeting options, you can quite easily find the people who’ll most likely get value from your content.

Here are a few simple pointers for promoting on Facebook:

Write a killer headline. Keep it short, active, and demonstrative of the benefit to your audience.
Use a well-designed image. If you can invest in a professional designer or photographer, avoid stock photos. Otherwise, teach yourself how to use Photoshop and utilise sites like Unsplash which offer free images that look much more natural and will be more engaging for the social media audience.
Write great copy. Keep it concise, ask thoughtful questions to encourage engagement, and use a clear CTA so the user knows exactly what step to take. You could even throw in a couple of emojis (if it feels right for your brand).
Always put budget behind the post. Set up target audiences and promote to them with a budget that works for you. With Facebook’s organic reach well and truly dead, there’s almost no point publishing on your page if you’re not willing to pay to get your post seen.

Use email outreach

Another way to promote your content and build brand awareness is through email outreach. But like all aspects of content marketing, the tactics have to be smart and appealing.

Here are few tricks of the trade to consider in your email outreach strategy:

Use a professional email address. sweet_sally1998@hotmail.com simply won’t cut it anymore. To build trust, make sure you send emails from a professional-looking address.
Make the subject line count. Intriguing and simple is best. Remember, it’s the first thing your readers will see.
Make it personal. You should know your audience inside out before shooting off emails. Think of it as a conversation (without being too informal), and don’t be too pushy. People love to talk about themselves, so find a point of commonality and show that you understand them.
Make it concise. Get your information across as efficiently as possible. No one has time to read an essay.
Make it obvious what you want. If you’re asking them for something, be direct about it. “I’d love if you’d share this article in your weekly newsletter because I think your audience will get a lot out of it” will be much more effective than “I hope you like the article.” People don’t have the time or motivation to read between the lines.
Send at the right time. Send your emails during the working week and in work hours – and not on public holidays.

Speak about your business, but don’t be too pushy

Most people aren’t interested in the launch of a new business – unless they know exactly how it can benefit them. Content should never be extremely self-centred, and should always focus on the end user.

However, if the aim is to get word out about your business, there are still ways to weave this into your content. It’s just about being delicate, building a relationship with your reader first, and writing about the benefits that people actually care about.

Particularly in the early stages, content marketing is more about establishing trust from your audience and offering valuable content that shows them you’re an expert in what you do.

You can do this by:

Using visual data or referencing original research you have done
Focusing on quality, not quantity – there’s no use posting the longest article on a topic if it’s not providing value every step of the way
Linking to relevant and useful content from your own or other sites
Responding to comments (on a blog or social media posts)
Sharing a consistent message across platforms

Ticking all these boxes will help you develop organic relationships with your audience.

Include relevant Call To Actions

While you don’t want to make your content all about you, you should always include relevant calls to action (CTAs) to ensure you’re getting the most out of the traffic you’re sending to your site. Trial using CTAs in-text, on banners and widgets, through pop ups or as part of your blog design.

But what makes a good CTA? Firstly, it needs to relate to your content, so that it’s specific and relevant enough for your audience to want to take note. Secondly, it has to be well-written, which means keeping it simple, being clear about the benefits to the end user, optimising it for all devices, and creating a sense of urgency.

Work with influencers

Influencer outreach is one way to break free from the noise and get your voice heard. Working with industry influencers gives you access to someone with great sway over your target audience. The relationship you build with them increases your credibility as a business, and in turn, your capacity to reach new customers.

When you decide to get in touch with influencers, make sure your purpose is clear. Be honest, straightforward, and establish what’s in it for them. If you’re having difficulties reaching influencers, there are several outreach tools you can try out.

Don’t forget to measure

Finally, how do you know what’s working and what’s not? While brand awareness isn’t the easiest thing to measure, there are ways to gauge how many people you’re reaching through your content. Importantly, it’s about understanding what metrics are most relevant to your business goals.

For brand awareness, this is usually:

Impressions
Traffic
Click-throughs
Social shares and comments

To get accurate data on all these metrics, you can simply use Google Analytics or the in-built analytics tools on various social media platforms. Remember that the more information you have about your customer’s behaviour, the better you can optimise your content to suit them.

Jump on board today

Make no mistake – content marketing is a tried and tested way of cutting through the clutter and getting word out about your business. More than this, building an audience organically will help you naturally convert readers into customers, while simultaneously establishing your business as a reputable industry leader.

I can’t recommend this approach enough for businesses new and old. If you have any questions about how to make it work for you, I’d love to help – feel free to leave them in the comments!

