Social media marketing has evolved rapidly in recent years in conjunction with the growth and development of social media platforms. Because of the rapidly changing environment, it is critical to effectively stay informed of changes and forecast. That’s why every company needs to be aware of the trends in social media marketing for 2020. As a top digital marketing agency, we wanted to share what we see as key areas where brands should focus on more engagement and more conversions in the coming year.
Social media marketing trends for 2020
Enhanced Ecommerce Integration – Platforms will continue to integrate and enhance their ecommerce capabilities. In 2019, Instagram added a great option to enable ecommerce checkouts without leaving the platform. This offers several advantages for the platform. Clearly, it offers customers the convenience of all-in-one shopping. This also gives the platform access to more customer data that can then be used for future personalization of the shopping experience.
Even More Quality Images – Generation Z and Millennials have both shown they love quality visual content. You can joke about not enjoying reading, but it’s more a matter of time and attention. The younger generations jump from one to the other faster, so the ability of good images to transfer information quickly and efficiently is critical. That means focusing on spending on both video ads and images, including infographics and other visual content.
New Channels for Gen Z – We will see new platforms emerge, mainly in the battle for the attention of Generation Z. Snapchat has started integrating e-commerce and even Tik-Tok is experimenting with social trading. Generation Z is a huge market and so far, no platform has dominated that demographics. Keeping an eye on the smaller platforms is a wise idea for any business marketing for Gen Z.
Facebook Remains Dominant – While other platforms are growing and have many active users in the hundreds of millions of users, Facebook is still by far the king. That doesn’t mean other platforms don’t buzz when the year starts. By and large, Facebook will not be overtaken for total users, so they should always be on the marketing radar. But companies with a younger demographic customer group need to recognize which platforms are performing better and use a multi-platform approach.
Social Media Customer Service – In addition to platforms that use social media for e-commerce, they are also becoming a top customer service option. As more customers use platforms as a communication method, we can expect to see more complaints and problems flooding social media platforms. Due to the explosive nature of complaining on social platforms, companies will need to establish customer service plans with popular platforms to not only help their customers but also avoid marketing nightmares if an unanswered complaint eventually goes viral.
Influencers Stay Influential – Influencer Marketing made its presence in 2019 and that trend continues into 2020. The main benefit of using an influencer is its reach. They have an existing audience that can be directly tapped, often very effective. That connection they built with their audience then provides a basic level of trust when the influencer promotes a product, which is a proven method of driving sales to younger consumers.
More User Generated Content – The Internet has quickly proven that everything has a short shelf life. Just as Influencer Marketing became prominent because consumers have less confidence in brands, User-Generated Content adds a level of value confirmation that is second to none. Customer reviews used to provide this level of confidence; but fake reviews poisoned that well. User-generated content is a similar recommendation that shows real people and how they feel about, interact with, or use their products and services.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line is that social media and marketing both continue to change and adapt to the needs of customers, along with how they use technology. Brands that want to be successful need to keep abreast of social media marketing trends to ensure they can reach their audiences efficiently and effectively. Staying up-to-date is a necessity in our fast-changing world if you want continuous success in an ever-expanding market.
