Expert Opinions: Why is Social Media Marketing Important in 2015?

With 2014 coming to an end, it’s time to evaluate how different marketing strategies worked throughout the year and how we should change them in 2015 to work better, as well as what predictions we have for the future of marketing, specifically social media. It should be no surprise for you to hear that social media marketing isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. So, why is social media important in 2015?

Sure, over the past year we heard things like Facebook is dead and social media doesn’t really help your business's profits, but those all turned out to be wrong. Predictions are exactly that, predictions and sometimes they don’t follow through.

Check out these stats from Marketing Tech Blog that shows just how important social media marketing was in 2014 and will continue to be:

• Social networking is the top online activity in the US, with the average American spending 37 minutes per day
• 46 percent of web users look toward social media when making a purchase
• 3 in 5 small businesses say they’ve gained new customers by using social media
• 67 percent of Twitter users are far more likely to buy from the brands they follow on Twitter

My personal predictions for social media marketing in 2015:

• Facebook will yet have another big algorithm change and businesses will freak out
• Buying ads on Facebook will become more expensive and restrictive
• Twitter will make buying ads easier, more applicable to small businesses
• Buying products through social media rather than through a businesses' website will become more common, acceptable
• Google+ will turn into something else, because no one uses or likes Google+ (opps, did I say that out loud?)

Here are some opinions from the industries top social media marketers, filling you in on what they think will happen in 2015 with social media. To read even more opinions [which I highly encourage you to do] continue onto the original article.

The Future of Social Media: How Will It Impact Marketing, Sales, and Customer Service? 

Posted by Vignesh Subramanyan, Business 2 Community 

1. Xavier Major, CEO of Popular Media Consulting, LLC – @xavier_major

Social media will change how we do business, marketing and sales with the continued improvement of socials ads and open graph searches like search.twitter.com. Facebook will learn more about their users for ad targeting. Social selling via native ads and open searches on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Linkedin will be the new trend as these platforms grow in 2015. Community management and customer service will move to social as it’s a cost effective way to handle questions, support issues and delight customers with high transparency.

2. Ty Swartz, CEO of Chief’s Touch Consulting – @ChiefsTouch 

Companies failing on social media will realize that social communication is a valid form of inbound marketing when they create content designed specifically to their customer personas. This along with targeted Facebook advertising will have previously unsuccessful small business social media communications seen and heard by qualified customers looking for companies offering personalized solutions.

3. Drew Larison, Social Media Marketing Director at Web Success Agency – @MrDrewLarison

Focus on mobile more than ever before. Every day social media apps are dominating the eyeballs of your customers. Make sure that you are on the platforms you need to be on and also make sure you are learning how to communicate well on those apps. 

4. Reed Berglund, CEO of FullBottle – @FullBottlegroup

We are seeing early indications that rising social video platforms i.e. Vine are providing effective alternative to adwords and Facebook advertising. There are still attribution issues utilizing these platforms, but all the players involved (Twitter/Vine, Facebook/Instagram, WeChat, Line, KIK, and Snapchat) are working very hard to create infrastructure necessary for tracking attribution.

2015 will be the year of systems alignment across social video. This will enable small businesses to reduce their acquisition costs by leveraging influencer advertising at scale.

5. Jasmine Bina, CEO of J.B. Communications – @jbcomms

I think companies that are smart enough to find and reach their target audiences in niche social media sites will have big wins. It can feel like a risk to invest resources in a small, unproven social platform – but if your people are gathering there instead of Facebook or Twitter, then that’s where you need to be.

6. Andrew Herrault, Lead Strategist at Connective Insights – @ConnectiveSEO

Social media will become a larger focus for advertising investment, especially with the news that Facebook will now block free adverts. This will force businesses to focus energy on maintaining the ROI of social media, as opposed to merely observing the vanity metrics (reach, likes, etc). Vanity metrics are good, but ROI determines the viability of a sustainable marketing channel.

7. Kevin Deegan, CTO of ON.com – @ONisfun

As mobile continues to grow, it’s clear it is the future of social media. Young users crave social media that is more specific to their needs, and offers basic functions that are mobile-friendly, a need which niche apps readily meet. With need-specific apps growing in popularity over the last year, it’s obvious that 2015 will bring even more apps to quell even the quirkiest user desires.

[Continue Reading Original Article: The Future of Social Media: 25 Experts Share Their 2015 Predictions]

What are your predictions for the future of social media marketing in 2015? Why will social media still be important for business?

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