Boosting Your Social Media Marketing Strategy With AR

Augmented reality (AR) has definitely come a long way. The app Pokémon Go was arguably the first AR game that truly allowed the concept to go mainstream.

Today, videos with Instagram and Facebook AR filters have become standard content in everyone’s news feeds. For businesses, this means engaging in the AR space.

When it comes to boosting your social media marketing strategy with AR, the first thing to understand is that it has become much easier and cheaper to do.

This is especially true compared to the costs of using AR for marketing around five to ten years ago. While this emerging technology used to be exclusively available to those who could afford it, today’s social media platforms have leveled the playing field.

Do-it-Yourself AR Filters

Nowadays, you don’t even need any in-depth coding knowledge to start using open-source AR tool kits and designing your own virtual interactions.

Spark AR Studio is just one of the many emerging third party AR development platforms that can be used by independent brands.

Using DIY AR filters is the easiest way to leverage AR to reach people ages 16 to 44, which studies have shown is the demographic that is mostly aware and actively looking for AR experiences.

If you do it right, you can prompt more impulse buys, boost brand engagement, and better establish your overall social media presence.

The Era of Creative Outreach

As effective as they are, using AR filters is just one way to leverage this promising technology. Combined with other social media capabilities, AR can pave the way for more creative and highly engaging forms of outreach.

One of the best examples of this is how French organic health and beauty luxury retailer L’Occitane used Facebook Canvas to promote its Immortelle products. Upon interacting with the ad, the user is transported to the geographical origins of the Immortelle flower over a real map of France.

It then transitions to a virtual tour of the primary ingredients and culminates in a shop button for holiday gift sets.

This is just one of the many creative ways your brand can leverage AR with other smartphone and social media capabilities.

And while more complex AR experiences can come with significantly higher development costs, the boost that they can provide to your overall social media strategy will be well worth it.

AR and the Future of Social Media Marketing

As with any emerging technology, the future of AR rests in the hands of the youth. This is why tech-inclined online and brick-and-mortar universities are well poised to influence not just the development of AR, but of social media marketing in the future.

AR is the next big thing in social media marketing. Social media is one of the most powerful cultural forces in the world, so a lot can be taken by observing how the world’s most educated and tech-inclined academics are approaching the future of social media use and marketing in general.

As an example, Civic Signals is an independent project formed by principal researchers from the University of Texas Center for Media Engagement.

Through this initiative, the university’s researchers are looking for ways to increase social media access and participation while ensuring the security of users’ data.

The initiative also wants to leverage social media for supporting civic actions, combating fake news, and boosting the resilience of marginalized communities.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum, the researchers at long-standing online school Maryville University are aiming to maximize digital media’s commercial potential.

Those pursuing Maryville University’s online bachelor’s in marketing are receiving remote web-based training in a variety of social media-relevant skills.

Aimed at producing advertising managers, market research analysts, demand generation specialists, and social media strategists, the program’s point of focus reveals the commercial trends that will develop alongside AR.

Conclusion

Outside of marketing and commercial use, AR use cases in social media’s aforementioned civic dimensions will continue to develop in the coming years.

This is because, at the end of the day, AR is a relatively new and highly effective tool for boosting digital communication.

AR is bound to be a crucial part of how social media will develop in the future. Whether you’re selling a brand, a product, or a message, leveraging AR can help you create a more effective long-term social media strategy.