Is your business one of the over 600 million accounts currently on Instagram? Are you part of the force that contributes to the 95 million photos and videos shared daily on Instagram? Are you one of the 48.8% of brands currently making their presence felt on the platform? By 2018 the number of brands on Instagram is expected to rise to 70.7%. This means that Instagram could very well overtake Twitter this year! Have you optimised your Instagram business account to get the most out of it for your brand? Here are tips to dominate in instagram this year!

1. Don’t beg your followers to turn on notifications for your content.

If you’ve hooked your followers so hard that they subscribe to your posts on their own, congrats. Ask them to subscribe to you and you’re showing just how afraid you are of falling off their radar. It’s a bitch move. Above that, those who are likely to turn on notifications to brands will likely subscribe to many others as well. What’s going to happen once they start getting bombarded with notifications from everyone? They’ll unfollow you or leave the platform altogether. No one likes spending that much time with even their favourite brands.

2. Step up your hashtags.

Hashtags are your secret weapon to success, especially since only 20 percent of Instagram posts have 6 or more hashtags and 53 percent of posts only have one hashtag. This means you’ll instantly boost your engagement by stepping up your hashtag use, but remember it’s also about quality, not quantity. Every post needs to have multiple relevant hashtags that are specific to your audience. To choose the best hashtags, pay attention to what others are using and use hashtag tracking tools like RebelMouse, Tagboard or Talkwalker. Also, Socialmention.com and Twubs are great places to look. It is hard to influence an Instagram users search history, but Instagram hastags you can control 100%. So take full advantage.

Then, whenever you’re hosting an event, having a promotion, or just need more people to walk through your door, use these hashtags, along with your location to get in front of more people. You can take a look at the way I user hashtags on my business Instagram.

3. Filters.

Statistically Mayfair is the filter that attracts the most engagement. But don’t get hung up on that. We’re only talking a very minor advantage. What the most popular channels do though is use one filter consistently. When someone is exploring your channel for the first time and viewing your images in grid view, your posts will look more appealing if there isn’t a mix of image styles that clash with each other.

4. Stories and Live Video.

Everyone following you has a banner at the tippy top of their news feed, so make sure you’re up there and have great content to share! With stories, you have a semi-permanent block of time (24-hour period) that gives you a lot of flexibility in being topical or current. Both live video and stories let you be more unpolished than what you would post on your regular timeline, so you can focus more on what you’re sharing rather than how. Live video is especially great for engagement because followers who tap into your video can directly comment, so you can ask questions, stir discussion, and become a real living figure for your brand. Live video is great for showing processes and people will stick around to watch if you can promise a final product at the end of it.

5. Develop your brand Instagram strategy before you post and stay true to it.

Posting all willy-nilly may earn you a few ‘Hearts’ at first, but over time you’ll fall through the cracks without a solid foundation.

There is a lot more to social media than just posting and waiting for likes. Use the ideas here to develop a strategy that works for you. Create engagement with a large number of people, and subsequently build your business in the process.

Social media is a very new aspect of our businesses that have taken over significant parts of not only our marketing plans but also our personal lives. Major platforms battle for prominence and significance by adjusting their business models to provide better returns for their shareholders while intending to improve the user experience. As these systems develop, how you use these platforms for your business must change as well. Here are 10 social media challenges to face in 2018:

1. Keeping pace with changing algorithms and platform innovations.

Organic reach is the elephant in the room, because of its direct impact on budgets, but there are changes, advancements and opportunities across the social media spectrum. Some of those changes can be key to a platform’s effectiveness for a particular brand.

2. The Unstoppable Rise of Video.

You already know the importance of video in your social strategy, but there is one common mistake many marketers are tripping up on – making video just for the sake of having video. Many marketers overthink their video content and end up wasting time producing something that falls flat with their audience. Video is still one of the biggest social media challenges, though there are many simple yet effective solutions. Keep it simple yet captivating. Remember to grab emotion with your video content and make the messaging relevant to your audience’s problem and how you can solve it. Brainstorm a few scenarios where you can go live on Facebook to showcase your culture (which is also great evergreen content). Encourage your employees to share your posts on their personal socials and share on-the-job photos when applicable.

