Via Erin Carson, TechRepublic

One of social media’s most defining characteristics is its constant rate of change. Just a few years ago, it was seen as a novel time waster, these days businesses are recognizing the evolving relationship between social and business goals.

In 2015, social media marketers will be dealing with many of the same problems and pitfalls as they have in the past, down to finding the right way to think about marketing opportunities on social media, which are different from any other medium marketers and advertisers have dealt with before.

“This is where marketing and social and the future of all of this stuff really have a tremendous opportunity to take a step back and understand what it is we’re trying to do in the first place, and how we can add value in order to take value from each of these platforms,” said Brian Solis, principal analyst for Altimeter Group.

In a similar sense, Solis talked about the partnership between HP and Vine where HP made a commercial this fall featuring Vine videos. In a sense, it’s a matter or recognizing a new opportunity.

“When a consumer sees the HP commercial with their favorite Vine star on television, it actually connects with them in a way that’s introducing social to a traditional opportunity that was really not there before,” he said.

Therein lies an opportunity to combine something like Vine that’s an everyday stop for people, with a more traditional advertising format.

More mistakes

“One of the trends that I perceive is for us to make more mistakes before we really start to realize that we have to rethink everything from ‘what does success look like’ in order to reinvent metrics and then in order to reinvent that strategies that drive those metrics,” Solis said.

Mobile first

For years, mobile has been viewed as the second screen, but Solis said that in 2015, marketers will have to pay more attention to what a mobile-first experience, or even a mobile-only experience should look like for audiences. That means independent strategies for independent devices. And what’s more, he thinks this trend will carry on through the next several years to come.