Top Social Media Trends Of 2020

To state that it is almost irreplaceable would not be an exaggeration.

Thedominance of social mediahas taken the entire marketing industry by storm. Given a huge user base it boasts of, every business manager deems it necessary to inculcate social media management in the core strategy of the business.

Social media is constantly changing, and so is the need to keep track of everything and evolve an effective strategy accordingly.

The concept of disappearing stories, pioneered by Snapchat in 2014, has changed the entire landscape of how we consume content.Instagramwas the first to incorporate in its top feature and since then, it has only flourished. So much was the impact that evenFacebookand, more recently,Twittertoo hopped on the bandwagon of introducing this interactive feature.

One of the main reasons for its huge success is that the average human attention span has been declining since the advent of social media. Ephermal content like Instagram stories lets us produce compelling, relatable content that strikes the right chord with the target audience. More features like interactive stories and online polls are an added bonus to this.

It has become fairly easy to spot an ad now. This has also forced a change in theadvertising strategy of the brands. Advertisers use cookies to understand the consumers and their habits, and then leverage this information to sell us things that they think we might be interested in.

How often have you seen a related ad in your feed to the product you were recently searching online? Or an ad for a nearby cafe offering a discount?

This is called Targetted Advertisement. It is a form of online advertising that focuses on the specific traits, interests, and preferences of a consumer. Advertisers discover this information by tracking your activity on the Internet.

Adding a location to posts and stories on social media platforms like Instagram helps in engaging potential customers of a specific geographical location. This location-based targetting is particularly useful to improve your organic reach to attract more customers.

It is like a digital word-of-mouth practice. A customer is more inclined to trust a product if it is endorsed by someone they have a connection with. This does not imply star influencers who have millions of followers online. Rather, this means community influencing by micro- influencers and nano-influencers who tend to share a much better relationship with their followers as compared to their counterparts in the big league.

With an added benefit of low fees charged by these influencers, it can also help to lay the foundation of a long term engagement with them. However, finding a perfect influencer who checks all the boxes of your brand is quite a challenge. Once this is executed, it creates a positive brand image and gives better insights into market demands and customer behaviour.

There is nothing that could not be summed up in a quick video. What could have been hundreds of words are just a few minutes or even, seconds in a video. Naturally, this is a great source toboost social engagementtoo as people want quick answers and a video does it quite effectively.

Short-form videos on TikTok and Instagram Reels have further contributed to the popularisation of video content. According to a study by Cisco, by 2022, online videos will make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic 15 times higher than it was in 2017.

Additional engagement tools like live video also helps to connect in real-time with the viewers. Brand managers often use this feature to better acquaint themselves with their customer and clear their doubts online.

Social media is an integral part of any marketing strategy. The ever-increasing reach oftransient stories, and demographic targetinghas given us a lot to rethink our tactics for the future. Besides, it would also be important to invest more on customer-centric content to build a solid rapport with our target consumer.