3. Social Media Return-on-Investment Monitoring.

Short-sighted social media vanity metrics will no longer cut it in 2018. It is time to let go of follower counts and page likes and instead focus on factors like customer service expenditures, brand perception monitoring, talent acquisition, supply chain analysis, and reputation risk management. Developing a social outreach strategy focused on ROI monitoring will require brands improve their analytics measuring if they hope to achieve ongoing success.

4. Higher Engagement Rates Between Brands & Customers.

Brands are suddenly realizing the impact of social media engagement and creating lasting relationships instead of just treating social as a platform to advertise their products. It’s absolutely essential to keep your followers happy by providing a network where they can reach you. According to Instagram, at least 80% of its users already follow a brand on the network. Don’t leave your golden chances for communication behind. In 2018, it’s going to continue to be about making relationships and providing feedback when users need it the most from you.

5. Proving the ROI of strategies.

Even when implementation goes flawlessly, effective measurement of your success is crucial. New tactics employed to meet platform changes are especially important to evaluate.

With so many new features on each social platform, how are you supposed to know which ones you really need to spend time getting familiar with? Many smaller brands are growing weary of the influx of new updates. No one can blame anyone. Everybody loves it, but everyone should understand that it is hard to keep up with social trends when you’re not in the thick of it every day.

Social media management software solves a huge problem for competitive businesses – stumbling over the commonness trap.  This means that they will not only help distribute content evenly, but get you acquainted with how that content is performing in front of different audiences. Basically, it sets up the basics of modern crowd-branding and helps you understand what works the best for your product, taking into consideration user personas and specifications you may not be aware of. Are you looking for a new social media management system, or upgrading to a better one? In order to help you make the right decision, we’ve listed the 5 leading social media management tools to watch out for in 2018.

1. Rocketium.

Visual content captures the most audience attention and is prioritized by many social media networks for delivery to your news feed. Regarding information mediums, video is king as the most engaging content type, which means if you’re not producing videos then you’re robbing yourself of audience interaction. Rocketium is an awesome choice to produce videos in a quick and alluring way. With an array of styling options and royalty-free visuals at your disposal, users can easily create stylized videos in minutes, no previous experience necessary! Here’s a plus: Rocketium allows users to share the same video in different dimensions, optimizing the content for various social media platforms.

2. Hootsuite.

The free plan is decently robust with the ability to: Manage 3 social profiles in one place, Schedule 30 posts in advance, Generate leads with social contests. The free plan also includes basic analytics for tracking followers and various growth and content statistics and two RSS feed integrations. Not too shabby!

3. SocialDrift.

Used by McDonalds, Sprint and major industry influencers with millions of followers, SocialDrift is an Instagram marketer’s best friend. The platform automates Instagram interactions, which help to organically increase follower count. Users just need to provide SocialDrift with information about ideal Instagram followers, and the platform will use machine learning to engage users through likes, comments and follows. Because of this engagement, users will frequently follow accounts in return. In time, SocialDrift can dramatically increase the number of high-quality Instagram followers through the platform’s Instagram bot, named Securebot.

4. AddThis.

AddThis is a social sharing and engagement tool found on many websites. It comes with share and follow buttons to easily distribute your content, boost your social media presence, and grow your audience. Aside from website marketing, AddThis provides valuable data on audience behavior: social engagement, number of people sharing your content, and where traffic comes from.

5. BuzzSumo.

Use it to research keywords and trending topics your audience is interested in. You can use it to find interesting new posts to share, or to search for content ideas based on what’s performing well. And, if you’ve got some extra cash to invest, BuzzSumo Pro is a powerhouse for competitor research.

Improve your social media marketing this year with a slew of new tools. Create content to promote your brand, engage with customers, and track your success.

For marketers, end of the year is the time where they measure and evaluate the effectiveness of their social media campaigns to see if their efforts have made a significant impact on their revenue. They may also be finalizing their social media strategy for the year to see if they are properly allocating their resources, while some are probably already looking into their marketing plan for the upcoming year. Our social media strategies are constantly evolving. We need to keep up with the trends and learn to ride with the changes. Just as technology and consumer behavior will evolve in unpredictable ways, we should be prepared for these new developments as these will change the way you connect with your audience. We must plan for these changes, so we do not get caught off guard when that time comes. While it’s hard to predict how the future of social media marketing will look like in the next 10 years, there are several trends that can be forecasted.
Here are some expert predictions on how of social media marketing will look like in the future:

1. “Hire” more chatbots and leap into the future of social media marketing.

