Social Media is ever changing and the strategies that businesses use to market with these platforms are always changing as well. Businesses that stay on top of social media trends and are early adopters of new features and strategies stand out in the already very crowded marketplace that is social media. Here are four social media trends you need to know in order to stay ahead of your competition.

Chatbots

Customers are increasingly likely to turn to social media when they need to interact with your business whether that’s to seek out customer support, complain about something relating to one of your products, or just to find out information about your business. Businesses that can afford it pay someone (or teams of people) to monitor social media profiles around the clock to participate in these interactions. This is where chatbots come in. The majority of the social media platforms today support the deploying of chatbots across their messaging platform. Chatbots are essentially computer programs that you can create to simulate the experience of chatting with a live person. They won’t completely replace your need for humans monitoring your social media profiles (they’ll still need to respond to comments on posts) and handle the more difficult questions and problems, but a chatbot can be there 24/7 and can chat with dozens of customers at once. When a person clicks onto one of your social media pages, a chatbot can initiate a chat session offering to answer any questions. From there your chatbot can answer some of the most frequently asked questions and resolve simple issues completely unaided.

Mobile-focused

Many social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat are designed to be used exclusively for mobile devices and even social media sites like Facebook that were created before smartphones and tablets have adapted to be primarily mobile-based platforms. With this in mind, your social media marketing strategy needs to adopt a mobile-first approach. Assume that your audience is using a mobile device to visit your page, read, comment on, and share your posts. Some good strategies to keep in mind for a mobile approach to social media marketing is to keep sentences concise and to emphasize visual elements over textual ones. Mobile users are less likely to delve into a long blog article on their mobile device but may click through several images with short captions. A direct call to action (such as asking people to “like” and share are especially effective for mobile users.

Multiple platforms

Facebook tends to be the one social media platform that every marketing expert agrees on. You need a business page on Facebook. But don’t stop there. Different types of audiences use different platforms. Not all of them will be right for your brand, but several different ones might be. Don’t shy away from using multiple platforms that have a lot in common. Instagram may have copied a lot off of Snapchat but each platform will have plenty of users that don’t use the other so you can cast a wider net by using all of the platforms that your audience is using.

Video content

Many social media platforms are now trying to prioritize video content. That means when you post videos, they’re more likely to be seen, commented on, and shared with friends. Another great thing about video is that many of your competitors aren’t using it. If you’re apprehensive about creating your own video content, don’t be. Videos need not be professionally produced and edited and you don’t have to spend a fortune. Something as simple as using a smartphone to livestream a tutorial or product announcement is sufficient and will really help you to stand out.