Social media landscapes are consistently changing, with brand new ideas, competitive practices, and emerging tools that redefine what works and what’s easily forgotten. Today, this constant change makes it even more important for digital marketers to remain updated with what’s trending online to be at the top of their game.
Let’s have a look at the top six most promising social media marketing trends of 2019, that are dominating the industry.
Social listening
Brand monitoring or social listening involves being on top of all social platforms to find all mentions of your brand, industry and keywords. From untagged brand mentions on social media, blogs, forums and news sites, to industry keyword mentions that show interest in buying – social listening is here to stay.
The aim of social listening is to create a well-established client-focused brand, customer service, and brand reputation management. Social listening is going big this year as an influential digital marketing activity that can help businesses with relevant lead generation and social selling.
The use of social listening is only going to increase, as more and more people turn to social media to share their ideas, recommendations, queries, and frustrations.
Everyone loves videos
The production and consumption of video content continues to grow each year, and short-form video in particular has become the top-performing content format for marketers. Research shows that short-form video remains one of the highest-ROI content formats, with 48.7% of marketers ranking it first in 2026. Short-form videos can also generate up to 2.5× more engagement than long-form video.
Videos are no longer limited to YouTube — social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have all adapted their platforms to accommodate more hosting, streaming and sharing of videos.
From stories and live streaming to other video content, the ephemeral and credible nature of videos, particularly live streaming, makes them undeniably impactful for most users.
Short-form video now drives the majority of social engagement. TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts have overtaken long-form and even live content in terms of reach, and platforms increasingly reward creators and brands that post consistently in these formats — brands that post video content at least twice per week see 41% higher engagement rates. Live shopping has also emerged as a major extension of video — brands are running real-time product demos and sales events directly through Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, collapsing the gap between discovery and purchase.
AI tools are now used widely for video production too, from auto-generated captions and edits to fully AI-generated avatars for ad creative, making video content faster and cheaper to produce at scale.
Micro-influencers
These Facebook celebrities, Instagram stars, YouTube millionaires and Twitter influencers have created their communities and loyal following only within the last couple of years. They have become one of the biggest and game-changing social media marketing trends, and possibly for many years to come.
Every post, image, video or vlog they share is instantly seen by more people than even TV advertisement makers hope for. As part of the social media world, we get to witness the power of social media influencers every now and then.
However, the increase in the number of social media influencers has only skyrocketed the prices they charge. This is the major reason why more and more businesses today are turning to micro-influencer marketing, making it another dominating digital marketing trend for 2026.
Each day, a vast amount of information is being shared online, and it only makes sense to use information and insights about audiences to offer personalization. The enhancement of customized content has improved people’s experience and, in turn, increased their expectations.
Personalization today goes far beyond product recommendations. Generative AI now lets brands create dynamic ad creative and copy tailored to individual audience segments in real time, rather than relying on a handful of static ad variants. AI-powered chatbots and virtual agents handle personalized customer service and social selling around the clock, blending directly into the “real-time presence” trend below. With third-party cookies being phased out across major browsers, brands are also shifting toward first-party data — email lists, app activity, on-platform engagement — to power this personalization, making owned data more valuable than ever.
Google and Meta remain central to personalization at scale, but even they are leaning more on first-party and contextual signals as third-party cookie tracking winds down. Brands that invest in their own data, email lists, app engagement, loyalty programs will have the strongest personalization advantage going forward.
Real-time presence
The coming of age digital marketing trend of 2019 is real-time communication with your audience. Your social media audience is expecting 24*7 customer support, chatbots, real-time social selling and constant monitoring for possible social media crisis.
Social media never sleeps and neither can you – people are using your products and services, talking about them online and they may want to make a purchase at any given moment.
Real engagement is the way to go
Early in 2018, as part of their latest algorithm Facebook announced to focus more on meaningful interactions. This means that they will be favoring the content that inspires genuine conversations and engagement.
As organic reach is becoming harder, more and more marketers are realizing that the only way to survive is to produce interesting, appealing, relevant and engaging content.