You’ve seen them.  You go to a website, and almost immediately a person sends you a message asking if they can help you. But that person isn’t really a person; it’s a chatbot, programmed to interact with you Chatbots are arguably a big part of the future of social media technology, according to Shana Haynie, co-founder and COO of Vulpine Interactive, a social media marketing company based out of San Diego. “If businesses aren’t jumping on this bandwagon, they should be,” Haynie says. She is particularly impressed with Facebook Messenger chatbots. “People can easily opt-in to your messenger list, where you can set up simple, or extremely intricate, workflows to guide your subscribers towards your desired results,” Hayne says.

2. “When news breaks in the future, it will be covered by a multitude of eyewitnesses streaming live video.

These streams will knit together into a single immersive video, enabling the viewer to virtually experience the event in real time. For better or worse, the world will feel like it’s right around the corner.”- Cory Bergman, BreakingNews Co-Founder

3. Smart speakers.

Consumers are increasingly discovering new ideas, content, and products on smart speaker systems. In fact, most analysts project that the majority of search activities will be conducted through products like Alexa and Google Home. Since much of what we do in the world of social media and content marketing is geared toward helping people find our products, this is a vital trend. When we ask Alexa to find an answer, we don’t get a list of blog posts, videos, or research reports to choose from, we get the ANSWER. So this is a profound development for marketers.

4. Brands will exist across news feeds, stories (where possible), and within messenger services.

The intention isn’t to inundate, but to better integrate into the daily lives of their audience. Bots and virtual assistants for messenger services, or devices such as Amazon’s Echo, allows brands to be seamlessly present. This is happening today with Uber’s and Domino’s availability to take commands on the Echo, and with Harvard Business Review’s bot on Slack. It’s possible that Facebook will open up its M assistant to work with brands to empower more suggested activities based on the conversations users have on its Messenger app. – Kristine Neil, Owner and Creative Director for Markon Brands.

The most recent political cycle has exposed a lot of what was rotten in social media, making us all so constantly aware of what is wrong with ourselves and others that we barely have space in our heads for anything other than frustration and anxiety. If they’re smart, new social media platforms will understand that create a new kind of social networking, a kind that actually feels like a personal asset instead of a detriment.

Content and social media marketing is undoubtedly a remarkable idea for reaching maximum audiences and creating customer foundation. Yet creating social media content without having basic knowledge is somehow challenging as well as risky. Getting to know the base is important for establishing a sound structure. These laws are going to serve from enhancing the quality till increasing the quantity of your entries. This will not only serve brand and customers but also cater your ground needs.

1. Focus on Value.

There is a common misconception that businesses should only promote their products and services on social media. The problem with employing this promotional strategy is that eventually people will stop listening. Social media is all about the conversations, and to be successful, you must add value to them. Focus on creating amazing content that will connect and resonate with your target audience.

2. The Law of Relationships.

The most basic element of social media should be obvious from its name. What’s the atom, the most essential thing of which social media is made? Social relationships. In any decision you make, your first consideration should be: How will this affect my relationships? Will it strengthen the ones I already have? Build more of them? All the other laws of social media marketing are related to this first law.

3. The Law of Listening.

It’s a common misconception that social media marketing needs to be all talk to be effective – that you need to post more, be present in all social channels,and make “noise”. The truth is, successful social media marketing requires you to listen more and talk less.

4. The Law of Quality.

Take the time to build quality relationships with your followers. Ten thousand, or even fewer, followers who are truly interested in your brand and your message are more important that 100,000 followers who connect on a whim but who have little-to-no interest or commitment to your company. Build a solid core of devoted followers, and give them what they need to grow their numbers organically.

5. The law of sitting with patience.

Marketing is not a nightly miracle to boost you in no time. You need to be patient and tolerant. Social media and content marketing demand time in creating worth don’t lose your patience in a week or so. Remember in this competitive world, time investment is imminent.

