*Hootsuite.com: Evolution of social media 2014

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*qmee.com: online in 60 seconds 2014

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Visual content is still on a growing trend. Vine, Snapchat, Hyperlapse, Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, they all prove that social video is here to stay and holding two major benefits for brands: 1, Audio-visual storytelling is emotionally compelling so share your story and display your products; 2. Vloggers are a great way of getting your message in front of your audience. But don’t collaborate with influencers only, common users produce a lot of content too.

There’s a big spike in short videos. They are meant to: Target the right audience; Share the right information under a short time; Provide value and brand visibility.

Social commerce already took some big steps forward in 2014. And some more is yet to come. We saw increased efforts to simplify the social network-driven buying process for online shoppers with both Twitter and Facebook pioneering the testing of “Buy” CTA buttons.

Allowing users to purchase directly on networking sites is the must next step. However, there is a trap in opening this new streamlined sales channel. Social media is about customer engagement and building genuine relationships. So you need to master these two before to engage in social media sales.

The social advertising trend from 2014, which saw a large set of improvements to the advertising and conversion traking in Facebook, Snapchat’s first ad, video ads on Instagram, auto-play video ads on Facebook and a greater variety of Twitter cards, will continue in 2015.

In addition to new and enhanced social advertising channels, we should also expect to see exciting new ways of firmly integrating social advertising with brands’ data bases and strategies for advanced and contextual targeting.

All of us advertisers and social media marketers felted this year. Facebook is forever changing their policies and this makes advertising even harder. With Facebook depending so much on advertisement, the cost will go skyrocket in no time.

Facebook has a database of over 1 billion users across the world and tons of hours spend by those on the social network. So yes, they have the upper hand in this case, holding your consumers online.

Mobile means always with your consumer. Wherever he is, you are, provided there’s mobile signal in there. Mobile lets brands create compelling micro moments at different stages of the purchase journey, be it through SMS, push notifications or in-app product recommendations. Retailers should put mobile at the core of their marketing activities reaching their customers with timely and highly contextual messages on a one-to-one basis.

Studies show a worldwide mobile penetration of 93% and major social networks are constantly improving their mobile presence. Social websites and apps being among the most used features on mobile so 2015 will inevitably see optimized web and social media sites as a must strategy.

Remember those days where we could just repeat the same content (for advertising) over and over again? Ditch this idea in 2015. This won’t help you business.

Take an example of Facebook. A new algorithm will be rolled out in January 2015 where advertisers who are constantly promoting the same content will be have a lower reach. Indirectly, companies will need to make sure the right message rolls out to the right audience at the right time. Yup, three “rights” in one sentence.

We know how powerful Instagram I has become and with the recent achievement of hitting the 300 million mark, you know they are not stopping anytime soon.

Backed by Facebook, Instagram is expected to be number one in image-based social marketing. If your brand is empowered by image, consider being in Instagram as it is going to grow massively in 2015.

If your target market is the business industry, you need to get involved in LinkedIn …now! Over the past few years, LinkedIn is growing rapidly in the business niche and 2015 will be no different. They are going to dominate and widen the gap in B2B, as well as B2C industries.

Do you know why Facebook is creating Facebook at Work services? Because even the largest social network has its eyes open to B2B. And because such networking means laser-targeted audiences, especially in the business niche.

Social media in 2015 will be about relevancy over quantity. Many of the updates by various social media channels in 2014, have been focusing on relevancy. Social media in the coming years will be all about sharing the right information at the right time and to the right people.

That’s why Facebook and Twitter have tested trending feeds to be visible on the timeline. We are not there yet, but there is way too much spam on social media and the only way to remove the noise is by creating algorithms, content agendas, communication strategies based on relevancy.

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Use this to your brand’s advantage. Keeping track of how people behave online, how they’re browsing, social networking, shopping, planning, researching, what they like, what they hate, where they check-in, what they post about. This is the most important piece of intelligence that should always guide your social media marketing choices.

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