THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

What Top 20 Experts Think!

We asked 20 experts, 5 questions regarding the future of Social Media Marketing:

  1. What are the primary strategies you use to engage with your social media followers?
  2. Which are your favorite Social Media Marketing tools?
  3. What are your boldest predictions for The Future of Social Media Marketing?
  4. Which are the new social media platforms you expect will build momentum?
  5. Do you believe social media channels will increasingly become "pay-to-play" for marketers?

The future of Social Media Marketing according to Shonali Burke, CEO at Social PRbiz

SHONALI BURKE

CEO at Social PRbiz Twitter: @shonali
Organic and earned media are way too important and impactful; there have got to be some things that can't be bought.
Your primary engagement strategies?
The best way to engage - for me, or for anyone - is to be useful. That means providing helpful information of my own, curating other great information... and in general being of service.

So, to make sure I'm being as useful as possible, I try to listen to what's going on and what people are asking for because then I can help provide it to them. I try to respond as frequently as possible, and I try to showcase others who are doing great work.
Your favourite Social Media Marketing tools?
It really depends on what the need is; I use a range of tools for different purposes. Some of those I use frequently are Post Planner, Buffer, Pablo, and HootSuite.
Your biggest prediction for Social Media Marketing?
Do predictions always need to be bold? ;)

We are seeing pay-to-play options increase and become more common. It takes guts to focus on organic growth, but the latter tends to be much more impactful. So I don't know if this is a prediction as such, but regardless of how much play "pay-to-play" gets, organic isn't dying any time soon.
The next up-and-coming social media platform?
Blab. It's easy to use, superfun, engaging, and extremely useful.
Will SMM become increasingly pay-to-play?
I think "pay to play" will remain an element of social media marketing, and probably grow more market/mind share as well. But I don't think it will take over. Organic and earned media are way too important and impactful; there have got to be some things that can't be bought.
RankWatch RankWatch crackitt