One thing is sure, social marketing looks very different today than it did a year ago. New channels, trends, and tactics are emerging by the second, thereby impacting how marketers should be investing in their strategies.   During our recent webcast, we posed this question to our panel of social strategy experts: What does this evolution mean for brands and how should they strategize their social engagement programs?   Here are 3 key takeaways from posing that question.   Takeaway 1: Social media users are consuming content differently than they were a year ago.   For example: Video content used to be a solo category on its own, but now it’s broken into different types of visual content: traditional video (YouTube, Vimeo), live video content (Facebook Live, Periscope), and 24-hour video content (Snapchat, Instagram stories).   On the brand side, we’re seeing a rise of new ways brands can provide service to their customers through bots, Facebook Messenger for brands and even WeChat.   Takeaway 2: Not every platform feature is mature enough as a product to provide deeper insights.   Be wary of investing too deeply into the latest trend. While our panelists agreed that new ways of connecting with your audience is worth exploring, brands should also be aware that most new products and features don’t immediately provide analytics. This will make it harder for brands to make a case for continuing investment on a new tactic or channel.   On the other hand, leveraging data insights to personalize customer experiences is a best practice and a great way to lead a more sophisticated social media strategy. Pay attention to ways you can leverage account-based marketing, social selling, and surface relevant content to your target audience.     Takeaway 3: Experimentation is a must, so build it into your strategy.   We all know that experimentation has a cost – especially when certain capabilities are still maturing in reporting performance analytics. One thing on every social media leader’s mind is: How can brands prioritize experimenting with new channels and social trends without compromising their existing programs?   Our panelist Steve Harnsworth  recommends segmenting your social strategy in this way: 80% : Standard, high ROI social media programs 15% : Experimental social programs that may yield results 5% : Totally crazy experiments that will likely not yield results   You may never know what will work for your audience if you don’t experiment, so why not force your organization to keep pushing boundaries?  Watch the full webcast to get even deeper insights from our panel of experts.   Meanwhile, take part in a mind shift. Join us for an exclusive conversation with Forrester’s Melissa Parrish to learn how social media can power your business beyond marketing.    ... View more