6. Be patient.

Social media success will not happen overnight. To achieve real results, it will require dedication, consistency and patience.

7. The Law of Compounding.

You know that investing money over time leads to compound interest. You can make interest on the money you made as interest. Because social media marketing can increase its reach through social sharing, a similar phenomenon exists. Think of it as social compounding. You make good content and share it with your network. Then someone shares it with theirs, and then it turn it gets shared again because of that sharing. When it works, it really, really works.

8. The Law of Accessibility.

Social media’s greatest advantage is its interactivity. Don’t be a one-way street, just publishing content to your audience. Be available to them, respond to them, and interact with them.

9. The Law of Influencers.

The growth of social media has led to the rise of a new class of brand ambassador, the social media influencer. Influencers generally have large, dedicated groups of followers who serve as a ready-made audience for the product or service the influencer has decided to support. Take the time to discover the largest influencers in your business sector, and work to build a relationship with those influencers.

10. The law of acknowledging everyone.

Social media demands you to build strong relationships. Make sure when someone reaches you out personally you must acknowledge them. Consider that the most important one because they have reached out for you personally. Give this personalize contact, a valued regard.

Keep these laws in mind and never forget what social media’s purpose is all about: connecting people and building social relationships.

If you agree that the world is more connected than it was a few decades ago. Then bet you would win tons of money with your million dollar answer, the world is virtually connected on social networks. Strangely, though, the discovery has been gathering dust for a few years now; that businesses almost forgot the relevance of inhabiting social media sites. The discussion still rages on, however, on the significance of social media sites. Plainly, some entrepreneurs have been fortunate enough with social media while others can’t seem to get it right. Of course, you and I know that mounting a social media onslaught is not rocket science. But how comes the statistics don’t favor the larger population?  Let’s explore the top reasons why is social media important for business.

1. Affordable way to market your business.

When it comes to monetary investment for a business, social media is the most affordable way to generate quick revenue. They will give you a highly economical way to reach out the target consumers and increase brand awareness. So, any business tying its belts for marketing, social media is an affordable yet powerful option to thrive on. With a little budget, you cannot only build brand recognition but can enjoy the lucrative benefits in terms of: increased traffic, leads and ROI.

2. Allows you to go where the people are.

The three top social networks, Facebook, Youtube and Instagram, have over 3 billion monthly active users combined. That’s almost half of the entire earth’s population! Of course, your audience isn’t that large. But chances are that most of your audience is active on one or more of the major social networks. What’s the best way to get your business on people’s radars? Go where the people are and develop a presence and that place is social media!

3. Social media marketing helps to validate your brand.

A company’s social media presence, when done correctly, tells consumers that their brand is active and focused on thriving communication with consumers. 63% of consumers who search for businesses online are more likely to use ones with an informative social media presence.

4. Increased Brand Recognition.

Every opportunity you have to syndicate your content and increase your visibility is valuable. Your social media networks are just new channels for your brand’s voice and content. This is important because it simultaneously makes you easier and more accessible for new customers, and makes you more familiar and recognizable for existing customers. For example, a frequent Twitter user could hear about your company for the first time only after stumbling upon it in a newsfeed. Or, an otherwise apathetic customer might become better acquainted with your brand after seeing your presence on multiple networks.

5. Creating a loyal following.

Social media isn’t yet viewed as a marketing tool to most people. Your audience is more likely to be receptive to hearing about your business because they don’t view your post as an ad. People like being able to connect with others and by showing off your personality, you are putting a face to your brand.

Simply put, social media marketing is part of doing business in the new millennium. If your business isn’t already active on social networking sites, now is the time to start.

Social media is a key method for encouraging brand engagement, and in an increasingly dense online world, innovative and inventive means are required to generate that engagement. So whether you’re looking to increase brand awareness, build a customer database, or collect rich content, social media contests can be an effective way of achieving your marketing objectives. Here are 12 tips on running a successful social media contest:

1. Appeal to prospective customers, not just entrants.

The first step in creating a profitable social media contest campaign is designing one that’s attractive to your target market. Add labels to your contest copy to address your target audience. Tie your promotion to an event relevant to your target market. Choose prizes of value to your target market.

