5 Social Media Marketing Strategies You Need for 2019 | Today On Social

This week, instead of a social media report, we are talking social media marketing strategies!

This will actually be the last post of 2018 (!!!) But of course we will be back in 2019 rested and ready to go!

Before we head out for the holidays, I have to end the year with the top strategies I’ve taken from 2018 that I will be pushing for in 2019. These strategies have come up time and time again in 2018 and now they are here in one place for you! Bookmark this page or print it out. Whatever you do have it ready for the new year!

Top 5 Social Media Marketing Strategies for 2019

5. Know the trends of your industry

If you’ve learned nothing from Today on Social this year, you should at least have a new understanding of the value of knowing the trends. Not just the trends of your industry, but the trends of the platform and your audience as well.

Most of the articles from the platforms I’ve highlighted all try to keep you up-to-date on the trends happening on them. Pinterest is ending the year with a huge round up of 100 Pinterest Trends for 2019. And they’ve separated each trend by industry so you can see what trends are a part of your niche.

For example, in Travel, lots of people are talking about bike tours and hot springs, more than they were this time last year. In health and wellness, sleep and meal planning more than doubled in pins year-over-year. Or in food, bread baking, mushrooms and infusions were all hot topics this year.

So what does this mean for you? It means you now have an understanding of what types of content you should be discussing for your own brand, blog or business. If you’re a travel blogger, what are some things your audience needs to know about setting up bike tours in Mexico? Your fitness and wellness brand should talk about sleep and how it affects your body. And don’t forget to add bread or mushroom recipes to your food blog next year!

The key is tapping into the conversations that are already happening. What are your audiences already talking about, and how can you push your own brand, blog or small business into that conversation? Once you know that you have a great chance of getting more engagements and more people following you online.

4. Stand for something greater

One thing I’ve seen across the board when it something consumers want to see in brands they support, is passion for a cause of some sort. Whether it’s huge causes like global health or sustainability or even just supporting individuals in your local area, people are looking for ways to do good in the world, and if they can buy products they need at the same time, great.

Instagram released their year-end review last week, full of a variety of great moments for the platform. The heart love sticker, where heart arrows would fly into your face and hearts would pop out of your eyes, was the most widely used Instagram sticker. The heart emoji was used more than 14 billion times. And ASMR, or autonomous sensory meridian response, was one of the top communities growing out of this year.

But one thing I was particularly interested in was how consumers used Instagram and other platforms to support or promote great causes around the world. The top advocacy hashtags on Instagram in 2018 included #metoo, #timesup, and #marchforourlives. #MeToo and #TimesUp are both hashtags to combat domestic violence and sexual harassment, primarily against women and often by men in power. #MarchForOurLives was a rallying cry by high school students to Congress to finally do something about all of the gun violence plaguing schools.

So what does this mean for you? It means the best way for you to have impact on line is support a cause that you and your audience share. What are things you are both passionate about, and how can you use your platform to discuss it? If you’re in food, do you all love to recycle? Are you a fashion blogger that supports body positivity? Whatever you do make it relevant to your brand, but truly something you have passion for. Your audience will want to follow you for more.

3. Build a community

Social media is at an interesting place now. There are really between four and six platforms that have mass appeal, platforms you can assume everyone around you is probably on. I’m thinking of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest; then maybe adding LinkedIn and YouTube depending on the consumer. Feel free to add others if you think of them below!

But what’s happening even more deeply is that each of these platforms are creating micro-communities within themselves. Pinterest recently created Communities so you can share pins within your niche. Instagram just released Close Friends, which allows you to share Instagram Stories with a specific group of people. And Facebook and LinkedIn have had a group feature for years now where people can talk specifically about topics they are interested in.

Another great community that is growing right now is around shows on Facebook Watch. Facebook Watch has had a tremendous year and Facebook has released an article in its newsroom to celebrate all that has happened. Facebook Watch by itself boats more than 400 million monthly active users, and 75 million daily users. For context, that’s more monthly active users than Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn or Snapchat gets on their entire platforms. And even more, those 75 million daily users spend more than 20 minutes watching videos! The competition is on between them and YouTube! I personally watch far more YouTube content, but would definitely consider myself a monthly active user of Facebook Watch.

However, one unique thing Facebook Watch has over YouTube or even Twitch, is the ability to create communities. Red Table Talk, Jada Pinkett Smith’s show divulging personal and emotional topics with her daughter and mother, is the most active Facebook Watch show on the platform. But it isn’t just a place to watch videos. The page boats more than 4.3 million followers and a closed group for 400,000 of its most loyal fans.

