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Social media changes to watch out for in 2018

As we enter the second half of 2018, we’ve already seen a number of changes on social media platforms in recent months. What these social media changes mean for your social media marketing efforts will vary, but we’ll provide some guidance on how to capitalize on these modifications to each social channel.

  1. Facebook News Feed and Ads Manager– Facebook has seen some of the most marked social media changes in 2018, with a major shake-up in both attitudes and algorithms earlier in the year. In a bid to emphasize connections and relationships, the News Feed now shows users fewer posts from businesses and the media, and more posts from friends, family and groups. The platform has also been rolling out more content from local news sources, in an effort to counter the spread of “fake news.” All of this combined does make it tougher for marketers to reach an audience on Facebook, which makes getting your social media campaign right all the more important. Look to create high quality and finely tailored content, with a direct and relevant call to action. Fortunately, recent changes to Facebook Ads Manager – including the launch of dynamic creative– make it easier than ever to experiment with your Facebook ads and learn what gets the best results.
  1. LinkedIn Groups– Depending on the nature of your company, business networking site LinkedIn may not be the most obvious go-to place to deploy your social media However, the platform is used by over 500 million professionals globally and has been ranked in at least one marketing survey as the number one social media platform for business-to-business lead generation. LinkedIn has refreshed a number of its features recently, and perhaps one of the most significant is that content from LinkedIn Groups is now accessible from the homepage, where it will appear in the news feed and notifications. The new search features in LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator also make it easier to access information on customers and leads. The changes to Groups and Sales Navigator combined make it that much easier to utilize LinkedIn for social media marketing efforts, and particularly for B2B marketing.
  1. Instagram hashtags–One of the most positive social media changes for marketers in recent months has been Instagram introducing the ability to follow hashtags. Since they were first introduced on Twitter, hashtags have been an excellent way for businesses to boost the discoverability of social media content, and this change on Instagram is potentially very good news for anyone who uses the platform for social media The change means that in addition to just using hashtags, businesses can now follow their own brand’s hashtags to see what others are saying about them – this is also a great opportunity for brand engagement with existing or potential customers.

The past few months have seen a lot of social media change – and that’s par for the course in the constantly evolving ecosystem of online social platforms. Keeping up with the changes and – perhaps more importantly – being agile and responsive to the challenges and opportunities that these changes represent, is crucial if you want to maintain an edge over your competitors.

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