As we move forward to 2015 it is time to make some predictions -or bets- for the social media trends of the coming year.

Facebook is the King… long lives the King…

Facebook is surely the King of social media. It will continue to dominate the social-internet world in 2015.

As more businesses are trying to use the platform for marketing purposes I can clearly see an increase in Facebook AD pricing. More businesses… more ads and promoted posts… same advertising space… That means an increase in demand that will lead to an increase in AD prices…

Twitter’s new objective-based advertising model

The new business advertising model will highly increase AD spending in the platform. Giving more options and choices to businesses and marketers will make the twitter platform more appealing to advertisers – especially medium to small businesses. These campaigns are results oriented and not just brand building. Specifically, the new model allows businesses to pay for certain performance-based actions rather than just re-tweets or clicks to action.

The objective-based campaigns – currently in beta – offer more flexibility including tweet engagements (re-tweets, replies, etc.), website clicks or conversions, app installs or app engagement, new followers and new lead generation.

LinkedIn is here to stay…

LinkedIn is the top (social?) network in the business world for years now. When we talk about jobs, job seeking etc… LinkedIn is surely the leader. LinkedIn has a reach of 270++ million members worldwide, with an estimated 100 million in the US. It is maybe a lot less than the reach of either Facebook or Twitter but LinkedIn is mainly targeted in the executive world.

LinkedIn profiles contain more detailed and up-to-date “professional” information compared to what people list on their personal profiles on Facebook etc. So it can provide great targeting options, including the ability to target by job title, employer, role, skills, and interests.

With the introduction of “Influencers” and “Pulse” products efforts LinkedIn is evolving into a content platform for professional news. That will increase the gap for any other platform interested in this niche segment.

LinkedIn’s advertising platform is similar to those offered by Google and Facebook. For example, it allows you to design different types of ads, create logical groupings, define bids for specific campaigns, and measure performance with several metrics.

Google and g+

Google plus is losing on popularity but Google is a stubborn company. It will not let its social media platform go away that easily.

I personally believe that Google will fight back to gain a respectable position in the social media universe. What I think is needed is a remarketing and maybe a new total UI experience consolidating all the goodies Google offers to the Netizens under ONE label. I mean, we use Gmail, Calendar, Hangouts, Maps, YouTube and Picasa albums but “we say” that we do not use Google Plus!! What if all these platforms merge in one more compact and unified experience? Let us think about it… Google is the King of the net after all…

Lets see.. Will Google Plus be able to became one of the Social Media Trends of 2015?

Instagram is the standard for image-based social media marketing

Instagram has become the network when it comes to image-based social media marketing. Instagram will also continue to grow in the social video segment.

If Facebook permits it and if we see some more user interaction – like integrated messaging – Instagram will definitely meet a huge usage growth around the social media world.

6. Social media content and automation tools

As social media marketing enters 2015 marketers and managers will understand that social media is the avenue for easily communicating their content among millions of users. What has yet to be understood is that still in 2015 CONTENT IS THE KING… and it will continue to be to infinity and beyond…

What I mean is that social media is a tool to communicate your content. You have to have a content – good content – to engage your audience. Never forget… people come for your content, your products, your services…

In 2015 I foresee a great increase in spending for Content Creation. People need quality content. Quality content will bring more people, more reach to your campaigns…

Another thing that I see is the rise of workflow automation tools like the ifttt.com. Tools like that can ease and automate the process of updating your social media presence among the several new social media platforms.

Happy 2015 Everyone!!!