They say that change is the only permanent thing in this world. We know that everything changes with time, rather, evolves continuously. And social media is no different. With constantly evolving social media, the social media marketing is also maturing, setting new trends and best practices for you to follow. Let us understand what these emerging social media marketing trends are and how you can benefit from them.

Trend 1: Social media marketing gains importance

With each passing day, the number of online users is growing. Thus, the importance of online marketing, including social media marketing, is also growing. Let us study the findings of a market research conducted to understand exactly how important social media marketing has become.

• 96% of survey participants use social media marketing
• 92% of those agree or strongly agree with the phrase, “Social media marketing is important for my business”
• 5 years ago, only 15% of the participants were using social media marketing, whereas, nearly a quarter of the participants have started using social media marketing in the last 12 months. This demonstrates the growth of social media marketing.
• A significant 64% of marketers are using social media for 6 hours or more and 41% for 11 or more hours weekly. And nearly a 19% of marketers spend more than 20 hours each week on social media.

Trend 2: Social networks will have deeper impact on ecommerce

In November 2014, Snapchat announced the launch of Snapcash, to become among the first major social networks in North America to allow users to transfer money to one another in messages. The service uses debit card information that can be stored, to save time later, and funds are transferred from one bank account to another with a few taps and swipes.

You can expect other social networks to soon follow suit, as part of a larger race into mobile payments. In fact, hacks released in October show a hidden payment feature already buried deep inside Facebook’s popular Messenger app. If activated by the company, it could allow the app’s 500 million users to send money to each other.

We have already seen social media and ecommerce converge when Facebook and Twitter beta-tested the “buy” buttons on their streams. This implies that we might be entering a phase wherein payments will be made through social media itself.

Trend 3: Social Media enhances customer service

Several industries have reported significant benefits from handling customer service on social media. Consumer satisfaction goes up because the experience is more personalized and responses are often much faster than communications via traditional channels like toll-free numbers or email. Because conversations are generally public, clients with legitimate gripes have a better shot at equitable treatment and companies that handle problems well get instant recognition on social media.

One new option you can expect to see in the year ahead is the rise of personalized Tweet-to-call links. Say a customer reaches out via Twitter with a tricky problem. This technology enables a company to Tweet back with a custom link that works only for that particular customer. Clicking on the link leads to a special phone number that connects directly with a service rep, who can handle the issue. Once the conversation has ended, the phone number is deactivated.

In this way, customers get the quick response times of social media coupled with the privacy and versatility of traditional phone service. And companies can offer discrete, on-demand phone service for those special problems that can’t be handled effectively via low-cost social channels.

Trend 4: Facebook will dominate small business

The majority of respondents carry out social media marketing on Facebook. The survey shows that 93% use Facebook, ahead of Twitter at 79%. In the coming year, 62% of respondents plan to increase their use of Facebook for marketing purposes. Sixty-six percent will increase Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn activity.

Twitter is gaining on Facebook, however, and with its new advertising opportunities, will be an interesting property to watch over the next year or so. It’s much the same story for Instagram and Pinterest, both of which doubled their traffic from 2014 to 2015.

YouTube is more commonly used by larger businesses. Specifically, 71% of businesses with 100+ employees use YouTube, compared to 38% of the self-employed.

Trend 5: Facebook will be more costly

Your company’s Facebook page has thousands of likes, so that means thousands of people see your updates each time you post, right? Nope. Historically, Facebook’s proprietary algorithm limited reach to just 16% of brands’ fans. But a report published by researchers at PR firm Ogilvy earlier this year showed that number has since declined to around 6% and may fall further. “Increasingly, Facebook is saying that you should assume a day will come when the organic reach is zero,” explained the paper’s author, Marshall Manson.

Why has this happened? First of all, there’s more potential content than ever flooding users’ news streams, which means that less and less of it actually gets shown. At the same time, Facebook is encouraging companies to use its paid social ads, which reach a significantly larger percentage of fans than organic posts. These so-called “native ads” look just like normal Facebook posts and show up directly in users’ news streams, not along the side of the page like traditional banner ads.

What does this mean for businesses in 2015? Staying relevant on Facebook will require doubling down on paid social ad spending. At the same time, we’ll also see companies diversify their social media efforts to include other social channels, including Twitter, Instagram and even China-based messaging service WeChat. This “platform-neutral” approach is both a hedge against further changes at Facebook and a smart way to reach different demographics flocking to other networks.