What Social Media Trends You Should Consider In 2020!

Social media is always an exciting topic around this time of the year. Like life, social media is quickly evolving and can change in the blink of an eye. We always hear people say “There is no way they can come up with something new or better, surely it will die out soon.” To those people, I am here to tell you that social media marketing is thriving in 2020 and is only going to continue to grow! 

It is becoming increasingly important for marketers to dive deeper into social media, both the organic aspect and the paid. There are new platforms to consider and more advanced tools that should be utilised to ensure your business or clients are getting the best results!

Private Conversations 

Facebook has made it very clear that they want to focus on the privacy of its users, and unify Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp. So what does that mean for us marketers? It means that we need to start getting more personable with our customers, start reaching out to them on a one-on-one basis and develop a more genuine relationship with customers. You may have seen this already being done with influencers on Instagram! Sometimes when you follow them, you get a lovely message from them thanking you for supporting them and a little blurb about themself and what they are about. 

There are a few tools you can use to tackle Facebook Messenger and get the most out of private marketing. Here are some recommended by WordStream:

1. Comment guard
2. Chat blasting
3. Click to messenger ad
4. Chat widget

All four of these strategies are great new ways to target your audience on a bit or of a personal level. Comment guard and chat blast are the two that are most relevant to us.  

Comment guard will send an automated Facebook Message from a Facebook Chatbot to people who have commented on a post you have selected to have this feature. BUT they only become a lead once they reply to your automated Facebook Message and once they do, you have all their information and permission to send them messages. Make sure your posts are related to what your Facebook Chatbot is messaging. For example, we could put up a post asking people if they want to know more about social media marketing. If they comment and our Chatbot sends them a message, the message should be asking if they’d like more information about social media, not web design. 

Chat Blast is a very cool feature Facebook offers that can sub-out your email marketing. Now you can’t send out a blast about promos/ advertisement based messages but if you can put together something of value or that is informative, it will help move people further down the marketing funnel! 

User-Generated Content

User-generated content has quickly become one of the top tactics of most businesses and for a good reason. There are so many advantages to using UGC, for one, you get some pretty awesome content that has taken no time out of your day to create. 

The other great advantage is that it gives your company better authenticity and trust. UGC is like having reviews of your product, people have taken the time out of their day to post about your company. That’s how much they loved it, and let’s face it people are pretty lazy nowadays, so that is saying a lot. 

Create a unique hashtag for your audience to tag you in, and get them excited, increase competitions using the hashtag and build that relationship with your audience.

Mico-Influencers 

Influencer marketing has long been a tactic used in the marketing industry. However, in 2019 there was a growing mistrust in influencer marketing due to an increasing number of fake influencer accounts. These accounts will have paid for followers meaning that they are followed by a number of “bot” accounts who have no interest in the product you are trying to market. 

We recommend that businesses use local influencers. You should be able to arrange a face to face meeting and get a better understanding of whether or not you can trust them. You can ask them directly if they have paid for followers. A simple search of their Instagram and you should be able to verify if they were telling you the truth. Typically they don't have millions of followers however they will have thousands of genuine followers from your local area who are more likely to purchase from you. 

Another great way to use micro-influencers is to ask them to become your ambassador! Have them create some great UGC for not only their platform but for yours as well. You can use this content for paid ads or organic feed content and help define more trust between your audience.

Video Content

Video content is always on this list, as video content is just still a top strategy that EVERYONE needs to be using. Digital Marketing Guru Tai Lopez maintains that videos are the future as they can be used to effectively portray your brand story. They provide the viewer with a large amount of information with a minimum amount of effort.  

YouTube is the main platform for developing your video content. It has the second most active users and your videos can be embedded throughout all your social media platforms and even your website. 

Instagram has recognised the power of video by expanding its IGTV tool and allowing landscape videos and longer video time. This will allows marketers to repurpose video content easier. People like videos, they are entertaining and get to the point without the user having to do much. Facebook & LinkedIn priorities video content because they know that is what people prefer to see vs static images or written content.

TikTok

TikTok is still sitting on the sidelines when it comes to its marketing tools, but with 500 million active users and a fast-growing platform, it is something to keep your eye on! As of right now, the platform is definitely geared towards B2C and not B2B with most users being under the age of 25. There are currently three critical options for brands looking to utilise TikTok for promotion:

1. Create your brands’ own channel and upload videos relevant to your business
2. Utilise influencers to open your content to a much broader (but well-targeted) audience
3. Pay to advertise utilising TikTok’s new campaign options. However as this is still new to the platform, and we would recommend holding off on paid ads until it is more established. 

We are living in a digital age, and we need to ensure we are educating ourselves constantly. For that reason, one of our top tips for 2020 is to ensure you are taking time out of your day to research new tools, find out what other marketers are up too, & stay up to date with any new changes social platforms make! 

If you are a business that is interested in social media advertising or needs help with content creation, give one of our social media experts a call and see how we can help grow your digital presence!