Social Media Trends in 2020: The Future is here

I've been watching the trends for this year and thinking hard about Social Media Trends in 2020. I have read a lot and I watch, listen and learn, to keep up with trends. So for 2020, I have compiled a list of articles and stats and information I have learned for this year. I'm feeling some different directions this year, and preparing for them, are you?

Social Media Trends in 2020

Social Media Networks

Keeping ahead of the game is essential in social media, nothing changes there. Knowing the trends, the latest developments and what’s important to the people on that network. Gone are the days that you really need to be on every social network available. Just because they are the biggest, doesn’t make them the best, and no, while this isn't new, we need to nail this down now.

With the rise of new niche platforms and the fact that people with similar likes are sticking together more than ever before; it might be that you need just two or three social networks that are completely the right niche for you. It’s much more sensible to define your target market and to know where your customers are.

Take the time to fully identify and understand your particular niche

Social selling

We need to bring all of our social efforts together this year. Social media marketing and social media advertising, are still there but with unobtrusive propriety. Leading the way is social selling, using social tactics and technology to reach your audience by building relationships by listening, engaging and making sure you are in that right place at the right time. (which isn't going to be 5 mins per day)

Spend time on Social Media

Quality over quantity is what users want, there is too much noise, it's putting people off. It used to be that likes and follows were important, now it's about how much engagement you have?

Customers, fans, followers want to get to know you, so they can like you and trust you, so it’s more important to listen and engage, again not new but it becomes much more important this year, especially with the likely hood of likes disappearing.  Spend time on social networks, tell stories, be honest, show weakness and show leadership. Do not just “post and go”, this isn’t working and won’t ever work; neither is bombarding people with bots. or copy and paste type group DMs and private sales messages, that’s just spam, unprofessional and people do not like it. Don't be frightened to let a professional social media manager help you with your social media efforts. This then also gives you time to spend on what you know how to do, which is run your own business.

Linkedin

One of the Social Media Trends in 2020 has to be LinkedIn. It's becoming much more the place to be for many businesses, entrepreneurs and CEOs. It’s already becoming more open to alternative posts that aren’t just business posts so that we can actually get to know one another but there is a line - do be careful not to treat it like Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. Don’t post too often and don’t post things like rubbish snaps of holidays, your cat or food pics, you can be more personal but make sure that its quality content, and again do not spam users. Especially before you have even connected. Also, make sure you have a profile picture, that is a headshot, preferably with a plain background and a personalized URL

You might like this -#Branding – Creating a Custom LinkedIn URL

Social networks

Twitter is still a great place for many businesses, don't leave it out of your testing. For customer service its perfect, if done correctly. Customers deserve this, it’s really time to do customer service correctly on social media. Attitudes and expectations are changing as we get deeper into the digital age. This is driven by customers who are placing higher demands on customer service, 93% of customers were more likely to be repeat customers at companies with excellent customer service according to Hubspot. 

57% of customers would rather contact companies via digital media such as email or social media rather than use voice-based customer support.

Ameyo

Facebook is still important even though we have apparently lost faith in the most popular social network. We are still all members, Facebook still has well over 2.3 billion active users. However, paying for ads to target your audience is pretty much a necessity. Ads do not need to be expensive and can work very well.  Of course, Facebook Groups used in conjunction with pages will enhance business pages.

Don’t forget places like Tik Tok, Vero, Snapchat or Lasso as these might be where you need to put in all of your efforts.

Likes

As mentioned earlier it has been rumoured for some time that social media sites such as Instagram are going to be removing likes, (Instagram has been trialing this) it’s said that you will still see your own likes, but other people will not see them. This will change the game completely but don't panic. Although people are worried about losing likes, it is really a good thing because not only will be people be more inclined to comment on posts, which give you the opportunity to reply and create engagement and trust with the commenter, people will now be drawn by the product and not because everyone else has liked it.

