When Shama Kabani Hyder published her book The Zen of Social Media Marketing in 2010, she got an email from a potential customer. "Is it available on the iPad?" he asked. "You mean that device that came out yesterday?" she replied. "Yes," he said.
Customers keep raising the bar on what they expect from businesses, said Hyder, founder and CEO of the The Marketing Zen Group, to the crowd during a breakout session at Inc.'s 2014 Growth conference in Nashville. And businesses have to work even harder to meet those expectations.
In the talk, titled “Digital Foresight: 7 Pivotal Trends Every Leader Must Know,” Hyder shared her advice for companies navigating the ever-changing world of social media. Here are the trends she says you need to follow:
1. Idea-Based Ecosystems
The primary reason people use social media is to showcase their own identities, said Hyder. "It's essentially a giant selfie," she said. This is why a local cupcake shop will get more Facebook likes than a local construction company. "It's a reflection of who I am," Hyder explained. Any time you can tie your brand to the identity of the customer, you'll have a win on your hands.
2. Content Curation and Aggregation
In recent years, people have gone from information hunger to information overload, said Hyder. "People would almost rather give out their social security number than their email address," she joked. But if you can become the go-to source for relevant information on a specific topic, customers will seek you out, said Hyder, pointing to examples such as Upworthy and Pinterest.
3. Video Sells
Internet users are more likely to finish a 30-minute video than they are an article, said Hyder. "If you're not using online video, you're missing a big part of your audience," she said. Plus, customers are increasingly making purchases directly through videos, she said. Some examples: a new service called Insay and Target's "Falling for You" video campaign. "Everything in that video you could click on and buy," said Hyder.
4. The 4-Screen Revolution
Consumers frequently use multiple devices at once--TV, mobile phone, laptop, and tablet. "In 10 years that might be one device," said Hyder, "but in the next two to five years, I actually expect an increase in the number of devices we are using at once." For companies, the challenge is to find ways to interact with users on multiple screens-;and to cope with ever-shrinking attention spans.
5. Decoding Digital Signals
Hyder emphasized the importance of using analytics to understand customers and how best to reach them. "If 50 percent of your traffic is from mobile, and your website isn't optimized for mobile phones," she said, "You're going to lose half of your traffic."
6. Social Literacy Is Required
All of your employees need to be social media savvy, not just the social media team. Each individual should be a creator, curator, and connector, and organizations should focus on agility, aggregation, and adaptability. Above all, people should be posting content that is relevant to the customer. "You don't want to be like the person on Facebook who only shares updates about their dog," she said.
7. The Power of Reverse-Engineering
Hyder recommended that companies look beyond their own niches and industries when it comes to marketing ideas. Sometimes a company in an entirely different industry will have a great marketing tactic that none of your competitors have considered.
