black dog's guide to social media trends for 2014

© Black Dog New Media 2012

Social Media Trends for 2014

February 2014



The rise of paid social advertising

• All the major social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn) now offer paid advertising, and they’ll continue to work on making it better. Just looking at some stats, it appears that brands will want to use it:

• Brands that use the retargeted ads in Facebook users’ newsfeeds report 49 times more clicks than right-hand sidebar ads.

• LinkedIn Sponsored Updates see a 45% higher engagement than posts on Facebook or Twitter.

• Twitter offers three different kinds of paid advertising: promoted accounts, tweets, and trends.


Specialized social media platforms to become more popular

• For the same reason you target your business and marketing, soon you’ll be able to target your social media campaigns.

• Some existing platforms like LinkedIn already let you target particular segments and audiences with your updates. However if you want to reach an even more specific audience, try looking at a niche social media platform. Some examples include Untappd, Ravelry, Gentlemint, ThirdAge, and Meet Pips.


Big business will use social media even more in their campaigns

• According to John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing, they’ll use it to create brand awareness, to hire new staff, drive lead generation, and ultimately, serve customers better.

• We live more and more of our lives online, so it only makes sense that brands will continue their research into social media and how it can benefit their bottom line.


Becoming more mobile

• As tablets and smartphones get more powerful, we’re using them more and more on the go. According to a Prosper Insights report, only 33% of mobile websites are “very good,” which means there’s a lot of room for improvement.


Brands will use more video

• This is an extension of the fact that people like to consume video on their mobile devices.

• The video platforms are becoming more reliable and brands are able to monetize them more easily. Video producers are capitalizing on this, and creating videos for brands that are of high quality and are highly entertaining.

• The good news is that almost half of all video watchers complete the entire video, with a whopping 79% completion rate on those on auto-play.


Google+ will become a major factor in social media

• Often an afterthought to many social media campaigns, Google+ will see an increased presence in 2014.

• Google reports that over 300 million people visit G+ every month. It’s a big part of their search algorithm, it rewards sites with high SEO IQ, and when you add in Google Authorship, it’s easy to see why.


Questions?


Black Dog New Media

Founded by Shaun Fagan

Ex clinician, business analyst, user engagement specialist, digital marketer and social business advocate

For more information please contact on:

Tel 07827 999135

Twitter @BlackDogHealth

black dog's guide to social media trends for 2014

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