Sophie McAulay is a creative digital strategist who specialises in content marketing at digital consultancy Web Profits. She’s motivated by helping clients achieve their goals through original content that inspires their target audience.

The ability to effectively market yourself, your business, and your brand is crucial in business. It can create raving fans, loyal customers, and lots of revenue if done correctly. Even though there are many ways to get out into the world and let people know that you exist, this still tends to be a challenge for many. This has a lot to do with the world changing which makes the way we market change. Marketing is not all about banners, flyers, post cards, and pamphlets anymore. It also isn’t about handing out as many business cards to strangers, or being featured in the local news papers or on radio stations. As a matter of fact, these are ways that probably will render you the least results.

That is because technology has made the world smaller and much more noisier. There are many people that are pushing their brands, products, and services into the world and people are being bombarded with options on a daily basis that they don’t know how to handle. For them, it seems like every time they turn around, someone is trying to sell them something, wants them to do something, or wants them to opt-in for something.

Honestly, people have become numb to average marketing tactics and pass right by them if there is nothing to compel them to pay attention. That means that the only way that you are going to be seen and heard is if you are louder than all of the rest of the people who are trying to market themselves and their businesses.

Being unable to detach yourself from the things that used to be effective a few years ago and learn what is working in the present marketing arena will definitely hold you back. Online marketing is something that is being done by people and companies who are winning in the market place. The reason why they are winning is because they know how to be seen and heard by the people that they desire to be in front of, and they are making lots of cash while doing it.

So how can you get in the game and effectively market yourself?

Brilliantly embrace and tell your own unique story

You are the only person on this whole planet that has the exact experiences, background, upbringing, and memories as you. You are your own unique person and brand, and you can attract people that will fall in love with what you have to offer and become raving fans. All you have to do is be transparent and tell your story. This is not the time to worry about people knowing about your failures or your disappointments. This is the time to relate and resonate with people that are your target market.

Build up anticipation

Don’t let all of the cat out of the bag! In marketing, you can’t just go for the ask. Think of marketing as if you were on a first date. Being wined and dined is something that most people want. They want to get to know the person that they are thinking about getting into a relationship with. It may be several dates before they are actually comfortable with you enough to open up to you and tell you some intimate things about themselves and also be intimate with you.

Be generous

There’s something about a giver that people fall in love with. They want to be around them, they begin to trust them, and they have no problem with coming back for more. The know, like, and trust rule is very real and the more that people who you are trying to reach come in contact with you, the better they will feel about trusting you to do what you say that you are going to do. Your generosity can come in the form of free tips or advice on social media, a coupon, a free course, an informative news letter, or a free eBook of some of your best work. The better your giveaway is, the better your influence will be.

Show up in places where the people who you are trying to reach and connect with are going to be, and share your expertise

Actually help someone for free. If you are trying to get someone’s attention, the last thing that you want to do is be in places where they definitely are not. In order for you to know where they hang out, you are going to have to take the time to get to know who they are, what they listen to and read, what their pain points are, and what solutions you’re able to give them. Doing that allows you to understand them enough to know where you will be able to find them, how to resonate with them, and effectively market yourself to them.

Make sure that you are being persistent and consistent

A lot of times when marketing, it isn’t that you aren’t getting out in front of the people that are potential raving fans and customers. It is that you aren’t persistent and consistent enough. The average person must see you or your ad seven times before they decide to take action. If you have already given up on the third try, then you are leaving a lot of success and potential customers on the table.

How to effectively market yourself is a skill that you need to learn and implement in order for you and your business to be successful. It also must be executed with strategic thought and planning. The way that you market yourself can be the difference in how many opportunities come your way as well as how many zeros are behind the income you make.

Denise Damijo is the Founder & CEO of Denise Damijo International, LLC. She runs a successful business while juggling a husband and 5 children (3 being under the age of 2), and is Momapreneur’s Business and Lifestyle Strategist. She has been featured in places like the Huffington Post, Addicted2Success, Women On Business, Elite Daily, and more. She is also a published author, and the creator of the Rise UP And Win Challenge. Denise love helping momapreneurs get clear, get intentional, and get paid by helping them strategize great content, marketing, and sales plans.

Not all digital campaigns yield successful results. Even the most experienced digital marketers can be wrong sometimes. Some mistakes are minor and can even help you patch up weaknesses on your campaign to improve it. However, some mistakes are immensely crucial and can be costly.

Here are digital marketing mistakes you should avoid:

1. Building a site you like

A website is your number one digital weapon. It’s your online persona. It’s what your target clients see even before meeting or calling you. When you first explore the digital world, building your website is one of the first (and crucial) steps in creating a successful digital marketing. What happens is business owners become too giddy about the idea of creating a website, they often forget the goal of creating one. The goal is to communicate your business through website design and functionality to your target audience.

