A Surprisingly Non-Tech 2019 Social Media Trend

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‘Tis the season for social media trends for the coming year.

For what’s ahead in 2019, I read several articles. Expecting to see a preponderance of tech-related trends – such as artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and new platforms – I was surprised to conclude that the biggest trend is decidedly non-technical.

But let’s start at the beginning, with some of what I read and the three key trends I took away from it. My perspective on trends has to do with how they will help you grow your career and/or your company in the year ahead.

Worth a read or a listen on your own are the following:

7 Marketing Trends for 2019 (That Are Here to Stay) from Sumo

13 Social Media Experts Share Their Biggest Piece of Marketing Advice from the Buffer podcast The Science of Social Media

11 Content Creation Hacks: Strategies & Tools to Take Your Social Media to the Next Level – the most popular 2018 episode from The Science of Social Media podcast according to its listeners

Planning Your 2019 Social Media Calendar? 13 Tactics to Step Up Your Game from the Forbes Agency Council

Top 5 Social Media Trends for 2019 (And How Brands Should Adapt) from Hootsuite

From those sources and more, here are my three big takeaways for 2019 trends.

First, video continues its explosive growth. By 2021, video traffic is forecasted to be 81% of all traffic on the Internet. This is according to Cisco, in the 7 Marketing Trends for 2019.

The article has great stats on how Google searches more and more are including video. So not only is video a great way to make your content more discoverable, it’s increasingly the way people prefer to consume information.

Keep it short, under 30 seconds or so. Shoot vertical video. Experiment with documenting the non-proprietary parts of your work days to see what resonates the most with your networks.

Second, Instagram Stories are a must. Related to the ongoing video trend, Stories are “now growing 15 times faster than feed-based sharing” in Instagram, according to Hootsuite’s Top 5 Social Media Trends. In the next year, Stories will “surpass feeds as the primary way people share things.”

If you’re not yet using Stories to showcase what you’re doing in your work life, this is the year to experiment. Going to a conference? Giving a talk? Delivering on a big (non-proprietary) project? Volunteering in the community? These and many more are perfect for sharing in Stories.

To get started, begin viewing stories from others to see what resonates with you. Approach Stories with a learning mindset and have some fun by experimenting with the various features. Here’s a great guide from Hubspot to getting started with Stories and making them like a pro.

Third, social media success is all about quality content. Whether the form is videos, images or words, nearly every trend piece I read emphasized the importance of quality content. That gives you a multitude of opportunities to grow your career through social media this year.

Everything you do could lend itself to creating great content through short posts, articles, links, photos or videos. At the start of the year, look at what’s ahead month by month and start creating a high-level content calendar. Of course, as always, don’t post proprietary or competitively sensitive information.

Content planning is the key advice from Sunny Lenarduzzi, one of the experts featured in The Science of Social Media podcast. She says, “if you wait to the last minute or ignore creating a content calendar for the month, your content will suffer because you’re rushing everything.”

It’s also important to take time to get to know your audience and what’s important to them. In the same podcast, Donna Moritz from Socially Sorted was featured as advising to, “focus on creating quality, core content on a platform that you own (your blog/website, podcast or video) that helps solve your audience’s biggest challenges.”

Also highlighted, as Gary Vaynerchuk said in a recent interview, “My show and my social accounts are not a platform from which I talk about what’s important to me. It’s a platform from which I talk about what’s important to you.”

Ultimately, high-quality content is critical to your success because “it will help you show up on Google and it will help your posts show up and get more engagement on social media sites,” according to Bill Widmer in the Sumo marketing trends article.

The most important element of this content focus is that it’s something you can control. Your discipline in sharing content on a consistent basis with a point of view that adds value to your connections is what it’s all about.

No one else has experienced the work world in quite the same way as you have. No one else has the unique perspective that you do. Sharing your original content that adds values to the people in your network is the most important thing you can do in social media.

What trends are you focused on in the coming year?