Next to the marketing trends for 2018, you need to pay attention to the social media trends as well. 

As Stephen Waddington says in his 2018 PR reflections, social media is maturing. It's becoming a lot more visual and in the moment, especially with short video messaging, however, it still has its challenges specifically around fake news and transparency. 

But with all those new developments, networks, features, and tools, what is really here to stay?

Social media changes in the blink of an eye so what can you trust? 

As I always say, you need to focus on what's going to work for your business and your own goals so that you get the highest returns. 

To give you some ideas on what you could pick from and what you need to pay attention to in the world of social media in 2018, I sought out an infographic from Filmora that highlights 9 social media trends. Take a look below: 

9 Social Media Trends in 2018 [Infographic]

I've been looking at a lot of data lately. 

Last week we dug into some social media marketing numbers, this week we'll go bigger and look at some of the major internet trends from Mary Meeker's latest report. 

Let's start with a bit of a perspective.

There are 3.4B global internet users. And there are about 7.5B people in the world. That's a penetration of 46%. 

Is your head spinning? It certainly will be after we go through some of the major learnings I've picked out for you. 

Let's get started. 

92% of marketers say that social media marketing is important to their business.

Can't say that I'm surprised. We practically live on social now. And Facebook. I feel like Facebook rules the world. 

Social media marketers, on the other hand, spend 6 to 11 hours weekly trying to catch consumers on social. 20% of them spend even more than 20 hours a week with social media marketing activities, particularly focusing on increasing exposure (88%) generating traffic (78%), develop loyal fans (69%) and gain market intelligence (66%). 

This all comes from the 2017 Social Media Marketing Industry Report by Social Media Examiner. 

Let's take a loot at the major findings.

5 Social Media Marketing Highlights

Digital, social and mobile is our day-to-day. It's normal, we've embraced them all, it's how we live. It wasn't like that a few years ago, and it certainly wasn't the norm for businesses but companies today are realising that without digital, they will simply cease to exist. 

Realising this is one thing; taking action and actually transforming every level of a business is something different. 

But it's becoming inevitable. Businesses have to react and act as technology is disrupting every aspect of our economy and society. They need to be on top of this now because we as consumers require it; this is how we lead our lives, with digital, social and mobile at our fingertips all the time. 

To put some pressure on you, I want to show you some stats about social, digital and mobile from this year's research by We Are Social. 

I reviewed the same study in 2014 so today we are going to look at 2016 and compare what's happened in two years. A few additional things have been added since then such as the share of web traffic which I find very interesting and useful.  

Just as the old post, this one focuses on Germany and the UK as the markets I am professionally and personally most interested in. 

Social, Digital and Mobile Global Snapshot 2016

Thanks to Nicholas Grizzell from AgoraPulse for this practical guest piece! 

It’s 2016. And you have work to do.

But that work doesn’t have to be so hard. It doesn’t have to take so long. You might even be able to enjoy it, too.

As a social marketer, you have to manage a lot of moving parts in an industry that just doesn’t slow down. You can’t really do anything about the second thing except keep your eyes open and steer your company in the right direction.

But the first thing – the moving parts thing – you can exercise a little control over. And the best way to do that is with a social media management tool.

Looking back at 2015, Seriously Social and G2 Crowd asked users to rate the top 4 social media management tools in the industry. And today, we’re going to look over what they learned.

Here are the 8 questions you should ask to choose the best one for your business: