It’s that time of year again to take a look at what’s happening in digital marketing, including topics like content marketing trends for 2020 and social media marketing trends for 2020. The social landscape is constantly evolving, and with it we see changes in how users consume content there and otherwise use the sites. So, of course, the best practices and most effective social strategies are always changing, too.
Take a look at these major social media marketing trends for 2020 to get some insights into how you should be using platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and other social networks in the coming year.
2020 Social Media Marketing Trends
- Social commerce—selling products through social media platforms instead of an e-commerce site—is poised to blow up in 2020. It’s simple and convenient, available where consumers are already spending their time online and requiring fewer clicks than a traditional e-commerce site. Heading into 2020, Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest are the three biggest players in the social commerce sphere. If you sell something online, it’s time to look into this arena.
- There are lots of ways to use video to market your brand, and your social media accounts are one of the key places to distribute your videos. Video content will dominate social media in 2020. It gets significantly more views, shares, likes, and other engagement than written posts, links to written content, and other content formats. If you aren’t creating videos to share valuable information and branding collateral with your audience, you’re missing out on a lot of your audience’s attention on social platforms.
- Increased use of augmented reality is one of the most important social media marketing trends for 2020. This includes things like the well-known Instagram and Snapchat filters for adding animal features to pictures. Sephora lets users digitally apply makeup to their pictures using augmented reality technology, for a marketing example. This is an exciting time to see how social sites add these capabilities, and how brands innovate the use of augmented reality (and virtual reality) to improve user experiences and usher people along their buyer’s journey.
- More brands are using social media for more of their customer service heading into 2020; some have even ditched using email or phone calls altogether. Consumers turn to brands’ social media pages more for this purpose too, finding it a convenient way to quickly get in touch with a real person who fields customer service issues. Using your social feeds and private messaging applications is an excellent way to provide top-notch customer service. However, it’s only a good approach if you check for messages frequently and respond promptly, which users expect on social platforms.
- More stringent rules, regulations, and restrictions for using social media sites—especially pertaining to paid social ads—are already showing up, and will certainly expand in 2020. With so many concerns and controversies these days surrounding user data and privacy, fake accounts, fake news, discriminatory audience targeting, and more, social networks face increasing pressure to better verify accounts and protect their user.