2. Start with the end in mind.

Before jumping into a social media contest, there are several important questions to ask: What are your marketing objectives? What is your budget? Where are you on the consumer engagement pyramid?

3. Review the terms of service.

Periodically the rules and regulations about contests and other promotions changes. Be sure to check the guidelines page before you launch your contest.

4. Define your goals. What do you want to gain from this contest?

It’s easy to determine what other people will want to win, but the real point of holding a contest is to gain something. Do you want more followers? To grow your email list? To gain more analytics resources to pitch to companies you want to partner with? Pick one or two goals and then build the design of the contest around achieving them. If you fail to do this, it’ll be impossible to determine the true value for your brand of holding a contest, which will reduce the potential benefit in the long run.

5. Considerations for hosting a contest.

When a company wants to host a successful contest, there are several things to consider. Almost all modern businesses can benefit from a well-designed contest, so we encourage everyone to take advantage of this free marketing move with proper preparation and strategy.

6. Set a clear goal for the contest.

Companies don’t run giveaways for no reason. There has to be a return on the investment (product or service being given away) for it to make business sense. The first step to hosting a successful contest is to identify the end goal and what the best avenue is for accomplishing that. The goal for many businesses is new followers, more email subscribers, or increased activity on social media sites. Entrepreneurs should also target specific platforms. To get your business noticed on a platform, consider creating a contest geared to those users.

7. Complying with the rules of the platforms.

Where do you want your contest to take place? Each platform has its own set of guidelines regarding contests and promotions. Familiarize yourself with them before making any major plans. One contest isn’t worth getting banned from the network altogether.

8. Choose what type of contest you want to have.

Sweepstakes contests are the easiest to enter, with the lowest barrier of entry. Photo or video contests with fan votes get the most engagement. Caption contests or quiz contests are other options. Winners can be randomly selected, picked by you or a panel of judges you select, or voted on by other readers.

9. Understand your audience.

Your target demographic and their social media behaviour will somewhat dictate their level of activity and engagement, so be sure to understand your audience in order to get the best results.

10. Offer an incentive for social sharing.

A great way to spread the reach of your contest and increase your social media following is through incentivized sharing and liking. The process is simple: give contest entrants an increased chance of winning in return for a share of the contest, a tweet, or a like of your social media page.

11. Consumer engagement model for promotions.

As you move up the pyramid, you’ll see a decrease in the number of participants but a deeper level of engagement and richer content. It’s also important to remember that the number of entries is not a sole benchmark of your promotion’s success. If you run a promotion with public voting, you’re likely to see at least 10 times the number of voters as entrants.

12. Set a S.M.A.R.T. goal.

A S.M.A.R.T. goal is one that’s specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely. Make sure you clearly define your contest’s goals before you start planning. Do you want to promote a new product? Grow your email list? Perhaps you’re looking to gather a bunch of user-generated content such as photos and videos.

Organizing a successful social media contest involves far more planning than many people realize when they initially decide to undertake such a task. In order to create an event that adds value for your existing audience, brings new people in, and increases your reputation, you’ll need to carefully consider each aspect of the process. Make it a fun, engaging, community building event, with an added bonus of possibly winning an awesome prize at the end, and everyone will walk away a winner.

In an attempt to boost its social media presence as part of a cross-channel campaign. If you are seeking increased engagement, likes, shares, and followers from your social media content, ask yourself what kind of content gives you the most value. By value we mean a return on investment (ROI). In other words, you want to invest in content that will provide a return on the money you spend. Otherwise, there’s little point in investing in social media content or management. Here are the different social media content types to choose from to delight your audience and bring the most value to your business.

1. Interactive content.

People often forget, but social media is two-way form of communication. We have the ability to interact with our followers in several different ways. What’s even more impressive is that within this interaction with our followers, we can gain valuable insight that can help us learn and improve for the future. You can have polls and quizzes as part of it.

2. User generated content.

UGC, also known as User-Generated Content, is a brilliant way to increase engagement and reach. It can also be the source of a warm-welcoming feeling for new and existing followers. Through user-generated content, they’ll see that you care about your audience and engage with them by sharing their created content.

