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The following is a list of the Social Media Changes 2016 from our marketing survey conducted among fellow marketeers in a combination of B2B and B2C sectors and a wide range of multiple verticals.

• 72% of marketeers thought that marketing content will be the most important of their Marketing Strategies in 2016.
• BUT only 38% of companies have documented strategies for content marketing within the company.
• Out of those businesses only a staggering 18% share their content strategy with their colleagues in paid search! yet the two are inexorably linked.
• Inbound Marketing delivered 39% more leads into the marketing department than other forms of marketing efforts at a smaller cost.
• 81% of marketing professionals felt more pressured to show a return on their investment in marketing, we don’t see that changing and the rise of implied easy to use analytics will become more important.
• Over 60% of Marketeers said that great content will be the single most important focus in 2016 with blogs and inbound having a large effect on Social Media Changes 2016.
• Inbound marketing saves a staggering 16% in overall cost per lead. A staggering 190 Million of Facebook’s users are “mobile only”.
• Active content generates the greatest response of all content marketing efforts, with over 60% generating a response or conversion.
• Personalised email content including integrating a persons name in your marketing content had a 28% impact on open rates.
• Video is the greatest opportunity for businesses in 2016, with ever increasing YouTube and Periscope content being shared.
• 73% of marketers plan to increase their YouTube presence.
• Video marketing will be the fastest growing marketing element for Google AdWords in 2016.

Live Video Streaming Trend to Continue?

Beyond all the stats of Social Media Changes in 2016, the biggest changes are happening in the way we surf and what we prefer to do when we do. The fascination and the desire to take pictures of everything and anything now being superseded by the desire to live video stream. Periscope and Meerkat being two of the largest of the app streaming services, with the only difference between the two platforms being the fact that Periscope keeps your video for a further 24 hours compared to Meerkats video that disappears once the live stream has finished.

Periscope was bought by Twitter back in May 2015 even before it officially launched for an estimated $50m. It also acquired the start-up, Niche that joins social media stars with brands to enable more monetisation of Social Media content. The combined costs for both the start-ups is $86m as there is not an exact figure for how much it acquired Periscope for.

The live video feeds have been made possible by the rapid deployment of 4G globally and now its possible to watch a live stream from a riot somewhere in the world to snippets of a gig flicking from one to the other.

Exactly what impact this will have on broadcasting is unclear as the live steams are a long way off having the production quality of a live broadcast, however the format does win with the instant capability of the software.

Twitter has now made the connection with Periscope so technically you can watch a live video feed from Twitter. BUT thats not all from Twitter, Jack Dorsey the creator of Twitter last week announced some other changes that are mostly welcomed by the community. The changes represent a major departure from the character limits that are well known from the social platform.

Social Media Changes 2016 continues with out list of the major changes from Twitter hot off the press. All good for the user, we don’t think there will be too many objections to these. We know that for the past ten years the Tweet hasn’t changed significantly from the simple 140 character text message, but this is about to change in the next month or so. Twitter are changing the tweet to a wider range of creative expression featuring photos, videos, hashtags, Vines, poll your community, use GIFs, and share live Periscope broadcasts in Tweets.

BUT Social Media Changes 2016 will change fundamentally with Twitter about to implement a huge simplification process. Those precious 140 characters will now go a lot further. 

@names in replies and media attachments such as images, GIFs, videos etc. will no longer use any of your valuable 140 characters.

Retweet and Quote Tweet yourself! Twitter previously prevented from Re-Tweeting and Quoting yourself and this has now changed, so if you feel a tweet has been lost in the ether you can retweet yourself and quote yourself.

.@ you had to use the .@ convention to previously tweet to a broadcast audience which lets face it was pretty ugly. Now you don’t have to use the @ convention to tweet to a larger more broad audience anymore. You simply Retweet to get it noticed by a broader audience.

We think all of these changes in Twitter are welcome additions to a fantastic Social Media platform for marketers. What makes Twitter great is the fact that its brief, quick and simple.Twitter have got to make sure that it keeps its audience by not losing the brevity which makes it is so appealing.

For further information see Social Media

If you are interested in you or your team being more effective and confident with Social Media then why not book one of our day courses.