Powerful Digital Trends You Need to Know in 2020 with Brian Fanzo

If you want your business to remain competitive today, you need to keep up and adapt to the evolving changes in digital marketing. Taking advantage of these transformations will set you apart from your competition.

The following are some digital trends you can implement for your 2020 digital strategy:

1. Personalized Marketing Will Be Important

Every year, marketers swear that they will offer personalized experiences to their customers. However, according to research, many are still missing the mark.

73% of consumers and 43% of brands believe marketers are struggling to offer personalized experiences.

Image via Redpoint Global

Marketers need to leverage the right technological tools to reach out to their audience in a targeted manner. However, over-reliance on technology may not always get them a positive response.

In fact, 74% of consumers find push notifications to be invasive. Furthermore, 63% of consumers also revealed that they would stop buying from a brand that uses “creepy” marketing tactics.

What do consumers consider “creepy”?

Actually, there is a fine line between personalization and being creepy. For instance, many of the surveyed respondents said that they find push notifications creepy, not helpful.

According to Brian Fanzo, the Founder of iSocialFanz, marketers should not over-rely on technology. They should work to add a human touch to ensure a better customer experience.

You may automate the content distribution process but you need to ensure that the content that your copywriters create strikes a chord with the audience. It needs to be personalized to suit their needs and preferences.

To share such personalized content, marketers can customize their online ads, and run targeted email marketing campaigns.

2. The Rise of New Social Media Platforms

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube continue to dominate as the most used social media platforms. However, there has been some skepticism regarding these networks. With the 2018 Cambridge Analytica saga, Facebook stirred up privacy concerns.

With big social media platforms being heavily scrutinized, alternative platforms are gaining popularity. TikTok, Snapchat, Pinterest, and Twitch are some of the new social media platforms that are in the spotlight.

In fact, TikTok was the most downloaded social app in 2019. It also had close to 60 million installs. If your target market is the younger generation, then it’s a platform you should consider.

According to Brian, the platform is excellent because it’s a platform that makes it easy to find your tribe or people you can connect with and who accept your brand.

When you log in, the feed is full of the hashtags you watch and those you create. Through this feature, you can then easily find people and connect with them.

Just like TikTok, other new social media networks will also become more popular. Of course, Facebook, Instagram, and the other big names will continue to dominate because of their robust marketing capabilities.

However, smaller channels have shown immense potential too, and marketers will start including them in their social strategies to reach out to niche audiences.

3. Nano-Influencers, Micro-Influencers, and CGI Influencers Will Become More Popular

Micro- and nano-influencers are becoming more popular for influencer marketing. Despite having smaller audiences, they have higher engagement rates.

Image via Social Publi

More companies will opt to work with these influencers in 2020. Not only can this help them save money, but it can also help them reach highly engaged audiences.

Another interesting trend to watch out for will be the rise in the number of CGI influencers. Virtual or computer-generated influencers are already rising in popularity, especially on Instagram. They include Lil Miquela, Imma, and Noonoouri.

Image via Instagram

Designers and programmers create these CGI influencers which means that everything they post has previously undergone intense discussions at the back-end. In a nutshell, their social media feeds are carefully planned by a team.

Industry experts have seen a huge potential in collaborating with them, and brands like KFC and Balmain have used them to promote their products.

Why?

Because unlike real-life influencers, brands can exercise greater control over the narrative. They get a say in how the content will look and what each detail should look like.

Moreover, influencer marketing campaigns with influencers can lead to issues like missing information, inconsistent messages, and in some extreme cases, controversies.

These issues aren’t a problem with CGI influencers.

CGI influencers also have a wider reach since they can post in different languages and easily travel around the globe. They can also relate to any audience with a little manipulation and can have their personalities molded to a brand’s liking.

The ability to experiment with them presents marketers with numerous opportunities to promote their brands. We are, therefore, likely to see this digital trend continue with more and more brands using virtual influencers.

4. Marketers Will Focus on Community Building

According to Brian, there will be a major change in the way we look at our marketing campaigns. He believes engagement is likely to take a backseat. He says marketers may even stop measuring and reporting their engagement rates.

Instead, marketers may focus their efforts on categorizing and managing their connections. He explains that the future of marketing lies in turning customers into brand advocates or super fans.

For that, brands will need to work on building close-knit communities of like-minded people. It’s not easy to market to everyone. However, when you find a tribe, you can activate them to do the marketing for you.

For community building, marketers are likely to invest in building brand awareness and engaging their communities. They may also invest in providing their customers with better user experiences. In a nutshell, they will try to win over their audience and gain their trust.

Ready to Start Implementing These Digital Trends?

From personalized marketing to community building, a lot of changes are taking place in the marketing industry. If you want to stay on the top of your game, you need to embrace these trends and adapt your strategy.

This podcast originally appeared on ShaneBarker.com.