A recent article at Inc.com brought answers to this question. Its author is Ryan Holmes, a Canadian programmer, who founded the Hootsuite company in 2008 and is still its CEO.
Today Hootsuite is the world's most widely used platform, integrating the administration of accounts on various social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube and more. It has over a thousand employees and 14 million users in 175 countries.
1. New ways of reaching users
Companies have traditionally reached social network users via a gradual building of communities of their fans and sharing news with them. However, Holmes notes that it will no longer work this way.
Social networks include such a huge amount of content that clever algorithms are being developed to limit the display of content to users. In addition, new advertising formats are being created which are very effective but not for free. If companies want to get their content to their fans, they will have to start paying for it.
2. Voluntary employee participation
If companies want to gain influence on social networks cheaply or free of charge, they should begin to motivate their employees to spread the company's good name via their personal accounts on social networks. This should be the major trend in 2017, according to Holmes.
It is, however, important to know employees cannot be forced into this: they have to want to share posts about the company with their friends.
3. Training of frontline employees
On the one hand, a growing number of companies use social networks in marketing, sales and customer service. On the other hand, they do not sufficiently educate the employees who communicate for them via these channels. This leads to problems such as loss of business opportunities and reputation.
The number of employees communicating via corporate social networks will continue to increase in 2017. Companies should therefore invest more in training their staff how to use social networks effectively for business and marketing purposes.
Other significant trends will appear in the second part of the article.
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