What to Expect: Social Media Marketing 2020

The year 2019 was called the year of visuals for social media and it didn’t have its name for nothing. Over 500 million people used Instagram stories every single day and different channels like Facebook, YouTube and Spotify followed suite. 

Post were interactive, boring graphics turned into flashy graphics and people followed instructions better when visuals are used. 

Social Media marketing is now highly integrated as one of the most powerful thing in building brands, growing a business and captivating target market. In the year 2019, we saw continued social media innovation for brands. Shoppable posts capabilities has been added by several platforms allowing customers to shop even without leaving your photo or video. 

As the new year and a new era started, social media is continued evolving. Let us dig deeper into what we expect social media will be in 2020. 

1.0 Explosion of videos in social media

Over the years, videos in social media platforms has been a great help to capture audience’s attention. Recently however, it has taken the world by storm. YouTube has been a resounding success for marketers as over 1 billion hours of video are being watched daily. It has become the world’s second largest search engine after Google, its parent company. 

Still overwhelmed with YouTube? Familiar platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have also seen growth for brands while using video content in the past and is expecting more for this year. Personalized your video and create organic materials is it will become a thing this year. 

2.0 Meet UGC

User-generated content will likely dominate social media this 2020. These are content created by an average customer or we would like to say from ANYBODY even without a large following which sets it apart from influencer marketing. 

This has been working as people more likely to trust brands who take notice of someone like them that they can relate to. 

How to use this for your brand? 

Encourage people to try and create a content for your brand and offer them discount and coupons when they do so. 

3.0 The rule of social commerce

Social commerce or the ability to sell products directly to customers without leaving any social media platforms have already made a mark and this year, it will definitely see more growth. 

With a fewer clicks and taps compared with the traditional e-webs stores, social commerce have a lot of benefits as you can imagine. 

This strategy answers the demand of customers who are now shifting and use social media channels to discover products. 

4.0 Advocacy Marketing

This trend differs from any other social media trend this year. This involves you promoting your brand from a customer perspective as you become a brand advocate. As customers now look for organic feel and genuine experiences, advocacy marketing will definitely earn its place as one of the trends to look out for this year. 

Influencer marketing is one of the best and most popular social media marketing strategy over the recent years. While micro-influencers have been highlighted last year, another group of influencers are to be watched out for this 2020. They have a following of 1,000 – 5,000 and are called Nano – Influencers. Because of their lower followings, their audience are targeted making their market more defined and catching a higher engagement. 

After watching an advertisement or reading a content from a million- follower influencer, a lot of people are still skeptic to pull out their cards and make a purchase. Consumers now wants to hear insights from “real” people and trust them even more.

6.0 Community connection on a personal level

As people started to view social media with negative impressions because of its tendency to be inauthentic, brands need effort to showcase it authenticity. 

Social media audience want meaningful and real connections and brands need to finds way to create a private and intimate communications. Personalized video marketing will likely to boom this year as well direct messaging marketing campaigns. 

7.0 Social Media Analytics

As Instagram announced the removal of its “like” button, social media analytics has delve into some changes. Vanity metrics as it is being called are the numbers of likes that a post receive and are mostly use by brands and marketers to access their effectivity. But using this as a basis is like threading to shallow waters and as several platforms may follow suite in hiding these buttons, analyzing your metrics should be deeper. 

8.0 Tiktok as the next big thing

“To capture and present the world’s creativity, knowledge, and precious life moments, directly from the mobile phone. TikTok enables everyone to be a creator, and encourages users to share their passion and creative expression through their videos.”

This has been the platforms purpose and sure it is serving its thing. Statistics are showing that Tiktok cannot be ignored anymore. Unlike other social media channel, Tiktok does not care about aesthetic but only about fun and valuable content. 

Brands have great potential in utilizing TIktok to reach its niche market and expected to grow over the years. 

Final Thoughts

As a marketer, it is important to be on the loop on the latest trends in social media. Social media is an evolving world and keeping up with these trends will ace your game against competitors. This will also give your brand the visibility you need and the sales you want to achieve.