Introduction
Brands are trying to engage the audience in many ways. With the increase in competition and a decrease in the attention span of users, it gets essential to let people know about your brand or product. The online platform is being used by brands lately to increase their value and reputation. The users on social media are increasing vigorously. With the dads and moms of the house being on Facebook and Instagram, social media is no longer just a millennial thing.
Social media marketing has not only helped in promoting a brand but also to increase interaction between companies and clients. Most of the buyers use social media as a way to complain or to give feedback about their products. As the year 2020 has started, let us know about the trends that will be followed in social media marketing and how it will affect future trends.
Changes in Social Media Marketing in 2020
Various discoveries and algorithms were used by social media apps to build a future with potential and existing clients. Various social media marketing tools are also used by marketers to promote their brand. There was a considerable shift in paradigm in social media marketing in 2020.
Here are some of the new trends followed in social media marketing strategy and how they are going to affect in the future.
- Facebook’s algorithm update: Facebook is a leading app with tons of users engaging daily in buying and selling. Recently, Facebook introduced a new tool that improves transparency. The “Why am I seeing this post?” button is a new initiative from Facebook in their updated algorithm. These algorithms, even suggest to them what is important and what is not, which content will be given priority, and more interaction. They made it clear that posts which people talked about more will get more popularity on the news feed. Further, this means that in future times, the main aim will be to create engaging content along with authenticity, which sparks an interest in our audience. This, in turn, helps in marketing strategy with new Facebook tools and understanding what buyers need.
- Paid Advertisements: Almost all social media platforms give an option of paid advertisements, and it truly changed the face of marketing in the year 2020. Be it buying IGTV views, or paid ads by Facebook; social media ads gained a lot of popularity for brands who wanted more popularity without wasting any time.
- Chatbots in social media marketing: Chatbots are being used for interactions between customers and brands for quite a while now and have gained a lot of popularity in social media marketing. It is based on virtual reality where machines answer queries of customers. A bot gives a voice to the brand and sends personalized messages directly to users. Facebook messenger now sees 100,000 monthly active bots, which not only provides immediate service but also offers a platform for connection between buyers and sellers.
- Influencers will continue to rule the market- Social media is dominated by influencers, who are getting paid for promoting brands. One can see a rise in their numbers. It can be seen by an increase in marketing spend on influencers by businesses. Investing in influencers is much cheaper, and it delivers good results. Moving forward, more and more marketers will use this strategy for their growth in 2020.
- IGTV by Instagram: IGTV has gained a lot of popularity. As most of the brands, be it individual brands or as a whole company, prefer Instagram as their first choice for advertising, IGTV sure changed a lot about social media marketing. IGTV is vertical video viewing which even challenged the most popular video viewing app, YouTube.
The carefully crafted and personalized content in the form of a video sure gained a lot of popularity, and people used it to promote their brands and products by even buying IGTV views.
Social media channels will continue to give different video experiences to their consumers with more extended and more engaging content.
- YouTube is not behind: Of course YouTube had to come in operation and surpassed Facebook by adding premium subscription services. To compete against various other video apps, YouTube launched not just one but two subscription options: YouTube Music and YouTube Premium. Along with access to original video content, the premium subscription offers ad-free videos and downloads. YouTube is the second most loved website after Google and continues to add more and more services to engage viewers. With so many channels posting a large amount of content in the form of videos on YouTube, it surely is one of the leading Social media apps in the world.
- Live streaming: Facebook’s live streaming feature enables marketers to engage viewers on a whole new level. When Facebook live was announced a couple of years back by Mark Zuckerberg, it gave a platform to publishers and businesses through which they could live to stream their content. Facebook live streaming generates a 300 percent increase in engagement according to HubSpot. Even Twitter offers its own live streaming channel Twitter live.
- Instagram Stories: Along with recently launched IGTV, Instagram stories continue to gain interest among both marketers and viewers. More views are generated on Instagram stories then Snapchat, as it is accessible by anyone whether they follow you or not provides your account, is public. This helps promote business more effectively as the content is displayed directly on the explore page for users to access.
- User Relevant content trends remain on list– Generating user-relevant content will remain a popular social media marketing trend in 2020. More and more marketers have started using UGC (User Generated Content). Various well-known brands motivate their customers to tag them in the content generated by them and get featured on their Instagram pages or stories. The best thing about UGC is, it is free and more authentic. It helps brands to appear more trustworthy and engaging to the customers.
To get benefits from social media marketing, one needs to be aware of the various trends followed last year and their impact on the upcoming years. Various Social networking sites offer different features for you to reach out to potential buyers and promote your brand. WeChat, Whatsapp, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are competing and generating new updates for people to use and follow new social media marketing plans.
