Top 5 Social Media Marketing Trends of 2017

I think it’s safe to say that social media marketing has greatly contributed to the success of many bloggers and small businesses. 


It allows you build your own virtual community and educate people around the world about your product or service. 


It also allows you to establish yourself as an authority at the start of your journey.


With all of the changes happening on each platform, it’s important for bloggers and small businesses to know what they are and adapt to them. 


You may not be able to implement every single change into your marketing strategy, but you can implement current trends to ensure that you stay in the eyes of your ideal audience.

Why follow trends?

Following social media marketing trends can help you experience more growth. 

Before you follow a trend, you want to first ensure it is something that your audience can benefit from. If not, you may be disappointed with the end result of your efforts. 


When following trends, especially during the early stages, you can easily capture the audience of other industry leaders (with the same target market) who may not be leveraging the trend. If you’re giving valuable information that others can benefit from, they will more than likely stick around for more of your content.



So much has been changing with social media lately. Despite all of the changes, there are certain things that just aren’t dying out. 


In fact, these are things that more and more bloggers and small businesses are starting implement into their existing marketing strategy.

Live Streaming Video

Live streaming isn’t anything new, but it’s a form of marketing that has recently expanded (drastically). 


Just a couple years ago, you would only hear about live streaming on YouTube, a variety of webinar platforms, and maybe Meerkat during the short time it was around.


After Periscope made it’s appearance in 2015, it showed how high the demand for live streaming was. It reached 10 million users in 4 short months after launching. 


Those stats influenced many bloggers and small businesses to get on board and reap the benefits of live streaming. As a result, you later saw that well known existing platforms (Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram) respectively integrated the feature into their platform.


Benefits of live streaming: Live streaming allows you to better connect with your audience by humanizing your brand. 


It allows you to be there for your audience in real time, and authentically engage with them. There are no edits. It’s not about being perfect, it’s about being present and giving value to your audience.


Whether you’re hosting a Q&A session, showing some behind the scenes action of your business, or sharing a day of your life, live streaming helps you quickly build the “like, know, and trust factor” that helps convert followers into subscribers, customers, and clients.

Disappearing Content

Periscope and Snapchat were very successful with getting people to love disappearing content. I talked about Periscope earlier, so I’ll share a little about Snapchat this time.


Snapchat is a storytelling App that focuses on creating content, rather than consuming it. While some shared content only lasts for a matter of seconds, users can create stories that lasts for a maximum of 24 hours before it disappears. 


As always, other platforms (Instagram and Facebook) have integrated this feature after seeing how important it had become to people. Prior to this, you had live streams from Periscope that disappeared 24 hours after the stream ended.


Benefits of disappearing content: Disappearing content allows bloggers and small businesses to give their followers a sense of exclusivity. 


People feel special when they get to see things that are only available for a limited time. It’s even more valuable when you limit sharing the content to that particular platform.


Disappearing content also creates a sense of urgency. If your audience knows that they only have 24 hours to view something you share, they will continue to stay alert. When your content is available for them to view, they will ensure that they are there to watch.


There is a higher chance of increased engagement if you are consistent with the dates and time that you produce the content.

Relationship Marketing

There are multiple ways to implement relationship marketing in your overall marketing strategy. In this case, I will be talking about using relationship marketing to create loyal followers on social media.


When it comes to using relationship marketing (on social media), bloggers and small businesses focus on their audience rather than trying to make a sale. Of course, we all want to generate some sort of income, but that will come later.


Benefits of relationship marketing: Putting your audience first, by listening and engaging with them (answering questions, replying to comments, etc.), makes them feel valued. 


When you doing this, you’re able to get valuable insight on common struggles that they are facing. As a result, you will be able to create a blog post, or another form of content, that has the solution to their problems. 


Each time you put out a form of content that assists them, you will get even more feedback that you can later use that to create a product or course.

Emotional Marketing

If you do a good job with relationship marketing, then emotional marketing will be much easier to implement.


Bloggers and small businesses are getting more in touch with the emotions of potential customers and clients. The majority understand exactly what their audience is going through, and the lifestyle that they want, because they were once in their shoes.


When it comes to selling products and services, you typically see that a particular lifestyle is shown while marketing them. You will also see stories being shared through those lifestyles.


Those stories, along with the video or photo, can make you laugh, be at peace, or trigger any other emotion that results into you making an investment in that business.


A very comment method of emotional marketing that we see all the time, are Facebook ads. Many ads share emotional (long and short) stories that directly relate to those in need of the product or service.


Benefits of emotional marketing: Getting in touch with the emotions of potential customers and clients will allow them to feel like you created your content just for them. 


When you do this, you have a higher chance of reaching your conversion goal. Whether it’s to get more ideal followers, comments, or shares on social media post, you will see how targeting the emotions of your audience will get them to react. 

Repurposing Content

Repurposing content is a strategic way of making the most of what you produce. As previously stated, you will see that many are reusing content from one platform and sharing it on others.


This isn’t the same as linking your Instagram post to Facebook, or linking Facebook to Twitter, etc. 


This is where they take one piece of content, and recreate it into something else before sharing it on another platform. 


If you share the same exact thing on each platform, you are letting your followers know that they don’t need to add you on other social networks because you’ll be sharing the same thing.


Some bloggers and small businesses will repurpose content so strategically, you may not even realize it. 


An example of repurposing content is tweets being turned into a graphic and shared on Facebook or Instagram. When shared on another platform, the caption goes into more detail about the quote or tip that was tweeted. 


Benefits of repurposing content: Repurposing your social media content gives your followers a reason to follow you on each of your social networks. 


When your audience sees that you are able to produce a variety of content for each platform, it will help you become more of an authority in your industry. 

What’s Next?

These are the top trends that left 2016 and continue to dominate social media as we progress through 2017. 


As you can see, many social media platforms integrate features from other platforms when they see that it is something that people crave. 


This is how they adapt to trends to remain relevant, keep their existing audience and attract others. 


If you believe that your audience will benefit from one, or more, of these trends, then I highly recommend that you implement them into your social media marketing strategy. 


Have you tried out any of these trends? I’d love for you to share in a comment, if so. If not, what do you think about these trends? And are they something that you will consider using?