What Lies Ahead for Social Media in 2016

If it's Friday it must be Friday Five time, our weekly roundup of five stories from one specific topic. This week it's Social Media.

Examining the Current State of Social Marketing (Infographic)

Social media may be an integrated and essential part of most marketing strategies, but measuring the return on the investment and taking action based on social media insights still presents a challenge to many marketing teams. An infographic from Morrison Foerster examines the current landscape of social marketing, and the challenges marketers still face.

Read the full story on Adweek.

How Social Media Marketing Is Set to Change in 2016

Hard to believe the first month of 2016 is nearly over (didn’t it just begin?) and even as I type this, tactics, strategies and options in the world of social media are changing. I know as a small business owner you’re not only on the lookout for the most effective use of your digital marketing dollars, you’re also looking to easily digest the latest offerings to see how they may benefit you. Here is a breakdown on what to expect in 2016.

Read the full story on Business 2 Community.

10 ways brands are using social media marketing for good

Using social platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to promote philanthropic content is an effective way to engage consumers and humanize your brand.

Asking questions, running contests, sharing pictures, promoting products and services; there are many ways for brands to attract attention on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and the like. Included among this list of ways to get people to sit up and take notice on social media is to show the softer side of your brand and declare your support of a worthy charitable organization.

Read the full story on ClickZ.

The Impact of Big Data on Social Media Marketing Strategies

The amount of information now available to crunch and parse in the service of analyzing absolutely anything is massive—and growing every second. In the face of this sheer overwhelm of data, an individual business owner or social media marketer can feel powerless to make any sense of it, let alone productive use of it. But as with any shift in the tide or evolutionary leap, a smart adjusting of strategy can help even the smallest of small fries to compete with the big guns and harness this unwieldy data deluge to work for them.

Read the full story on Tech.co.

The 5-Minute Social Media Competitive Analysis

We’ve talked about why you should monitor your competitor’s marketing, and how to set up a monitoring dashboard to do so. But really, all that data you’re collecting on competitors is worthless if you don’t know what to do with it. Smart data needs to lead to smart decisions.

And that means doing more than just hoarding competitor mentions in your dashboard. You need to sit down, dig in, and get analytical. Monitoring your competitors isn’t enough—you need to sit down and analyze the data.

Read the full story on Search Engine Journal.

Social media has of course become a ubiquitous part of every marketer's arsenal. To understand how to fully leverage the power of social media download the Modern Marketing Essentials Guide to Social Marketing.