3. Share Videos To Take Your Part Of The 100+ Million Hours Watched On Social Media Every Day.

Facebook users alone watch 100 million hours of video every single day. And 82% of Twitter users watch video on that network. It’s safe to say that sharing videos will help you engage your fans and followers.

4. Visual media.

People engage with visual content better than non-visual content. Tweets with images receive 150% more retweets than tweets without images. Likewise, Facebook posts with images see 2.3X more engagement than those without images. It is evident that images receive more likes, shares and comments. You can incorporate images into your social media content calendar. Ensure your images are relevant to your post and always use high-quality images, whether using stock images or your own images. Whether using humorous memes, educational infographics, quirky illustrations, or simply photographs, get creative and experiment with what works best to reflect your brand values and resonate with your audience.

5. Questions are also good.

How do you start conversations in real life? Generally by asking questions. The same works on social media. Keep it business related for the most part, but include some topical questions too.

6. Educational content.

A study by BuzzSumo and OkDork discovered that long-form content gets more social shares than short-form. They found that educational content, especially infographics, receive a lot of shares, along with how-to and list-type posts. The New York Times also found that readers were more likely to email longer articles than shorter ones. Types of content you can use include free resources, video training, infographics, FAQs, industry research, case studies, tips and tricks, and how-to posts.

7. Incentive content.

Who doesn’t like free stuff? Incentives are a great way to drive engagement when done right. By offering an incentive in exchange for more engagement, you may not see sales right away, but it is a long-term play. A long-term play where you can get more followers and viewers, which you can sell to later. It also gives the participants a chance to become a true fan of your brand. Some people have great content, but they struggle to distribute. Incentives are a great way to fix this issue and get your content across more eyes. You can use giveaways and contests to go with this one.

8. Podcasts.

Podcasts have been around for a very long time, but recently they’ve gained momentum. Some say they are the new radio (since they are on-demand). Due to how popular they are, and the benefits of doing them, you should focus on marketing your podcast to get more listeners.
9. Tag Your Guest Bloggers Or People You’ve Quoted In Your Social Messages. It’s human nature to want to be recognized for doing something amazing. So tag the peeps you want to recognize in the social messages you write.

10. Datejacking.

Datejacking is a new concept developed by Bowler Hat. Inspired by newsjacking, in which you inject your brand into the day’s news and jump on the popularity of current stories, Datejacking involves creating content that taps into the interest of a given date.
These types of posts will generally help you increase your engagement, no matter how much your spend or don’t spend on advertising on social media. Have you tried any? What works for you?

The wonderful world of Twitter has unlocked business opportunities for almost every type of user – from emerging artists, celebrities, big brands, news sources, and (most importantly for you) B2B marketers. With the mission to give users the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, this social media platform allows B2B marketers to better connect, converse and engage their audiences. Twitter offers B2B marketers the chance to attract prospects, interact and engage with clients, increase brand awareness, better understand their audience and much more. But, what’s the “much more”?

1. Twitter chats.

Networking and speaking with other people from within your respective industry is key for growing your online presence. Twitter chats give you the ability to speak with peers, customers, and thought leaders in an organized way.

2. Share control

One way to ensure a steady flow of messages from your company Twitter account is to employ not one, but multiple users to represent the brand. Doing so extends the amount of content and conversations from one person’s view, to multiple people’s views and ideas. In addition, having multiple people messaging on Twitter will insure an ongoing, steady stream of tweets  in the event a team member transitions to a different role/company.

3. Position your company as a thought leader.

If you have any employees who are considered industry experts, give them some Twitter love when they speak at conferences, publish an article or blog post, or get recognized for an award. Tweet links to current news in your industry. This shows you stay up-to-date and know what’s going on outside your own four walls. Tweet content that makes you look smart and well-connected.

4. Identify and engage influencers.

There are many ways that B2B marketers can use Twitter to find influencers and start interacting with them to establish valuable relationships. Twitter Search has really stepped up its game when it comes to filtering and being able to sort through more than 300 million users. There are also third party tools that you can use to find influences in your industry. Once these influencers are identified, follow them and start getting noticed by liking their tweets and replying to them on a regular basis.

