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Shorter videos, the rise of audio, building communities — A compilation of social media trends in 2020

What will be the key trends shaping social media in 2020? Fortune-telling in an area which changes nearly every day like social media is not an easy job, to be honest. But these predictions can be useful to create a strategy to build on later with the launch of new platforms/products and social changes. Here’s my ‘best-of compilation’ of the top trends from several sources:

• Engaging in private: Engagement is not exclusive for public social media channels anymore. While many platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn have launched new private messaging and closed group features; “55 % of marketers agree that the rise of private social media channels like direct messaging and closed groups has made them rethink their social media strategy.” But this doesn’t mean that all connection and engagement will be on private platforms. A well-balanced strategy between the public channels to raise the awareness, and private channels to create a tailored, meaningful one-to-one engagement is the best approach suggested. On the ‘private groups’ note, we see another rising trend here: Building social media communities. While more and more people are opting for a ‘digital detox’ and the trust in social media decreases, the brands that build communities and meaningful conversations around their content, will be the winners in the long run. (Sources: Hootsuite, Smart Insights )

“55 % of marketers agree that the rise of private social media channels like direct messaging and closed groups has made them rethink their social media strategy.”

• Influencer marketing — Rise of micro and nano: In the era of ‘post-truth’, trust and genuine connections are more valuable than ever. This applies to influencer marketing as well. So, while research shows that 59% of marketers plan on increasing their influencer budget in the next year, the emphasis will be on micro and nano influencers who has a small but loyal and trustable follower base, more than ‘celebrity-like’ mega influencers. These influencers have already started to dominate marketing plans in 2019, which I’ve given a more in-depth review here. (Source: Social Media Today)
• Engagement, engagement, engagement: As we talked about the micro and nano influencers, another point that makes them effective is the high-engagement their content receive from their followers. Since platforms like Instagram testing the waters to altogether remove to display the number of likes, the content with lots of comments and replies receive better ranks and reach by social media algorithms. This means, instead of playing for likes and follower numbers, creating meaningful conversations with a loyal community will pay off in the long turn. Multimedia content like video, live and infographics generate better engagement than plain text ones. Also, 56% of the internet users watch video on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Another tip: Finish your posts with a question to create a conversation around your content. (Source: Tech Jackie)

“Since platforms like Instagram testing the waters to altogether remove to display the number of likes, the content with lots of comments and replies receive better ranks and reach by social media algorithms. This means, instead of playing for likes and follower numbers, creating meaningful conversations with a loyal community will pay off in the long turn.”

• Alternative social platforms: Facebook is getting old, Instagram is overcrowded, number active users have declined on Twitter. Sure it doesn’t mean that these platforms shouldn’t be prioritized in social media strategies, but brands should take emerging platforms seriously, like Tik Tok. Nobody can deny the popularity of Tik Tok in 2019, with its 500 million active users; and apparently, this popularity won’t fizzle out anytime soon. I don’t think Tik Tok will be ‘one-solution-fits-all’, but it is highly influential targeting specific demographics like 16–24 years old (69% of its users) and living in Asia ( 60% of its user base living in China) On this context, Pinterest is also another platform shouldn’t be underestimated. Research shows that retail brands report two times higher returns on ad spend from the platform than other forms of social media and a 1.3x higher return than traditional search. (Source: Hootsuite, Smart Insights)
• Short, appealing and influencing — Stories: Inspired from Snapchat in the first place, more and more platforms have adapted ‘stories’ feature and it will grow its popularity in the next year. There are 500 million daily active Stories users across the globe and best use of stories is for receiving immediate reactions and calls for action. As I’ve mentioned above, video is a rising content on engagement, but here the challenge is a bit harder because of the duration of the stories. Brands need to adopt a strong storytelling practice to influence key audiences in around 15 seconds. (Source: Smart Insights, Hootsuite)
• Back to audio: 2019 was the year of auditory content like podcasts, audiobooks and digital radios. This trend makes me feel like, after all these technologic improvements and cutting-edge platforms, people tend to be back to the basics, like radios. Even on a visual platform like YouTube, a substantial amount of content is created to be listened, more than being watched, like music clips, talks, interviews. This is someway understandable when we think that more and more people are ‘on-the-go’, commuting and multi-tasking when consuming content. Around 7.1 million people in the UK listen to podcasts each week, which is an increase of 24% over the past year. Audio content will be more prevalent in the next year, especially Podcasts will lead to this rise (Source: Ofcom)