Social Media Trends for Distributors in 2019

In the world of social media, things move lightning-fast. From new apps that rise in popularity, to increased functionality in well-known apps, tracking trends in social media is a little bit like tracking trends in fashion: it comes and goes from season to season. And, for most businesses, the trends don’t really matter. After all, social media for B2B companies is entirely different from social media for B2C companies. Right?

Well, yes. And no. Social media trends for businesses seems very different, but, oftentimes, shares core ideas and goals. To save you time and effort, though, we’ve gathered up the top social media trends that are expected in 2019 and reduced them down into the top social media trends for distributors in 2019. Plus, we’ll tell you how to incorporate these trends into your current social media strategy without (too much) extra effort.

Social Media Trends for Distributors to Employ in 2019

Gain Trust (Back)

One ramification from events in 2018 is that users are less likely to trust what can be found on social media. It’s not fair, since your business certainly had nothing to do with it, but it does change the way we approach social media these days. Here’s an interesting study – a “Trust Barometer” – that was produced by Edelman. The gist? Like it or not, consumers are now expecting brands themselves to safeguard personal data, curb the spread of fake news and shield the consumer from offensive content. That’s a lot of responsibility for a business like yours.

To gain your clients’ trust on social media, go back to the basics: produce engaging, transparent content that drives interaction. Additional tactics can include setting up Facebook groups around core client interests that pertain to your business. Or, take it one step further and create a private group, a safe, secure location to ask for honest feedback and to monitor the company sentiment. If it’s in your wheelhouse, consider hosting a quarterly Facebook Live Q&A session – your top clients can participate, and you can walk away with valuable intelligence as to your core customer. But if it’s not in your wheelhouse, turn to the resource that most definitely is: your employees. As a distributor, you likely have numerous employees who are already using social media. Tap into that, asking for shares and comments on company-produced graphics and posts.

Utilize Messaging

In an interesting twist, social media is becoming more…private. The best example of this is the prevalence of private messaging apps. As social media management company Hootsuite states, “The top messaging apps—WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, QQ, and Skype—combine for nearly 5 billion monthly active users. That’s more users than the traditional social networks have worldwide.” 

This should be an easy win for you. At a minimum, enable Facebook Messenger for your business’s Facebook page. Set up an instant reply so that any customer reaching out knows that you’re paying attention to the question or request. If you’d like to expand upon this strategy, consider activating a bot to take care of some of the most commonly asked questions. You might also make customer service on social a priority in 2019 – and utilizing Messaging will make it that much easier to do so.

Commit to Buying Ads

This is nothing new, but organic reach took another hit in 2018. That means it is more important than ever before to include social media advertising in your 2019 budgets. In the digital marketing industry, we call it “pay to play.” I would also argue that, as a distributor, you need to work even harder to get your content in front of the right people. The easiest and most effective way to do so? Through targeting specific demographics on social media platforms, whether Facebook or LinkedIn, etc. If you need help setting up your first social media campaign, or just want to further refine the campaign you already have running, reach out to us here.

Know Your Worth and Show Your Worth in Video

Some things haven’t changed on social media, and one of those things is the value of personalized, high-quality content. It doesn’t matter that you’re a distributor and not a B2C company: at the end of the day, your clients aren’t businesses. Your clients are the people of those businesses. And people are won over when you connect with them on a personal level. At the crux of it, that reason is why social media is still so valuable from a business side of things.

Let’s take this one step further. Show your worth in the form of video. We saw a lot of videos in 2018, and we’re going to see even more in 2019. If you haven’t yet used video on social media, 2019 is the year to do so. It’s engaging for your clients and showcases your company culture and values much more quickly and accurately than a static image. If you’re not sure how to get started, we’re happy to help. Get in touch with us here. 

We’re excited to see what 2019 has in store for social media. It’s near-impossible to predict all of the trends that will come out of 2019, but we’re confident in our predictions listed above. Which will your distribution company be implementing first?