In marketing, paying attention to different social media trends is important, especially because 45% of the world population is active on social media. Although every social media campaign can't reach the same amount of attention as the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, for example, there are several things you can try to improve your social media efforts.

Here are some ideas to try next year:

Showcase Happy Customers: The best group of individuals you can use to promote your brand are satisfied customers. You can like or share posts of them using your product or service or even encourage them to share photos of themselves and use a hashtag you've created.

Contests: People love winning free things and getting discounts! This is why this is such an effective idea to try for next year's social media marketing efforts. You can run a variety of contests including asking your followers to tag a friend in comments, answer a question or send a photo of themselves with your product or service.

Utilize Call-to-Actions: Being mysterious doesn't get you very far, especially if you are a brand or a business. Using call-to-actions (CTAs) on your social media posts makes it so that followers are more likely to engage with your content.

Go Live: When you're putting together a social media campaign next year, don't underestimate the power of live videos. By going live on Facebook or Instagram, you are making your company or brand seem more human.

Use Holidays as Inspiration: Companies can use social media to promote holiday sales or host Halloween contests, for example. When it isn't holiday season, you can still use current events as inspiration for your campaigns. Make sure to be timely with your posts and promotions!

Educational Content: You don't have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to your social media marketing. Do you have a blog that has a ton of views? Re-purpose it for social media or create a video for Stories and summarize it within the caption.