5 TRENDS THAT WILL CHANGE HOW COMPANIES USE SOCIAL MEDIA IN 2016

By Massawe Arkadi

Adult users now consume a total of 66 minutes of online video every day. Facebook is preparing to roll out features like Suggested Videos and maybe even a dedicated video feed, and Snapchat Stories are growing ever more popular and feature-rich. Little wonder that 70% of companies now say video is the most effective tool in their online marketing belts, and two out of three businesses expect it to dominate their strategy going

1. SOCIAL NETWORKS STORM THE WORKPLACE

 Slack has proven a game-changer, attracting more than 1.25 million active business users in just two years' time and now has a cohort of competitors going after a piece of that pie. Meanwhile, Facebook is gunning to roll out Facebook At Work sooner rather than later. 03 /06 | 2. COMPANIES TURN TO EMPLOYEES FOR AMPLIFICATION

2016 will see companies turn increasingly to an underused resource in the effort to get the word out: their own employees. Employee social advocacy programs, which encourage staff to share updates about the business on their own social media accounts, have grown by 191% since 2013 and are due to take off in the year ahead.

3. COMPANIES WADE INTO SOCIAL MESSAGING

There are nearly 4 billion global active users of messaging apps, from WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger to WeChat and Kik. And while messaging’s huge potential remains largely untapped by businesses, 2016 may well be the year that analytics and insights become more readily available, allowing companies to develop full-fledged strategies for the space.

 4. SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING HITS ITS STRIDE

Companies ramped up social media advertising in 2015, with spending increasing 33.5% to nearly $24 billion—a figure that's all the more impressive because just a few years ago, that number was $0. By 2017, social media ads may account for a full 16% of all digital ad spend globally.

 5. SOCIAL VIDEO EATS THE WORLD

Adult users now consume a total of 66 minutes of online video every day. Facebook is preparing to roll out features like Suggested Videos and maybe even a dedicated video feed, and Snapchat Stories are growing ever more popular and feature-rich. Little wonder that 70% of companies now say video is the most effective tool in their online marketing belts, and two out of three businesses expect it to dominate their strategy going forward.

utshell—do business. And that wave hasn’t even begun to crest.