There are 7.395 billion people in the world. 46% of the world’s population are internet users, and 31% are active Social Media users.

The world has changed, and will continue to change as we move through 2017. Social Media is more important than ever before which will not change, but what we look for, as consumers, and what we want from Social Media will change.

For the last article of 2017, I am going to share with you some of the top Social Media marketing trends that I think will be important throughout the year of 2017.

#1 Live Streaming

Whilst the ability to watch videos online has been around since the YouTube creation in 2004, live streaming is going to be one of the biggest social media marketing trends for 2017.

With Meerkat, Periscope and Snapchat breaking records this year for live streaming, and real-time video clips, this will continue thanks to Facebook’s new live streaming functionality.

The way I educate my audience moving through next year will change. I recently ran a poll inside of my private member’s Facebook group, where I found out that over 65% of the group of small businesses said that their preferred way to receive information was through live streaming and videos.

#2 AI [Artificial Intelligence]

Artificial Intelligence is in essence, machine learning. The idea that humans are going to be replaced by AI is definitely a trend for 2017.

CEO of Pentaho; Quentin Gallivan said the following:

“Early adopters will gain a jump start on the market in 2017 because they know that the sooner these systems begin learning about the contexts in which they operate, the sooner they will get to work mining data to make increasingly accurate predictions. This is just as true for the online retailer wanting to offer better recommendations to customers, a self-driving car manufacturer or an airport seeking to prevent the next terrorist attack.”

#3 Short-Life Content

Twitter is a prime example of constant noise, and finding it hard to sieve through and find the “good stuff”. Snapchat in particular, have understood that short-life content is going to be a huge social media marketing trend for 2017. Earlier this year, Instagram also created a new feature called Instagram Stories which sits inside of the Instagram platform, and gives users the option to create content that lasts for a short period of time, and then disappears for good.

#4 Acquisitions

Have you noticed the big brands purchasing all of the social networks? Facebook bought WhatsApp, Oculus Rift and Instagram. Twitter now own Periscope and more recently, Microsoft paid $27 billion for LinkedIn.

The reason this is important to you as a small business is because your tactics will need to change. When a big enterprise buys a social network, they have a strategy in mind for what they want to do and you need to know this moving forward.

#5 Marketing Automation

Did you know that 92% of small businesses lose money every single month because they ignore marketing automation? To take your business to the next level throughout 2017, you are going to have to adopt marketing automation, and use tools that will help you achieve your outcomes.

They are my top 5 Social Media marketing trends which are going to be key for 2017. The likes of organic social traffic getting harder to achieve, and the importance of personalisation will also be important to small businesses.

What are you going to do to stay ahead of your competition in 2017, and what do you think is going to be the most influential Social Media Marketing trends for 2017?