Four Predictions for Social Media in 2020

Dec 3rd, 2019

With social media continuing to grow in popularity and becoming an integral part of people’s daily lives more and more, businesses and marketers are turning to the platforms to target and connect with their customers. However, with competition being high across social media, it’s easy to get overlooked, which is why it’s important to try to stand out from the crowd by getting ahead of the game


With this in mind, we thought we’d share some of our top trend predictions for 2020 with you.

Ephemeral content will continue to grow

Short term content, such as Instagram stories, may only be live for a short period of time, but the fact they are only visible for 24 hours and that each clip is only 10 seconds long are the reasons why this type of content will continue to grow in popularity. 

Research shows that the way people now consume content has changed and our attention spans are shorter than they used to be, which is why short, snappy, engaging content that is easy to digest is becoming more and more addictive. This is backed up by recent data, which shows the number of daily active users, using Instagram stories has grown by 400 million since 2016. 

Instagram stories are designed for & are most popular on mobile and with over 3 billion social users now browsing the platforms on their smartphones, it’s time to incorporate instagram stories into your marketing strategy if you haven’t done so already. Behind the scenes type content works well on stories, as well as chatty, conversational videos. This is the place to give your brand a human side that people can relate to. 

Video content take over

Whether it’s short form, like stories or long form like those on YouTube, video content has been one of the most engaging content types on social media for some time now and it’s only going to continue to be more and more popular. A study by Cisco predicts that by 2020, 82% of all content online will be video. It’s also reported that 1 in 3 users on social will watch or interact with a brands video every month, as they will stand out more than an image or plain text on a platforms wall, which is why it’s vital you start using video across your social media platforms. 

So if you’ve not used video before then start small by utilising the stories feature we mentioned earlier, you can then move onto full length YouTube videos and live video as you get more confidence to do so. From a consumer point of view, expect to see brands creating more video series specifically for Facebook (in the same way you would on television), as creativity in this area grows.

The growth of social commerce 

Social commerce has become a new retail avenue for many brands and with Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest already on board, it’s only going to get stronger in 2020. In fact, we think it’s fast becoming a mainstream retail channel, with the platforms frequently adding new features to make it easier to purchase, with the possibility of eventually being able to purchase without even having to leave the channel. 

With social commerce on the rise and the social platforms constantly evolving to keep up, it’s important to make use of these features and incorporate social commerce into your sales strategy. 

Local targeting to become more powerful

Just like with SEO, local targeting can bring in more traffic to social media. Brands can use it to reach out to and attract possible customers from a specific geographical location. Geo-targeting posts and stories (adding a location to your social media posts) will automatically draw in a local audience. 

On some platforms, like Instagram, a user can also search for posts from nearby places or from a particular location, which means your brand will show up in these results if a location has been added to a post, helping potential local customers find you. 

Geo-targeting goes hand in hand with promoted posts as this feature allows you to target the right audience, this works particularly well if you’re trying to encourage more attendees to a local event or conference you may be holding, for example, users are likely to use a location filter when searching for these. 

Although local targeting on social media has always been available, it’s not always used in the best possible way so we think it’s time to start leveraging it as part of your social strategy. 


What are your top trend predictions for social media in 2020? Speak to our experts if you’re looking for some help with your brands social strategy. 

 

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