A social media strategy is as integral to any organization or business as a solid HR policy or an advertising strategy. It is impossible to conduct business without some sort of path that includes social media. However, the social media landscape is constantly changing with new features to the most commonly used platforms. Therefore, your social media strategy should be flexible. Here are the 5 latest trends to include in your strategy.

Video cover on Facebook

Everybody on Facebook has a cover picture, but not everyone has a video as their cover. Brands are slowly realizing that the cover on their business profile is a great way to make an impression on a potential customer. The video can a short introduction of your brand or it can be about a new product or service or a just a general video about what you offer.

Live videos

Live videos are becoming more and more common these days. Viewers are tuning in to see what their favorite brands are up to. The video continues to grow as the most popular medium on all social media platforms. You can chat with customers, involve them in the launch of a new product or get them to ask questions to celebrity visitors via live video. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram offer this feature to all users.

Use the ads feature

The three pillars of social media, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram also offer paid or sponsored ads. These ads allow you to reach your target audience at very cost-effective rates. As social media continues to see an increase in users, it is worth the time and money invested to use the ads feature to increase the reach of your brand. From age group to regions to shopping and music preferences, brands are able to reach the perfect target audience.

Stories

Not many brands make use of the stories feature available on Facebook and Instagram. This should change. Keep users engaged with behind the scenes pictures and videos, or sneak peeks into new reveals, etc. Snapchat started this trend and Facebook and Instagram continue to integrate it into their platform as well. Stories are a great way to connect with users on a personal basis.

Cross-platform promotion

So does your brand have multiple social media platforms? It is essential to share the same content on all your platforms in order to maintain uniformity and reach your entire social media audience. A live video on Instagram can be shared as a post on Facebook and can also be uploaded to YouTube and shared on Twitter. Cross-platform promotion of content ensures you reach the maximum possible people.

Social media is quite fluid. Trends keep changing and so do the features. So just like teens, brands need to stay updated with everything happening on social media to leverage these features for their benefit. With a list of these new features, we hope you will allow your social media strategy to be flexible enough to include all these new features. You have to keep up with the changing times if you want to stay relevant in the market.