Just saying the year "2015" makes us feel like we are in the distant future. I expect to see a landscape similar to Futurama when I look outside. We may not have vacations across the universe for everyday people or flying cars, but our state of technology is ever growing and rapidly changing. Some of us are able to experience it first hand by seeing our actual paper notebooks turn into iPads, our books into Kindles, and our advertising into a social conversation. 

With that being said, we are going to go over some of our favorite predictions for social media in 2015. Times are changing and so is marketing. It is less about pushing a brand and more about building a relationship. We are excited. 

Visual & Video

We have all heard that content is king over and over. Some may even be tired of hearing about it. If content is king then visual content is definitely the crown. We haven't figured out a metaphor for video, but it is just as important.

The shift towards visual content has already begun, Facebook for instance, continues to modify its News Feed to include larger and more prominently displayed images and videos; Pinterest is now the fourth most popular social networking site; Twitter now pulls pictures and videos right into its timeline and Google+ is essentially the go to platform for sharing images with its many image processing features. Think infographics, videos, high quality images and pleasing to the eye content.

Brandiginity 

This is nothing to be feared, especially with great tools like Canva. 

Integration

We all discovered this with SEO when we put in gruelsome hours working on keywords and linking. Then we put in more hours figuring out the perfect meta descriptions only to find out Google once again updated with...wait for it.. content is king formulas to change the way search works. 

This means to have proper SEO you need a great website, but you also need awesome social media. To have an awesome social media following they need something to share so you're going to need to create a blog. To get people involved in sharing that blog on social media you probably are going to want to incorporate traditional marketing.

2015 will ensure that we are all linked together in the efforts. 

Marketers are continuing to connect all of their digital demand generations channels and tools. In 2015 we’ll get closer to being able to track exactly how we earn each customer from the top of the conversion funnel to the bottom. For example, companies will be able to track a single prospect through the time they saw an ad, came to the website, followed on Twitter, downloaded a whitepaper, signed up for a trial, engaged with a salesperson and eventually became a paying customer.”

Forbes: Aseem Badshah, Founder & CEO,Socedo

This is good news since it gets all of us in marketing, even the SEO workers, to realize we are all part of the same team. After we realize this, our efforts will flow seamlessly.

The real issue is when the SEO team keyword stuffs the blog, and the marketing team freaks out because the content doesn't make sense. That leads the social media team to send some nasty emails because no one is sharing their keyword stuffed, ridiculous sounding blog.

Now that we are all on the same page, we can work together to get our clients discovered the right way. 

Personalization 

We have all been a bit skeptical when we go to a website to view a product only to later see the same product being advertised to us on Facebook. I will admit, I was a bit jarred when I realized just how tailored the advertising was.

However, this is not a bad thing, especially when I am seeing products that I want.

Nothing is more frustrating than logging into your email account to see advertisements and newsletters from something you would never ever use. This can be so frustrating that sometimes people mark it as spam. This is a huge hit to your email marketing campaign.

Or if you are a Baby Boomer and go to a website that definitely has something that you will need, even if it is age specific, only to realize it is designed for 20 something millienials. No designer in their right mind would design a website targeted for retirees to look like something that would be more appeciated by the younger crowd. One thing that does happen, though, are clients that want to design for themselves and not their customers.

This stops here. 

Personalization will be welcomed with open arms in 2015. 

Marketing Automation

This is a growing trend that we didn't hear much about this year. This is a software platform designed for marketing departments to more effectively market on multiple channels online (such as email, social media, websites, etc.) and automate repetitive tasks. The keyword there is social media. Let's start with the basics. 

What Gets Automated?

• Welcome messages for new shoppers
• First Time Buyer Survey & Product Follow-ups
• Website tracking 
• Reactivate Defecting Customers & Loyalty Bonuses
• Keeping customers buying 

You can begin your on boarding process by attaching a sign up form to your social media feeds and asking people to sign up for your emails and newsletters. Social media will be all about engagement in the coming year and I think you will be (pleasantly) surprised how many of your followers would want to hear from you via email.

Brandiginity

Who to Automate With

• HubSpot
• Pardot
• Act-On
• Oracle Eloqua
• Marketo 

Businesses like Amazon are already on board with it. We may be seeing even more of it in 2015 if the software companies continue in the direct of becoming more user-friendly and personalized.