Social Commerce

Social commerce, not to be confused with social shopping is already huge in the online commerce world. The amount of time spent by people using social media apps makes social commerce the future trend for shopping.  Users already expect to be able to browse and buy from their mobile devices via social platforms many already do and more would buy this way so make sure you have this availability set up. E-commerce brands should make their social feed a shopping window, no plastering your feed with adverts, just amazing imagery and an easy discrete way to funnel users to be able to buy and also to enable users to share.  Want to get noticed – share UGC, user-generated content and run a giveaway.

Mobile Commerce

With more than half of all internet traffic shopping from a mobile device, it is extremely important to make sure your website is perfect for mobile viewing and that your social media and marketing strategies are a part of this.

Where they reach $9.2 billion in sales – 33% of those sales were from people shopping on smartphones.

Grow your community

All of the above Social Media Trends in 2020 are much more achievable with a loyal community behind your business.

Social media communities are groups created by brands or business owners. These groups provide a platform for your clients or customers. No, this isn’t new but it is also becoming a niche market. It's much more important to grow your community now than that just get lots of followers.  People who have similar characters, interests or likes are like birds of a feather flocking together. Communities fill this need if built around topics or characteristics that members have in common. People like to feel that they matter and that they are important, they want your attention, they want to tell you about your products or services and you need to listen. Communities like this have become invaluable for businesses, alongside social media networks, but it’s not for the light-hearted, it takes a lot of work and dedication.

Intimate groups

When people first started running Facebook groups all they were concerned about was getting big numbers of members. They had to be the biggest they could be, the problem with these communities that there is so much going on, it can be deafening and distracting. Most people either end up never visiting the group or just looking in now and then but feel rejected because they cannot get involved. Some of these larger groups, unmanned by an experienced community manager just turned out to be just spam fests, where everyone is just posting about what they are selling.

Community managers

Whereas a small intimate nurtured group feels loved and welcomed and know they matter, and trust is earned. This is how you create meaningful connections and strong relationships everyone gets to know everyone else. You get to know what they do and what gaps they can fill for you or others. This is usually done around specific conversational topics or people from similar areas, which encourages engagement and this can happen naturally in this environment, without being sold to.

People are now more interested in joining meaningful groups, where they are able to express themselves and to get real feedback. People like to be able to talk to each other in real-time and on their terms.

Influencers

On the small scale again here – businesses are still very keen on influencer marketing but are moving away from the huge influencers. Small, and medium-size brands especially are turning to Nano influencers or micro-influencers. These influencers have between 1,000 to 1,000,000 followers and are considered experts in their respective niche. Larger influencers who might have over 1million followers might not have a great deal of engagement. People are seeing through the fake images so they don't have such a deep level of trust. Followers of Nana influencers tent to feel like friends to that influencer rather than a fan. The problem here is that many Influencers of this type are not fully compliant with FTC and CMA Guidelines and they need to be or the brand might be liable.

Social Audio

Audio is so important, how many people have airpods or headphones on all of the time. I’ve been waiting for this for a long time since the Just Saying App back in 2012. Just-Saying was a voice-centric audio app by CloudTalk that was ahead of its time. Ricky Gervais was even involved with it, but it wasn’t to be. Maybe it’s time to dust of the cobwebs Sami Yousif!

Now people are talking about social audio being the next wave of social media. Social audio is content creation and interaction where the foundations are built on voice!

7.1 million people in the UK now listen to podcasts

I’m not sure if you have noticed it but as Ofcom has reported

Around nine in ten people in the UK continue to listen to live radio every week. And many are combining this with listening to podcasts. More than a third (37%) of podcast listeners say they have listened to a radio program for the first time because of listening to a podcast.

This means that 7.1 million people in the UK now listen to podcasts each week. An increase of over 24% in the past year - that is huge!

Repurposing

We should be all repurposing blogs not only to video but to podcasts now. Even books, if you have brought a book out make sure it’s on audible.

Our love for audio will mean that AA is becoming more to the forefront, Augmented Audio part of the AR family.

Proof of how important Audio is to us is that the Bluetooth LE Audio was said to be the biggest news from CES2020 by Tech Radar

Exciting times ahead …. let's watch out for these Social Media Trends in 2020

First published on https://www.michelleharris.social/social-media-trends-in-2020-its-the-future.html