Social Media Trends To Know For 2019

With a new year comes plenty of social media changes and new social media trends to keep an eye out for.

Oh, and I haven’t even gotten to the future changes to the social media algorithms… blergh.

Don’t let all the marketing lingo get you down; the rest of this blog is dedicated to no-nonsense social media predictions (based on research + deep-seated marketing know-how) so that you are all prepped and ready for the best year yet.

Hold onto your horses, it’s about to get wild in 2019!

The Future of Social Media in 2019

STORIES EVERYWHERE

The novelty of short, sharp, and largely temporary content has quickly become a feature that has started to spread across different social media networks.

With Snapchat bringing 24-hour disappearing content to the forefront of the social media world, this feature was quickly snapped up by Instagram dubbing them ‘Instagram Stories’.

Now, even Facebook business pages and personal profiles can have 24-hour disappearing stories!

WhatsApp also have the ‘status’ feature so it is only a matter of time before other social media networks like Twitter jump on board this stories trend.

Advanced analytics help you identify what works, discard what doesn’t and build your brand without the guesswork.

ADS ARE IMPROVING

Did you know that 93% of marketers use Facebook advertising regularly? That is a whopping 3 million businesses that use Facebook for marketing!

With more Instagram advertising options available including Instagram Stories ads, we can see a bright future for social media advertising in 2019.

Why is the future so bright, you ask?

Well, due to the increased interested in paid social and the world of sponsored influencer content, it is only natural that brands are going to step up their game and put more effort into creative direction, audience targeting and ad execution in 2019.

Seriously – how else are you meant to get the attention on consumers who are increasingly becoming numb to seeing advertisements everywhere they look?

The creative quality of social media advertising is sure to improve in the new year, and that is something that I personally am really looking forward to.

Say goodbye to cringe-worthy ads!

Oh, and by the way… the number of influencer marketing posts on Instagram doubled to over 1.5 million in 2017 and that number only continues to grow. So yeah, Influencer Marketing? Give it a go!

INSTAGRAM CONTINUES TO GROW

With Instagram reaching the hefty milestone of 1 billion users across the world in 2018, the sky truly is the limit for this visual social media network.

At Plann, we have no doubt that we will continue to see an increase in Instagram users and especially Instagram business profiles.

Due to Instagram’s recent change in allowing only Instagram business profiles the option to use third-party scheduling and analytics tools, we are fairly confident that this new rule is going to result in a sharp increase in business profiles over the next few months.

INSTAGRAM ENGAGEMENT DROP

We all know by now that with more people using and loving Instagram in 2018, the overall ‘competitiveness’ of the platform is only going to increase in 2019.

Y’know, when you are competing for attention in the newsfeed, stories line-up and explore tab this hard… you really have to be putting out your best work!

Here are my two best pieces of advice to help you rise up in 2019 and get real results despite a potential drop in engagement.

Focus on Quality: What does this even mean? Basically what I am trying to get at is that you should prioritise getting yourself some high-resolution photos and videos to share to your grid. Don’t post to Instagram because you have to either – it’s more important to share quality captions that follow a strong strategy. 3 quality posts per week is far better than 5 half-assed posts!
Give Value: There are a few people on Instagram Stories that I always check out because their content gives me something. Most of the time for me that ‘thing’ is education, something new I’ve never thought of, or sometimes it’s as simple as entertainment. Whenever you post a story or a grid post you should make sure before hitting ‘post’ that what you are about to share is actually valuable to your target audience.

Take a peek here at Instagram Expert, Tyler’s predictions for 2019:

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HOW TO USE INSTAGRAM IN 2019 1️⃣ Instagram Stories Should Be Your Top Priority! Honesty hour: if you're not ready to fully embrace Instagram Stories for your business, you're going to get left behind in 2019. Most of Instagram's daily active users are using IG Stories. You've gotta show up on Instagram Stories CONSISTENTLY with high-value content. 2️⃣ In-Feed Engagement Will Decrease! Don't panic...I believe we've already seen the trend of in-feed engagement (i.e. likes and comments) decreasing this year AND it will continue in 2019. Fewer eyes are on your posts in the feed (because of InstaStories) and that means engagement will go down. 3️⃣ The Age of The DM Is Here! If you don't have a strategy in place to get your followers engaging with you through direct messages, you need to get one ASAP! Our students are seeing more DMs than ever before - using the strategies we teach inside the Follower to Fan Society - and those DMs are leading to sales. Instagram users are leaning into the ability to have quick and easy conversations with businesses through direct messages. 4️⃣ Hashtags Don't Do What They Used To! With changing user habits and more time on Instagram Stories, I expect we'll see the way that hashtags are used change even more in 2019. You can't just post a pretty picture with a bunch of hashtags and get more followers like you could before. In 2019, hashtags will become one of the most important tools for outward engagement strategies; but, they'll no longer be a way to passively grow your following. 5️⃣ The Bland Curated Feed Is Fading Fast! I believe we're reaching the end of the bland curated feed on Instagram. I'm not saying that you should stop posting high-quality content - great imagery is still important. Instead, I believe we're seeing users become bored with bland posts that don't have anything to do with the brand their following OR that aren't giving them value in some way. That means over-used styled stock photo with a caption that lacks substance is going to get you ignored even more in 2019 than it did in 2018. Tag a biz bestie and spread the word!

A post shared by Instagram Marketing Strategist (@tylerjmccall) on Dec 10, 2018 at 5:45pm PST