Small Business Marketing Predictions 2016

Because online marketing moves at a fast pace and the landscape of the Internet is ever-changing, you can bet that the upcoming year will bring new developments that impact the way you market your small business, regardless of what industry you’re in. The big question is what will those changes be?

A quick recap of 2015: Mobile-friendly websites became a must-have, and long form publishing and video streaming grew in popularity with the launch of LinkedIn’s Pulse and Twitter’s Periscope. Paid advertising on Facebook and Twitter also took off, surpassing a $10 billion spend in the U.S. for the first time ever. As more social media platforms incorporate paid advertising capabilities into their functionality, that number will continue to grow. (I’m looking at you, Instagram.)

So what can you expect from small business marketing in 2016? Below are six educated guesses small business marketing predictions for 2016. And while we wait to see which of these pan out, you can position yourself one step ahead of the competition by equipping your business with this Time-saving Tools Cheat Sheet.

1. Instagram will step up alongside “the Big Three.”

Make room, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn! The most popular social media platforms known as “the Big Three” can expect to be joined by Instagram in the upcoming year. Don’t get me wrong: Instagram is already plenty popular for personal use, boasting a community of over 300 million users who share upward of 60 million photos every day. According to Sprout Social, 53 percent of those users are between the ages of 18 and 29.

Since being purchased by Facebook in 2012, Instagram has slowly worked sponsored posts into the stream of photo updates from the people you follow. Based on the way paid advertising has evolved on Facebook, Instagram may follow a similar shift. And as it does, it will become essential for businesses (both big and small) to maintain a presence on the platform. Sadly, it may also be necessary to invest in paid advertising to get in front of an audience that you could once reach organically.

2. Search capabilities will (continue to) extend well beyond Google.

For those unfamiliar with visual search, it looks a little something like this:

Video via Pinterest BlogPinterest recently launched an awesome visual search functionality (shown above). When you come across a piece of furniture or a pair of shoes that you really love but you aren’t sure where to find it, this feature allows you to zero in on that item and determine what it’s called or where you can buy it.

In another recent update, Facebook released Search FYI, giving users the ability to search public conversations and gain an aggregate overview of public sentiment toward a breaking story or major event.

People have argued that Facebook is the one platform capable of overthrowing Google’s dominant position on the web. And although it’s nowhere close today, similar improvements to search functionality across all major platforms and websites will likely continue over the next year. Social media networks are competing with each other as well as Google. Each works to keep users from leaving the page for any reason, search included!

Now, about search as it relates to your business. A lot of small business websites appear below Facebook and Yelp review pages on Google. When searching for a favorite local coffee shop, the following results populated:

First their Facebook page, followed by Yelp and then the actual website for Opa Coffee and Wine Bar. What does that mean for your business? You need to update your website or, at the very least, maintain a presence on social media to continue to be found on the sites your customers frequent most often.

3. Say it with a GIF.

Now that GIFs — or graphic images that move — are supported in email, Facebook and Twitter, it will become more common and appropriate for brands and businesses to post and reply to their customers with light-hearted GIFs. My bet is that soon, Instagram and Pinterest will support GIFs too. Expect to see reaction GIFs from your favorite brands and start thinking about how you would express your business’s personality in a GIF.

If you’re new to the world of GIFs and not sure where to begin, start out visiting Giphy; they have a dedicated team of GIF artists creating them from scratch and helping brands identify what GIFs will resonate with their audience. Giphy also hosts an impressive library of GIFs for you to use to spice up that tweet or other social messages you’re crafting. Can’t find exactly what you’re looking for? Make a GIF is a simple and free tool that will walk you through creating your own.

4. Thoughtful content will remain king.

More than ever, your customers are in control of the content that’s reaching them. Love what you see? Mark it as useful or turn on notifications for that post. Sick of those ads? Hide it and stop seeing things that are similar.

As email inboxes, news sources and social media channels give consumers increasingly more control over their experiences, businesses have to respond by being more thoughtful about the type of content they push out in front of their audience. In the coming year, it will be more important than ever to connect with your customers on a human level by getting in tune with what they do and don’t want to see and writing your content accordingly.

Some brands already have this practice down well. Here are a few of my favorites to keep up and interact with, just for the fun of it.

GrubHub’s clever tweets will make you question why you ever cook at home.

Topo Chico keeps things product focused and gets followers involved in the promotion with lots of contests and prizes.

And the crisp photo shares from Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams has me craving a cone even as the weather cools down.

What are some of your favorite brands to follow? Share in the comments below!

5. Smaller businesses will get on the Snapchat train.

Snapchat started out as a way to share all the bits and pieces of your day with your closest circle of friends. As parents and grandparents infiltrated Facebook, Snapchat was the place young people turned to safely share (often silly and sometimes risky) dissolving photos. But my, how things change in a year! In 2015, Snapchat has evolved into so much more with the launch of the Discover feature.

Today, major corporations like ESPN, Food Network, and National Geographic use the platform to share short-form quizzes, entertaining videos and news stories updated daily for users to explore the app.

More businesses are likely to adopt Snapchat in 2016 and use it to share behind-the-scenes stories and product updates and engage with their customers in a more interactive way.

6. Chat/messaging apps will add payment options.

Every major social media platform is gunning to launch some sort of direct payment and messaging feature in the near future. Snapchat has Snapcash and Facebook has free Friend-to-Friend payments through Messenger. Other networks will likely follow suit and compete to become the most popular mode of alternative payment.

What will that mean for your business in terms of marketing? A couple things potentially. Your customers are messaging on every platform, and if your business has an account on said platform, then you should be tuned in to the messages you’re receiving from your customers.

Additionally, depending on what type of transactions your business does most frequently, you may find your customers requesting more flexible payment options. While this might seem like a pain upfront, it will eventually open up valuable opportunities for businesses to track return on investment from online marketing and social media channels — all areas that have been almost impossible to measure previously.

Wrap-Up

Every year brings changes to small business marketing, and 2016 will be no different. Our six small business marketing predictions for the coming year:

1. Paid ads on Instagram will be just as important for small businesses as they currently are on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
2. Search capabilities will extend well beyond Google.
3. Brands and businesses will use GIFs to engage with their customers.
4. Crafting thoughtful content will be more important than ever.
5. Small businesses will work Snapchat into their marketing mix.
6. Messaging apps with payment options will continue to emerge.

Whether you’re just getting started or have been working on your online marketing strategy for years, there’s something for everyone in our Time-saving Tools Cheat Sheet.

What are your small business marketing predictions for 2016? Use the comments below to share them with us!