The world of social media is ever-changing and evolving since they first came into existence. From new platforms, different user habits, or varied forms of communication, the different social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Snapchat and others have been coming with new and improved ideas to keep the customers engaged. With the changes made in the different platforms, the eCommerce marketers take advantage of the same in order to capture the attention of their customers with the help of the tools and tactics.

The year 2018 proved to be quite a growing one for the different social media platforms, Where Facebook reached 2.2 billion monthly active users, the others too saw an all-time high in the number of users.

Picture credit: Dream Grow

With the year 2018 coming to an end, the eCommerce marketers have started planning their social media marketing strategies for the growth of their online stores. The social media marketing in 2019 will be much bigger and consumer-centric. It is essential for them to keep their focus and stay ahead of their competitors with the keen focus Facebook marketing (the social media platform that influenced 52 per cent of consumers’ online and offline purchases, up from 36 per cent in 2014) as well as other social media platforms as well in order stay in tune with the trends and make the most of the same.

This blog lays down the various trends in social media marketing in 2019 that every eCommerce marketers must take a look at.

Invest in video content

With each passing year, the popularity of video content is growing and it is expected to go a whole different level. There were over 4.4 million videos uploaded directly to Facebook in February 2016, generating over 199 billion views, according to ReelSEO. In fact, WyzOwl, video marketing is a powerful tool that personalizes your brand and increases conversions. 68% of marketers have published video content on Facebook, and 70% of marketers plan to use Facebook Video this year. Video content marketing started with YouTube but eventually gained the popularity on Facebook and Instagram.

In addition, the Live video is more appealing to brand audiences: 80% would rather watch live video from a brand than read a blog, and 82% prefer live video from a brand to social posts, according to Live Stream.

Make sure you invest in video content that is informative and entertaining in order to impact your viewer’s minds strongly. Hence, you should aim at delivering engaging content to keep your customer glued to the products or brand.

Micro influencers

We have been talking about influencer marketing a lot. Well, if you haven’t, then you should because according to a marketing survey by Collective Bias, 70% of millennials are influenced by their peers in their buying decisions. This means that millennials find their peers the most relatable.

Picture credit: Collective Bias

In fact, according to Linqia, 92% of the marketers who invested in influencer marketing in 2017 were satisfied with the results. The social media influencers have become a major trend on social media platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube and Twitter as well. These influencers are those with thousands and millions of followers on the social media platform. So, when they post anything on the social media – videos, images, or any kind of posts, they are seen by the followers in no time. With the gaining popularity of these influencers, their prices have also shot up. According to Linqia, “19% plan to spend over $100,000 per program, up from 13% last year. 46% of marketers run between 2 – 5 programs per year per brand and 31% run more than five programs per year per brand, with enterprises typically holding portfolios of dozens of brands.”

Picture credit: Linqia

The micro-influencers are the smaller investments with about 10,000+ followers but the meaningful ones are a great investment. Hence, you can hire the micro influencers to advertise your products on social media platforms. This is a superb strategy in social media marketing in 2019.

Social data – trust and transparency

One of the biggest concerns in today’s time in the eCommerce sector is the privacy and security of the customer’s data. All the social media platforms have been working on data privacy in 2018. In fact, social media has made it easier to generate, collect, and store people’s data on a large scale. Earlier this year in March, news broke that a data-mining firm called Cambridge Analytica harvested personal data from around 87 million Facebook profiles, without the users’ consent, to build a system that would use micro-targeting and psychological profiling to target US voters with personalized political advertisements and influence the election results. As a result, the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg was slashed by consumers and legal authorities.

Picture credit: Marketing Charts

With this entire incident, the social media platforms took the concern too seriously and worked on the trust and transparency of the consumer’s data.

The GDPR module for the different eCommerce platforms like Prestashop, Magento, Opencart, and others have saved a lot of consumer data.

Now that we have mentioned the different upcoming trends in social media marketing in 2019, can’t wait for enough for the next year to come.