Trends in social media marketing 2020
Social media will remain the most important way to market your business in 2020. However, the field is different every year because there’s a lot dynamism in how social media is used and you need to stay on top of trends in your field.
These are the trends to be on a look out in 2020. It doesn’t mean you should jump on all of these trends since that’s not how long term marketing planning works. Since others in your industry will be paying attention to these, you should as well.
Ephemeral content
Ephemeral content is already one of the most engaging aspects of social media advertising and it’s going to continue to be so in the years to come, mostly growing and becoming even more important. It’s the content that’s only available for short amount of time and then it disappears forever. The most common type of this content are the Instagram stories.
With this content it’s quality is what really matters. It should be engaging and create a bond between the company and the social media follow and it can be rather topical. The biggest expense for creating such content are the creatives themselves.
Niche social media platforms
Everyone are on social media right now and every company uses the big and the popular social media platforms. There are also benefits from using smaller niche platforms. These may not have a large audience or that much options in terms of content, but they offer a closer bond between the users.
These micro platforms will continue to grow in 2020 and there will be more of them, especially those that will have a shorter lifetime. There will also be companies that will create their own platforms for this purpose.
No more likes
Instagram is the most important social media right now for a younger audience and every change made to it is something businesses should be aware of and plan for. The biggest change that’s coming up is the removal of the like button.
This will change what kind of content you’re able to create because a lot of interactions with the users depend on that “like “option. It will also change how the business measures success in the field because it too is very much about counting likes as a substitute for counting engagement in a meaningful way.
Social media commerce
When there’s too much steps between a user and making a purchase, everything becomes more complicated and more expensive. That’s why there’s a growing trend of so called social media commerce. That way the social media platforms bypass the middleman and they both advertise and sell the products.
The biggest concern with this trend is the security of the micropayments made with these purchases. That’s what you should focus your efforts as a small business in this year, but without giving up on traditional sale funnels, at least just yet.
Video content
It’s often said that the importance of video content will grow and that’s true at all times. Video is now a bigger part of online marketing than it was few years ago and it will be even more important in the years to come. Be prepared to up your video budgets in 2020.
It’s also important to note that a big part of this will be video content created by the users themselves. There’s less expenses here and that content will be rather useful in creating a sense of community. At the same time, you’ll have to invest more in moderating and curating this content.
Technology adoption
Online marketing very much depends on adopting new technologies that are needed to make your marketing as appealing as it needs to be. This will increase and speed in the years to come. Even smaller companies will need to do get on board with these innovations.
That will be the most noticeable in the use of VR because that’s the first big thing that’s coming up and that will have tons of applications in the field of marketing and promotion. The technology is still a bit bumpy but you should try to be the first on board.
More legal scrutiny
Since there’s more of everything coming to social media, the government will be more involved in how they are used. That’s partly in order to protect the privacy and the data of the users and partly because of the nature of governmental control that tends to expand over time.
That’s something that businesses need to prepare for both in terms of following the rules and in terms of having the teams and assets that will help you do just that. All of this is worth your effort because social media are the place to promote your business on.
