Social media is used by all savvy marketers in unprecedented ways to attract interested customers and propel business sales. Quite evidently, it has become a more important advertising medium for marketing and promotions. Over the years, this component of digital marketing has gone through a series of changes.

As you plan your budget allotments, see how the emerging trends would impact social media in 2017.

1. Potential Prospects:

Previously, social media only acted as a thread for connecting people, whereas today businesses are using it to connect with their potential prospects. This year, social media ad revenue touched $9.8 billion & nearly 84% of CEOs, VPs gave more preference to social media marketing while making purchasing decisions. With social ad revenues anticipated to rise, the paid form of online advertising won’t remain cheaper either.

#Fact: As marketing budgets continue to increase, the ad spending for social media is expected to exceed $35 billion in 2017.

2. Video ads:

Undoubtedly, video ads have grown this year to a large extent. Although; YouTube existed in this race since a long time, but Facebook became the first preference for advertisers to publish video ads. The bonus here is even Instagram is evolving as the most preferred channel for video ads, ahead of Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Around 90% of buyers are of the opinion that video ads help them in making purchase decisions.

#Fact: Over 70% percent of marketers plan to increase their use of video ads next year.

3. Start-Ups & Digital Marketing:

For start-ups, what better way than social media to promote products cost effectively! And, they’re nailing it with perfection to build a reputation, engaging with followers and for finding potential clients. Around 75% of small business owners believe it is very effective. Today, Instagram is used by 48.8%of brands. Social Media will create new opportunities for brands to improve conversion rates.

#Fact: By 2017, the global mobile ad revenue of Instagram will reach $2.81 billion.

4. Marketing Database:

In 2016, Facebook had 1.79 billion monthly active users, while Instagram had 500 million monthly active users as of June 2016. In fact, Instagram has beaten Facebook and Twitter when it comes to engagement.

Do you know one thing that’s common among them? A huge amount of Customer Database. Contests, likes or dislikes about a particular product or service, and bios are some of the determiners to gather customer information. The sole purpose of everything is to get your business narrow down on your target personas.

#Fact: By 2017, the global social network audience will total 2.55 billion.

5. Emerging social platforms:

Except for Facebook and Google, other emerging platforms are Instagram and Snapchat. The dominance of Instagram is clearly understandable from the fact that nearly 71% of companies are projected to be active on the platform in 2017. Is your business one of them? Many brands are using to grow a strong follower base on Snapchat as well due to its innovative video features.

#Fact: In 2017, it is expected that Snapchat will double down on its ad product to enhance targeting and analytics for its advertisers.

Conclusion

You may be wondering what your business can derive from the changes happening in the digital world. One thing it can definitely help you is – increase sales by helping you reach out to untapped customers. It may seem simple to follow these changes, rather execution would require a lot of time and talent. If your business don’t want to go through the pain points of digital marketing, then Value Direct will manage everything for you with its unique lead generation programs.