The Biggest Trends in Social Media for 2016

Social media is the biggest thing on earth. Everyone has a Facebook page or an Instagram account. Even Snap Chat has become the trendiest thing of the year. People are now using these social media outlets in order to advertise and sell their products. Online and social media marketing target audiences that shop. Most of these buyers are buying from their phones while they are out doing other things. Mobile apps for small businesses are one of the best ways to make some money in this age of technology. Social media has become the way we live and shop. We cannot exactly predict where social media will be by the end of this year, but there are quite a few trends that we can see that have opened up quite a few doors for those who have small businesses and want to market those who use social media.

SEO Marketing
You've seen these initials everywhere, but what does SEO mean exactly? SEO means search engine optimization. So what does that mean? This basically a technique used to help your company get to the top rankings in search engine searches. For instance, when a person searches on Google, you will see pages and pages of results. If you use the right keywords, that is when SEO can really work for your company. This will not only get your company on that Google search, but it will get you on the first page and probably at the very top of the list. This is key when you are trying to build sales for your company.
When you use social media, your Instagram or Facebook may not change where you rank in these searches, but the amount of people that are sharing your links does. If your company has a blog, it is important that you write as much as possible about different ideas that relate to your company. For instance, if you have a plumbing company, write a blog about how to unclog a sink. Use a lot of keywords that relate to your company and that will pop up when someone does a search engine search. If they look up clogged sink and you have used those keywords a certain amount of times, that will get your link on the first page of the search. It will end up being great for you in the long run.

Live Streaming Video
A lot of social media users have turned to live streaming video to share their thoughts, talents, and most of all, their products. Shoppers want to get a product as quickly as possible and with live streaming video, it seems that they can learn more about it quickly and then buy it. Periscope is one of these live streaming apps that has really taken the world of the web by storm. You can record yourself doing anything or selling anything and those who have the app can watch it live. This is great for those in the small business industry. For example, if you sell snowboards in Colorado and you're trying to reach a vaster audience, you can take a Periscope live feed video of yourself on the slopes. Your followers can watch it live and see how great the quality of your boards are. This is such a great way to market your products and yourself. With this app, you can now communicate with all of your customers all over the world. They will see you as more of a humble person and not so much of a businessman.

E-Commerce
This is a term that has been thrown around for quite some time. It seems that when the Internet first became popular, you would hear this word a lot. So why is it a trend in 2016? If you get your customers engaged with you and your products via social media, they will be ready to buy from you instantly! In just a few years, the sales that have been tracked due to different social media outlets is in the billions. Facebook alone has many different ways that you can advertise and Twitter and Pinterest have both jumped on that band wagon. These sites will give you ways to advertise your company and receive followers, likes, or hits to your website. Twitter also recently announced that they are going to try to install a buying button for their users. All of these are great ways for your business to start making a lot of money through social media. All of that time you spend on Facebook, hoping your friends will go up, may now finally pay off.

Mobile Mania
Remember when it was a privilege to have a mobile phone? Remember that the first job you had in high school paid for that phone bill? Now children have phones and tablets. The mobile phone phenomenon is not going away. Almost everyone on the planet has a mobile phone and most of those phones have plenty of apps. These mobile phones are actually the first screen people will look at in the day. A lot of people have stopped using their computers because of their mobile phones. It is important for small businesses to focus more of their attention on these mobile phone users. If your company's website has an app, you are more likely to get sales than a company that doesn't. Customers want to order quickly and with the least amount of work. This is possible if you get an app out there that they will download and buy from. Research has been done on the type of shopping mobile users do and about 15% of them say that they won't buy anything from a company that they can't see on their phones.

Predictions for 2016
There are quite a few predictions for social media this year. The more and more we get into this technology age, the more we see people working from home and starting businesses in their homes. Texting seems to be the only way that we like to communicate with each other these days, so we will see that get even bigger as more and more people learn to text and conduct business through texts. E-Commerce will continue to grow and this will be the way people do business. We hope that all of the local businesses that we love are not in jeopardy because of this.

There are many ways to grow your business and it seems as if social media is the way to do it. Get in line with the other companies and see what they have that you don't. Jump on the bandwagon, because this is the wave of the future.