Your website is not built for you; it’s built for your customers. Here are some helpful questions to ask yourself when building your site:

What will your target audience want to do on your site? Get a quote or pricing? Schedule an appointment? Then these functionalities should be easily navigated and available on your home page.
What is your target audience demographics? Millennials? Baby boomers? You should create a site that speaks to your audience’s behavior and interests.

2. Forgetting mobile

So your website looks divine and functions how it is meant to be… on desktop, but how about on mobile? Just last year, Google rolled out a worldwide mobile-friendly algorithm update. You can quickly check your site if it passes Google’s mobile-friendly test here. Basically, Google favors websites that are mobile-friendly on their mobile search rankings. For the last 12 months, 52% of all searches for the broad keyword “car dealer” is made through mobile devices. Make sure your website is mobile responsive so you don’t miss the party.

3. Overlooking Social Media

How can you engage social media users in an auto related business? More ways than you can think of. If your website is your online persona, social media is your online personality. It is here where you can create a community of users that share the same interests and behavior — real people.

Take a look at Computerized AutoPro’s Facebook campaign. It garnered more than 200 likes, 50 shares and 47 comments, and counting. Their calls and quote requests increased significantly. One important thing to remember when doing social media campaigns is engaging back. Reply to comments, thank users for their support, use emoticons and the ‘@’ tag.

4. Not making it easy for your customers

In relation to building a site for your target audience, another important aspect is customer experience. Do your customers leave the second they click on your site? Aren’t you getting enough subscribers or form submissions? We are in the era of customers. A great digital campaign understands the customer’s needs and how they think.

If you are an ecommerce site, you can improve customer experience by allowing guest checkout. Most people like to do online transactions quickly and securely, and filling out several boxes is just a hassle. If you’re doing leads generation using a form, you may want to shorten the required fields to only the necessary information like email address and name.

5. Frequent promotions

Customers love promotions — well, it depends. It is proven that people desire things that are “limited.” That is called the psychology of scarcity. If you give out promotions or discounts frequently, you create a perception of availability. With that kind of perception, customers tend to be less motivated because they know, based from your past marketing, that you’ll have another promotion soon. It doesn’t create a sense of urgency, and without urgency there’s no immediate action from the customers. If they don’t call, buy, or submit a form that instant, then they’ll be likely not to do so in the future.

Instead of frequent promotions, offer time-limited deals. In this way you will get your customers interests and motivate them to act quickly.

Jane Dizon is a business, lifestyle, health, fitness, and nutrition enthusiast and blogger. She is a nurse by profession and a writer by passion. She has a soft spot for macadamia chocolate and green tea. She’s an internet savvy who loves Excel sheets, organizing files, and sticky notes.

You’re probably already aware that maintaining a social media presence is absolutely essential for any type of business to gain brand exposure and engaging with your consumer audience. But have you been keeping up to date with the social media trends that are set to dominate in 2016?

This year is all about fresh and up-to-the minute content through visual forms of communication, such as video and emojis. Users are also getting more social media-savvy and expect to be able to do everything they need in one app. “Tell me more!” you exclaim excitedly. Here are 5 social media trends that can’t be ignored when considering your social media strategy for 2016.

1. Real-time engagement rules

Towards the end of 2015 it became very clear that users are hungry for real-time video content. Live streaming app Periscope’s rapid rise in popularity since its official launch in March 2015 is a perfect example of the demand for live content. Once logged in, users are able to post live, unedited video segments that are viewed and commented on by their followers. In a similar fashion, Snapchat and Twitter Moments allows users to post live updates to their followers at the tap of their fingertips.

Give your audience a deeper look into your brand

Businesses who are taking advantage of these social platforms are quickly seeing results. By posting live video streams, a company is showing a more authentic side to its consumers, which in return builds trust and loyalty. People love the idea of getting live, behind-the-scenes peeks at what goes on with a company. For instance, retail chain Target used Periscope to provide a behind-the-scenes peek into their new Lilly Pulitzer line which resulted in such huge demand that 90% of the collection sold out within days. Behind the scenes, interviews and product announcements are just a few ways that Periscope and other live streaming apps can benefit a business.

2. Data-driven marketing will increase its dominance

It’s no secret social media helps you figure out who your audience is and how you can tailor your content to promote engagement and encourage conversions. Marketers haven’t previously had access to so much information about consumer preferences before and are quickly trying to cash in on this benefit.

