Social PR Trends I Swear By For 2020

This is the year of the Docuseries, Back to Basics, Fanocracy, Old-School Newsletters, and Anti-Social.

When Search Engine Journal asked me to share my favorite social media trends for 2020, here's what I had to say'

“The new mindset is this: The relationship we build with our customers is more important than the products and services we sell them,” Buyer said.

DOCUSERIES HITS SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS FOR BRANDS

2020 is the year to invest in binge-watching docuseries-style content inspired by Netflix. Brands hitting this new content concept out of the park in 2019 included Digital Distillery’s ‘Pay The Invoice’, a nine-part web B2B docu-series following the lives of seven ad agency owners and freelancers as they embark on a journey led by Cat Howell on how to scale their business.

The B2C sexual wellbeing brand K-Y? also released The Pleasure is Mine, a documentary series (docu-series) intended to normalize sex-positive conversations in America with the hashtag #GetWhatYouWant.

ANTI-SOCIAL: SCALING BACK & PRIORITIZING

Anti-social is another trend coming after 10 years of social media high with brands.

The utopia of social media is starting to fizzle as brands and humans feel the burnout and over saturation of chasing the social media dragon.

Organic results are becoming harder to achieve and justify ROI. Scaling back to one or two channels that work and sunsetting the channels not returning a positive business outcome.

OLD SCHOOL TOUCHES ARE MAKING A COME BACK BECAUSE THEY STAND OUT

Mailing a postcard or a newsletter is making a comeback weaving in the modern-day digital marketing with traditional print media.

For example, the Hustle and Flow Chart podcast offers its listeners who are mostly made up of entrepreneurs and digital marketers a membership option to subscribe to show notes delivered monthly via snail mail in the form of a 9x12 print newsletter.

SUBJECTIVE & OBJECTIVE SOCIAL MEDIA PAINS

Matching your social media goals with your brand’s business objectives is a no brainer. Sort of.

Social media is also subjective and not formulated in one secret potion. What works for one brand does not work for another and sometimes subjective and unproven wacky, tacky and off-brand things work really well.

There is no right or wrong in many ways when it comes to social media for business. This makes social media management a very stressful position at times.

TURNING FANS INTO CUSTOMERS & CUSTOMERS INTO FANS

Providing a service your customer needs is not enough today. Posting self-serving social media messages do not work.

Tony Robbins calls it “Creating Raving Fan Customers.”

Hubspot announced the traditional funnel was broken and introduced the flywheel putting customers in the middle and in charge.

Most recently, David Meerman Scott and Reiko Scott released the book Fanocracy highlighting the need for brands to put customers’ needs and wishes at the extreme center of everything it does.

The new mindset is this: The relationship we build with our customers is more important than the products and services we sell them.

Want More? Check out The Biggest Social Media Trends of 2020, According to 34 Experts

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