Social networks provide a wide variety of benefits and opportunities for your enterprise. Take advantage of all these trends to help your business gain exposure and customers.

Social media is an integral part of our lives. What started off as a medium to stay connected with friends and family is now an important platform for businesses to communicate with consumers.

However, the competition is very high given the significance of social media in consumers’ lives. The average person paddles through an ocean of content every day, which makes it challenging for businesses to stand out unless they have a clear social media strategy.

Staying up to date and fitting the latest social media trends into your strategy keeps your business ahead of fierce competition. This is your guide to some of the most important trends on social media so that you can outperform your competitors and defy expectations.

1. The TikTok phenomenon

Followed by the hype for short videos, TikTok is growing exceedingly fast. In September 2021, TikTok surpassed 1 billion users, making it the seventh most popular social network in the world. TikTok went on to amass 1.4 billion active users in 2022, a number expected to increase to 1.8 billion by end of 2023. Even social giants like Instagram are embracing short videos when it featured Instagram Reels, which basically functions exactly like TikTok in almost every way.

Over the past few years, TikTok introduced new features specifically aimed for businesses like ads and business profiles that are expected to play an important role for brands to reach millennials and Gen Z. As a business owner, you can leverage this platform to feature creative short videos to engage your target audience and build awareness or pitch your products and services quickly.

If you haven’t already, grab an account handle for your brand and start exploring TikTok now to get a good feel for the platform and inspire some ideas for your TikTok marketing strategy.

2. Video content is the way to go

If you’re guilty of swiping through TikTok and Instagram Reels for hours, then you know that video content remains one of the most engaging forms of content and is now the preferred choice by consumers. According to a study by Sandvine, 65% of Internet traffic is now in the form of videos.

Video content is dominating social media, especially short-form or snackable-sized videos (just look at the success of TikTok, Instagram Reels and Instagram Stories). If you want to stay relevant in the social domain, it is time to start including more videos in your content strategy.

3. Social commerce will keep growing

When prompting for a purchase, there will come a time when navigating your customers to a website during social media browsing will become one too many clicks for them. Which is why it is important to bring your shop where your customers are.

At least, that is what Facebook and Instagram had in mind when they started offering social commerce options. With the gradual shift towards online shopping and a huge increase of active users, social storefronts will become one of the most used features for businesses in social media.

Start incorporating social commerce in your sales strategy as an additional sales venue and ensure a frictionless shopping experience for your customers.

4. Customer service via social media

Social commerce has become a vital part of social media, and so are customer service channels. Many brands notice that customers frequently reach out to them on social media and see it as an important platform for delivering customer service.

Social media enables a convenient direct line of communication with your customers so that you quickly address questions and potential issues. Based on a survey commissioned by Facebook, 64% of people said they prefer to message rather than call a business, so planning a social media customer service strategy is worth the investment.

You can start by creating response templates for frequently asked questions, or if you want to take it up a notch, try opting for a chatbot to improve your response time.

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