Benefits of breaking down your data

Social media analytics can be used to determine when consumers are going through significant lifestyle changes, such as getting married, having a baby or buying a house, businesses. This is a time when consumers are more willing to change their spending habits and a sweet spot for gaining their loyalty. Plus, these consumers are also more likely to be advocates for your brand.

Coca Cola used Twitter’s Tailored Audience function to create personalised tweets that used consumers’ first names for their Share-a-Coke campaign in 2015, and increased sales by 7% in Australia and 3% in the US. These results strongly suggest that when marketing platforms are micro-targeted by audience segments, there is a noticeable increase in brand exposure and engagement.

3. Major leaps and bounds with in-app functionality

Long gone are the days when a user has to jump from one app to another to achieve what they need to do. Social media platforms and messaging apps are providing everything you need within one app for a seamless and time-saving experience. A perfect example of this is the messaging app WeChat, which currently has 549 million active users worldwide and contributes $1.76bn in lifestyle spending in China. Aside from allowing users to send messages to their contact list, WeChat gives users the ability to:

Express emotion with emojis and stickers
Send money and pay bills
Purchase products
Get one-on-one customer help
Make a call
Send voice messages
Host Group Chats
Post images, videos and status updates

Other messaging apps, like Whatsapp and Viber have developed similar functions although they’re not yet quite as developed as WeChat.

Jumping on the bandwagon

Due to its huge popularity, particularly in China, businesses worldwide are quickly realising the need to corner this lucrative market by setting up their brand on WeChat. By setting up a WeChat platform, companies can give users a range of functionalities, such as purchase products, access customer service and view regular updates and announcements.

Japanese clothing brand Uniqlo increased sales by 30% in China and doubled their WeChat followers from 400,000 to 1 million in just six months with the launch of their Style Your Life campaign in 2015. Consumers were able to try on outfits and use their mobile phones or in-store monitors to take photos and load them onto WeChat to superimpose them against different backgrounds (snow, tropical island, etc).

4. Gifs, videos and emojis.. oh my!

Visual communication has become driving forces of engagement, with micro-videos, gifs and emojis becoming a common form of expression, especially amongst young consumers. Facebook, Twitter and Google are all vying for more video and integrated gif content to deliver the demand and retain users.

Press record to encourage engagement

Facebook is set to dominate the video scene with the introduction of 360 video, a camera system that simultaneously records 360 degrees of a scene, allowing viewers to pan and rotate to watch the video from different angles. For instance, ABC NEWS used 360 on Facebook to allow their viewers to take a look into Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Utilising new video apps to gain brand exposure and increase engagement will show that your business is focused on creating buzz and staying

Making sense of emojis

Emojis are another trend that marketers are using to their advantage. Think what you want about Kim Kardashian, but her release of the Kimoji app generated 9000 downloads per second which generated $1 million revenue per minute! The app was so in demand the servers crashed due to its inability to keep up with demand.

At first glance, they might just seem like a fun way to express yourself but if you take a closer look you can gather important information about your consumer base. “But how?” you ask (insert frustrated emoji here), “they’re just cute little images people use when messaging their friends.” Consider the following questions:

Do you know what emojis are associated with your business and what they mean?
Do you know the context of such conversations?
Can you convert that information into actionable insight?

By analysing the actual meaning and logic behind the use of emoji characters, you should be able to discover valuable information about your target audience.

5. Buy buttons will become the norm

The ability to purchase products in social media apps has already been introduced by Facebook and Pinterest, who’ve introduced ‘buy’ buttons for advertisers and users. Facebook are currently testing their ‘call-to-action’ button across small and medium-sized business in the US with the hopes of rolling it out worldwide this year. Pinterest ‘buy’ buttons are displayed on pins, which allows the user to click and purchase without having to leave the app.

A new way to reach your target audience

By the end of 2016 most major social media brand will feature a ‘buy’ button in some kind of capacity as an element of their advertising campaign. This will allow businesses access to a whole new realm of advertising, giving them the ability to push specific products targeted towards segmented audiences. For example, a baby products company is able to target women who are due to have a baby or recently given birth, to advertise newborn products such as clothing, nappies and nursery accessories which can be purchased at a click of a button.

So there you have it… another exciting year in the always-changing world of social media. Are there any other social media trends that you think are set to take over in 2016? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Kristine Stone is a copywriter at Sydney-based design agency Orion Creative. She’s obsessed with social media, blogging and keeping up with the latest digital marketing trends. A self-confessed word nerd, Kristine has experience writing about women’s lifestyle, bridal, technology, interior design and a wide range of other industries.

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