The Emerging Social Media Trends You Need To Know

Social media is changing, especially for businesses. In the past, it was expected that a company’s social media feeds could stand apart. The work was about creating an account that was true to your brand and spoke to the ideas your company needed to promote. The company’s feeds stood alone, apart from the general community of conversation happening.

Today, social media is more social than ever, especially for businesses. There is a community minded approach that requires being aware of the tone of the conversation in the room and being a part of it. This demands more of businesses on social media.

What does this mean for specific social media trends? How should businesses handle the current landscape?

1. Authenticity

This has been the advice for a while, but the demands are greater now. Currently, businesses are expected to be more human. How are things going in your office? How is your company treating your employees? Customers want to know and see this. Transparency matters now more than ever before on social media.

2. A Change In The Way You Handle Your Social Media Calendar

Managing social media takes a lot of time and effort. It’s long been the advice that a business should plan out their calendar months in advance when they can. They should look at what they want to promote, holidays, and other events to influence the conversation.

Now, the conversation on your feed is more influenced by the conversation happening day to day online. To participate in that appropriately, it’s essential that a scheduling calendar is kept loose. It’s good to have ideas listed to post about, but posts will need to be tailored to the conversation of the day.

3. Businesses Are Watched More Critically

When a company doesn’t match tone and posts self promotion content, it stands out. A company can expect backlash when posting things that feel off in the current context.

4. Company Values Matter

For a while, there’s been a growing trend that brands should have values. A lot of businesses adapted to this by finding a positive cause their business could stand behind. For example, a business that values environmentally friendly methods for production would talk about this on social media as something important to their business. They would then make sure their company did its best to stand behind this issue with methods that aligned with these values.

Today, customers want to know where a business stands on many important issues. Staying out of a political issue is seen as taking a side in itself, but doesn’t win any favor with the people on one side or the other. Social media followers are putting more pressure on the businesses they follow to make their values clear.