2014 Social Media Trends: Campaign Management, Social Advertising, and Getting Ahead of the Consumer

Brett Scantlin | @bscantlin39

Consumers - when is the last time you made an in-store purchase without doing comparison research? The answer is probably one or two years ago.  As a consumer, you have found this as a new power for you to guard your finances.

Businesses - when is the last time that you didn’t advertise your product or service on social media or a mobile compatible company web-page? The answer is probably one or two years ago. As a business you have found an emerging new power to remain competitive.

Trending into 2014 are statistics which show that during store visits consumers increasingly use their mobile device to conduct research for deals, with 53% making on-the-spot price comparison before purchasing. Today, 90% of smartphone shoppers now use their phone for pre-shopping activities, with 84% using their phone to help shop while in the store, according to a Google research study.

Social advertising is another trend for 2014 that is seriously taking off - also known as native advertising - on major social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Social advertising appears to be working better than more traditional forms of advertising, such as banners and click-on ads. Accelerating fast, this is expected to hit $11 billion in revenues by 2017, according to Greg Gunn, VP of Business Development at HootSuite.

Campaign management for online advertising is also heavily trending, with $6.1 to $7.1 billion in social advertising revenues expected in 2014. This is almost double the $4.7 billion spent only two years ago, according to BIS/Kelsey.

Campaign management, social advertising, and getting ahead of consumer’s increasing desire for more and more information are areas that cannot be ignored in 2014. A New Year’s resolution for any agile company will include one or all of these aspects to add growth and revenue in 2014 and beyond.