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Look How Far Social Media Marketing Has Come in 8 Years!
Eight years ago, I wrote about what social media marketing trends were being predicted for 2016 and thought it might be interesting to see how much has – or hasn’t – changed since.
Search is still exploding.
The first trend predicted is that “Search is going to explode.” Well, that’s sure spot-on! Search has only become more important in the years since I wrote this blog post. In 2015, Pinterest and YouTube were rivaling Google as search engines and Facebook had just made major changes to search on their own platform.
It only makes sense because there is just so much information online that it just has to be organized. Businesses with digital marketing strategies know that they have to check off all the boxes to get indexed properly so that search engines, whether Google, YouTube, or whatever’s next, can serve it up to the appropriate audience, specifically, your customers.
Websites were not mobile-ready?
The next trend I talked about makes me a little nostalgic! I reported that Google’s Mobilegeddon algorithm update was pushing websites that were not yet mobile-optimized way down in search results. Only about a third of website traffic happened on mobile devices back then, compared to over half of website traffic in 2023.
Yes, there are a still websites out there that are not optimized for mobile and they suffer in search ranking because of it. (If your site is one of them, don’t be embarrassed, but fix it already!)
Content is still king, still.
In 2015, creating original content was important. It still is today, but even more important is using the right search terms in the right places within your original content. More and more marketers are using AI tools to help with content creation. Tools like ChatGPT can brainstorm ideas, find references, and come up with search terms, but originality is not one of its strengths. Always put your human touch on any content AI comes up with.
Pictures with a thousand words.
The last trend I talked about eight years ago was visual content. The thought back then was that images, especially video, were going to be more important than keyword optimization. As I said before, nothing is more important than optimizing for search, but it’s true that video is huge in the marketing world. Of course, you have to optimize those videos and images with words! And using good meta tags on graphics is not only good for search but also for ADA compliance.
It’s always interesting to see how far we have come because the digital landscape changes rapidly. Marketing strategies need to keep up with those changes so that businesses have a fighting chance at finding customers. Is the marketing strategy for your business staying relevant? If you’re still working with 2015 plans, it’s more than time for a refresher! Our team at Sprocket Websites has the experience to help you. Call us today!
Photo by Ricky Esquivel
This article is an update to “Social Media Marketing Trends in 2016” dated 11/19/2015.
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Breanne Bannon
Breanne is a Content Writer, Social Media Marketeer, and Sales Associate for Sprocket Websites.
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