As New Year’s approaches many business owners and marketing professionals are reflecting back on 2013 to see what marketing strategies worked while also looking forward to new developments and platforms in the works. Impactful events happened in 2013 for social media companies, such as the Twitter IPO and Pinterest’s growing user base, especially for business accounts. Facebook remains a leader in social media advertising while companies such as Instagram and Vine have found some success through newer platforms.

Here are three trends to expect in social media marketing for the upcoming year.

• 1. Providing customer-centric information instead of promotional marketing

Consumers are becoming savvier with how they shop and choose brand loyalty. According to Michael Brennar, Vice President of Global Marketing at SAP, “As brands, we need to kill promotional marketing messages and start providing customer-centric information that is helpful to our target customers.” Many people can see which ads are paid advertising as compared to organic, informative content that is not ad driven. He added, “One of the biggest trends I am seeing involves brands acting as producers – going beyond the publisher mentality and setting up newsrooms and production studios. Netflix (House of Cards), Red Bull (Media House) and Amazon (Alpha House) are just the first wave of this emerging trend.”

• 2. New services are making sharing easier

Social media has made communication easier for us. However, there are limits on the type and size of information that can be instantly shared. Companies such as Soundcloud and SlideShare are making it easier for users to share music, animated images and presentations. Soundcloud enables users to upload any sound or music on their platform and easily share it on sites, blogs and social networks. SlideShare is quickly becoming a favorite amongst salespeople for presenting product facts and details. And of course, infographics are popular with marketers for their  ability to compile memorable  images with catchy taglines and numerical data. These tools gain more users every day so don’t be surprised if they become platforms themselves while branching off and creating additional products.

• 3. Path to purchase is shortening

E-commerce sites are always looking to streamline their customers’ buying process (just look at Amazon patenting its one-click purchase button). Don’t be surprised if your favorite social network starts integrating click-to-purchase links so you can instantly buy the merchandise in the image you’re seeing. As more people start buying through smartphones, more companies will advertise through mobile channels such as social media.

As networks and customer behavior starts to change, companies will follow the crowd. Mobile is continuously growing and social media platforms are amongst the top downloaded apps for smartphone users.

To stay ahead of what’s new for 2014, download our free internet marketing template. It will help you build a strong strategy to market to your potential customers online.