What’s most interesting about Red Table Talk is the sense of inclusivity it has on its pages and videos. I would bet there are people on this page discussing topics they haven’t brought up to their own family members yet. That’s because the page has been able to create a warm, welcoming environment for their fans to come and share even the darkest of stories.

One thing you really want to bring into 2019 is a sense of community. It doesn’t have to be an emotional couch or shoulder to cry on. But what is a common bond you and your audience shares that you can bring into your content?

For me, I want business owners, bloggers and small businesses to know there is someone looking out for them. I am a new business owner but I have been supporting businesses big and small for nearly 10 years. I hope to use that experience to help businesses pursue their dreams. But more importantly, I want you all to know it’s possible and you can do it! Seek to create a space for your audience to be themselves, whatever that means for you!

2. Tap into the senses

Humans and emotions have gone together for a very long time. The field of psychology exists because we have such an interest in emotion (fun fact: I was a psychology major in college!) In that way, it makes sense that the senses and emotions would play a big role in social media, because social media is predicated so much on humans.

But this year was a special one for emotions, wellness and senses. From ASMR, to yoga and meditation to self-care, 2018 brought in a whole new emphasis on having a better understanding of the emotions of yourself, your audience and, of course, your customer.

To me, it’s even become a bit of a circle for brands, bloggers and small businesses to navigate. We needed to be better with talking about emotions so that our customers would relate to our messages. Our customers were making decisions based on their emotional state and looking for messages that fit that. So both sides required an understanding of how emotions played a role.

The senses were also a huge part of 2018, and a by-product of a much more visual year for social media. Between VR (virtual reality) taking a step forward, AR (augmented reality) becoming mainstream, and video often being the main way to get a message across, ways to influences a viewers senses became a gold mine. From that we saw full ASMR channels being born on Instagram and the top trends on Pinterest including colors that evoked certain senses.

Next year will at the least be more of the same, and at the most it will be a big part of social media marketing going forward. That means you really need to tap into the senses of your brand and your audience. What emotions do your customers have before they realize they need your product or service? Are they stressed? Confused? Maybe they are already happy but just looking for more. Then take a look at your business and make sure it corresponds with that. Your brand should be calm and relieving for a stressed customer, informative for the confused and light and warm for the happy customer.

Use the end of December to determine where your business is and where it needs to go!

1. Help your customer help themselves

The order for the four tips above are debatable in my opinion. But, this one is not. 2018 was they year customers were trying to do more for themselves. The brands and businesses that helped their customers do that, were the ones that won in the long term.

If you go back to the Pinterest trends article, you’ll notice a whole section for DIY activities. But also consider all of the biggest moments of the season for marketers and what the trends were. In most cases, the biggest trends were ways for consumers to create things for their own parties, events and moments.

No matter what your customer is interested in-business, sports, food, fashion-if you can empower them to create their own sense of knowledge, creativity or style, you can have them as a customer forever.

This one is pretty simple but it’s to me, easily the #1 social media marketing strategy of 2018. Help your customer help themselves. If your customer is a blogger and they need help with social media, show them how they can do it, not how you do it. If your customer is a mom trying to make healthy choices for their kids, how can they do that?

That can happen in a few ways. First, listen. Why are they having trouble with their blog or with food? Try to bring them from where they are to where they want to be. Second, show, don’t tell. Can you use videos? Step-by-step instructions? Be as informative as you can. Lastly, empathize. You’re an expert, you do this stuff all the time and probably have for a while, that’s why it’s your business. Your audience has 10 other things they need to do and probably don’t have nearly the experience you do. Understand that first, then respond.

Takeaways

Those are the Top 5 Social Media Strategies you can use to have a great year next year. To recap they are:

• Tap into the conversations that are already happening.
• Support a cause you and your audience share.
• Create a sense of community.
• Tap into the senses of your business and your audience.
• Help your customers help themselves.

Conclusion

That’s all from this week’s post! Hopefully these social media marketing strategies are helpful for your upcoming year!

This will be the last report of 2018! I’m taking a little time away and will be back in January! We will also be taking our own advice and updating how the blog functions next year! Stay tuned for more on that!

You can always head over to the homepage and get more strategies and tips for your social media presence. If you have any questions or thoughts, you can comment below or contact me here.

Have a great week!

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