What social media trends should schools be paying attention to in 2018?
Social media marketing is changing at a rapid pace. To succeed in social media, it’s essential to stay at the forefront of change and understand the latest social media trends. Here are 8 of the top major trends you need to know to be a successful school marketer in 2018.
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Mobile device use continues to grow
The trend of people using smartphones and tablets to access the internet continues to climb. Facebook studied the behavior of 100 people while they were watching TV at home. 94 of them had their smartphone in their hand while watching TV. The majority of social media users are using apps on their smartphone.
How should school marketers leverage this trend? Make sure your content is mobile-friendly, and your images (and videos) are the right size for viewing on a phone.
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Social messaging
Social messaging is the next transformational shift that’s happening in the social media marketing space. It has already surpassed people using social media. According to Business Insider, there are more people using the top 4 social messaging apps (Messenger, WhatsApp, WeChat, and Viper) than the number of people using the top 4 social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn). That’s mind-blowing!
Social messaging offers a lot of opportunities for school marketing because it’s become a common way for people to communicate. Think about how you can use the power of social messaging for your marketing efforts.
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Social messaging advertising
Social messaging is helping brands connect with their customers more than ever. Consumers are using messaging to ask questions, make appointments and provide feedback. In order to take advantage of this trend, Facebook has introduced three new ways for brands to market to potential customers – Click-to-Messenger ads, Click-to-WhatsApp ads, and a new Facebook ad objective, Messages.
Is social messaging a part of your marketing outreach plan?
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Chatbots
OK, I could feel that shudder. We all cringe when we think of communicating with a chatbot. However, chatbots are becoming more sophisticated and easily customizable. They can be used for a wide variety of purposes, allowing brands to automate and scale many cost-saving processes. Research has indicated that chatbots are expected to save brands up to $8 billion every year by 2022.
You can use chatbots to:
- Deliver your content
- Help your parents find the most relevant content
- Engage participants during an event
- Generate high-quality inquiries
- Re-engage potential families
- Connect with your audience on a one-to-one basis
- Provide speedy problem-solving and customer support
Convinced? Maybe give it a try and see how well it works for your marketing program.
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Organic reach is plummeting
Social media is fast becoming an engagement channel.
This is probably not news to you, but the statistics verify it – organic reach has fallen by 50 percent in the last year. Social media marketing is much more a tool for engaging with your audience and building your brand than generating inquiries or enrollments.
What does this mean for schools? Take advantage of this trend by focusing on increasing your social media engagement. Be more strategic and focus your efforts to engage your audience. And they will love you for it!
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Video is still popular
There’s no denying it. Video is the most popular type of content. In fact, video is viewed twice as often as other types of content on social media. Plan to invest more money and time creating videos for your school. Learn more about creating amazing videos for your school here.
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People love user-generated content
This is a BIG win for school marketing! Tap into the power of your students and their families for user-generated content. By doing this, you are encouraging more customers to post about their brands on social media, thereby increasing your school’s reach.
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Schools are investing in social advertising
In order to combat falling organic reach and boost social media marketing, schools are turning to social media advertising. There are over 6 million Facebook advertisers (not just schools) and 2 million Instagram advertisers – and those numbers are rising daily. Social media spending has been on the rise, growing more than 20 percent annually. The high growth of social media advertisers and ad spend is a strong indication of the effectiveness – and necessity – of social media ads for schools.
As the major social media platforms continue to grow and add more features, the social media landscape will continue to evolve. I hope that, by sharing these current social media trends, you can stay ahead of the curve and have great success marketing for your school on social media.
What social media trends have you noticed? Please comment below.