5. Understand your audience.

After identifying your target audience, it’s time to start interacting with them. However to ensure that your efforts are fostering engagement, it’s important you truly understand your audience and create a plan that is focused on content that they want to see.

6. Timing is everything.

Understand the specific days and times your company’s messages are more likely to be read and shared.  If, for instance, analytics indicates that your community tends to retweet and share content more frequently early in the day, or early in the week, time your most compelling content to hit the stream during those times.

All work and no play makes your Twitter feed a dull read. Don’t be afraid to have a little fun. Try a weekly impossible quiz, a photo bomb, employee-of-the-week photo, customer-of-the-week, a weekly poll, fill-in-the-blank, etc. The possibilities are endless. The key is to be consistent. If you start doing a customer-of-the-week recognition tweet, you have to commit to doing it every week. Get creative!

Facebook has come along way since its debut in 2004, especially when it comes to the Facebook Advertising platform. Facebook has almost single-handedly turned paid social media marketing into a cornerstone of modern digital marketing tactics. In the next year to come, all can expect Facebook to evolve in deeper ways. These evolutions include both new features and shifts in the way business will be able to use Facebook ads to reach prospects.
Here are the most important Facebook advertising trends for 2018. With them, you can improve your marketing funnel and hopefully find more leads than ever in the coming year.

1. MOO. The bright Facebook ad design immediately catches people’s attention + the ad’s headline says clearly what it is they’re selling. When creating Facebook ad images, it’s always a good idea to use an original photo or animation, it’s an easy way to catch people’s attention and show off your branding.

2. Create colorful ad images. If you think about the Facebook newsfeed, it’s full on photos and dull ads. Creating a colourful ad that pops into people’s eyes is the best way to earn their attention. Research shows that people make up their minds within 90 seconds of their initial interaction with people or products. About 62‐90% of their assessment is based on colors alone. The New York Times is constantly testing new Facebook ad colours to avoid ad fatigue and appeal to more people. And you don’t even need hardcore Photoshop skills to do it.

3. The importance of video ads. Mobile audiences eat up video more hungrily than ever. Altogether, Facebook users watch over 100 million hours of video a day. As a result of their demand and improvements in video players, there is an explosion in both paid and organic video content. On average, videos on Facebook get 135% more organic reach than photos. Your business can potentially improve both its organic reach and engagement on paid posts by creating more promotional assets as videos. Making the switch does not have to be expensive or painful either. With just a few Facebook video ads, you can improve engagement and prospecting. You also help people remember your messaging since people remember video almost seven-times better than they do text.

4. Pipedrive. The in-image copy makes sure the most important copy gets immediately seen + a CTA button hints people can click on the ad. Pipedrive’s SaaS Facebook ad also makes it easy to understand what product they’re selling, it’s made loud and clear in the ad image, main text, headline, and link description.

5. Use highly contrasted colors. A study by UsabilityTools showed that using highly contrasting landing page call-to-actions resulted in 75% higher click-through rate, compared to a low-contrast CTA. Higher contrasts help to draw more attention to your ad. But sometimes, the contrast you’re looking for isn’t the one between ad elements. You can also create Facebook ads that contrast with the entire newsfeed.

6. Carousel ads can use multiple images, multiple offers, or multiple USPs in one go, providing a richer experience and a more compelling CTA.

7. MindTitan. This ad example uses the carousel format that lets you add up to 10 images into a single ad (the perfect way of showcasing your products / telling a story) + the ad’s design has an eye-catching contrast to it. You can use Facebook carousel ads to tell a story, showcase your products, or list the benefits to customers (as MindTitan’s ad does).

8. Create ads that contrast with the entire newsfeed. Sure, there are other aspects that might have contributed to the light ad’s success. However, as everyone kept using this ad design with new ad copy and CTAs, it returned awesome results for months to come.

9. Slideshow ads use lightweight video to load faster and intrude less on the browsing experience. They can be a great transition for small businesses looking to create more video.

Now, you don’t need to worry about your target audience seeing the same ad design over and over again. They’ll only see each design a couple of times, extending your Facebook campaign’s lifetime by multiple weeks.