The digital age is ever-changing, which naturally brings about new trends in marketing. While it is easy to understand the importance of digital marketing, it is harder to keep up with new features and strategies that social media platforms offer businesses. What we are seeing today is a major shift in the digital marketing industry of the past. Corporations and small businesses alike are beginning to understand how to use social media giants like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to their full advantage.  

Shifts in Strategy  

Instead of solely advertising their product or service, some businesses are beginning to advertise their social media pages. For example, ads through in-text keywords, which appear when hovered over by a cursor, are now containing live feeds and text promoting their social media accounts. The only true challenge in this strategy is selecting a keyword and news article, or any other similar form of text, which reflects some aspect of your business. However, once this challenge is overcome, the advertisement itself can be very effective as the reader is already interested in a topic regarding your business and is naturally drawn in. This switch in strategy is placing more emphasis on the nature of a company and their values rather than just the product itself.  

New Features 

Social media platforms are continuously rolling out new in-app features which can be extremely beneficial to your marketing strategy. While some features are more beneficial to certain businesses than others, it is still important to understand the wide variety of options that they offer.  

1. Instagram  

Instagram has recently rolled out its “shopping feature” update which allows businesses to tag, price, and link the specific items included in a picture to its respective page online. Instead of customers scouring the web in search of the product, they can simply tap the selected item and be taken directly to its page. They have also included “Story Highlights” which allow users to organize and pin selected stories to their profile permanently, instead of the temporary 24 hours. 

2. Twitter 

Twitter has now introduced its “Promote Mode” where they offer automated ad campaigns for $99/mo. This feature is completely automated and saves businesses time and effort. By amplifying tweets and providing analytics, businesses are able to track exactly how effective their content is.  

3. Facebook  

Facebook is now joining other social media networks in providing the ability to post stories. However, what makes Facebook’s new story feature unique is their strategic placement of stories. For mobile, stories will be placed centered at the top where it is more prominent, while on desktops it will be in the upper right-hand corner of the screen beneath the notifications icon.  

4. LinkedIn 

LinkedIn will now allow videos to be recorded and posted. With the effectiveness of Facebook Live, it is not hard to see why LinkedIn will want to join this trend. Businesses can now use this feature to give a face to the name of the business and interact with users on a more personal level. Additionally, they will provide analytics for these video-ad campaigns which will help you tailor and modify your specific audience.