Social Media Trends in 2020

Saying that social media will dominate the digital realm in 2020 would be a serious understatement. In the world where over two billion people use Facebook and other platforms daily, it's hard to imagine a company or individual not using at least a few social networks regularly.

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And it's not only about the sheer number of users. On the contrary, social networks give businesses a wide range of other privileges such as relationship building, lead generation, customer service, user engagement, product discovery, and long-term revenue growth. A variety of reports prove this point:

1. • Nearly 55% of social browsers use social media to research products.
2. • Over 70% of consumers who've had a good social media service experience with a brand are likely to recommend it to others.
3. • The percentage of marketing budgets spent on social media is expected to more than double over the next five years.
4. • Two-thirds of consumers say that they are more likely to increase their spending with a brand they follow on social media.

You can certainly take advantage of social media for business promotion, but do you know how to do it most effectively in 2020? If you are still not sure, keep reading to learn the major social media trends.

1 Social commerce

Do you know that almost that 80% of consumers in the US have purchased the product they've seen in a brand's social media post? A lot of customers already use social platforms to discover new offers, but the latest trend is to buy goods directly through Instagram and similar networks.

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Sales activities are expanding way beyond websites and emails, so there is no reason to avoid publishing shoppable posts and product ads on social media as well. It's a huge opportunity for online businesses to activate yet another sales channel and reach out to social users directly.

2 Instagram eliminates likes

The fastest-growing social network, Instagram, is gradually removing likes from newsfeed posts for two very distinct reasons.

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First of all, Instagram's new strategy is designed to help users improve their mental health by reducing the pressure and competition for likes. In the long run, it should help younger people to improve mental wellbeing and fend off anxiety.

Secondly, Instagram is removing likes because the metric can be counterfeited easily. It means that social influencers could pump up the number of likes artificially in an attempt to attract more clients.

The whole point is to promote and encourage top-performing influencers to keep doing their best and stop underperforming accounts and profiles from making lucrative cooperation arrangements with potential clients.

3 Influencer marketing keeps booming

Speaking of social influencers, we should also mention that influencer marketing will keep booming in 2020 and beyond. It doesn't come as a big surprise given the fact that almost half of consumers depend on influencer recommendations.

Keep in mind, however, that authenticity remains the most significant factor when choosing an influencer for your campaigns. While it is true that celebrity influencers can help brands to raise awareness, only micro-influencers can drive user engagement successfully.

Your job is to identify niche authorities with highly engaged audiences. These are mostly individuals with up to 20 or 30 thousand followers, so don't hesitate to use their services and reach out to the new audience group quickly and effortlessly.

4 The domination of visual content formats

You probably know that videos already dominate social media, but the trend is still on the rise and extends to other visual formats as well. There are so many eye-pleasing features you could come up with online – infographics, images, charts, memes, animations, GIFs, and so on.

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Each of these formats is interesting and suitable for social media marketing purposes. Your task is to make use of every visual component on a regular basis. Of course, don't forget to write great captions because it will help you to explain the context of the post most accurately.

5 Social media customer service

Built primarily as communication channels, social networks represent a very convenient customer service tool for agile businesses. According to reports:

1. • 80% of consumers use social to engage with brands.
2. • Customers who receive a social response from brands are willing to spend up to 20% and are 30% more likely to recommend the brand to their friends and family.

In such circumstances, you have no other option than to exploit social media and improve your customer service. Although it may seem too difficult and time-consuming, you can solve the problem easily with a chatbot. A chatbot is a computer program that simulates human conversation through voice commands or text chats or both.

It's a one-time investment that pays off quickly because you can shrink customer service staff and drastically improve response times. Besides that, chatbots never get tired, don't require sick leaves, and don't take a vacation, which makes them an ideal supplement to your customer service team.

6 AR and VR

Augmented and Virtual Realities (AR and VR) keep adding new layers to the social media content and make use experience fully immersive.

You can already play with videos and images by adding all sorts of cool elements, but there are many other options to test here. For instance, a marketer can use AR and VR to publish 360 videos or provide fans with realistic product experiences.

7 Employee advocacy

Another trend that is winning over social networking in 2020 comes in the form of employee advocacy. It's not a completely new trend, but it will be even more dominant this year because companies have to take care of online reputations.

This is particularly important for HR teams looking to attract talented professionals through online communication channels. Namely, your employees can create and publish interesting "behind the scene stories" that make the organization look nice and friendly.

It is the best way to build professional authority without having to publish explicit self-promotional messages.

8 Customer-centric content

This is the last tip on our list, but it is definitely not the least important. Namely, customer-centric content is what people want to see on social platforms, so make sure to design amazing posts consistently.

A general rule of thumb is to publish only some 20% of brand-related posts and save at least 80% of the content for messages that are directly related to your followers. It will set you apart from similar users and/or businesses, thus helping you to grow the fan base steadily.

Conclusion

Social networks may as well be the single most productive marketing tool of the 2020s. After all, the likes of Facebook and Instagram attract billions of users who are thrilled to see quality content from their favorite brands. However, the truth is that you cannot keep the same level of efficiency using obsolete marketing tactics.

In this article, we showed you the:
Eight most important social media trends in 2020.

Which one do you believe to be a genuine game-changer here? Did you recognize other impactful trends? Write a comment if you have any ideas – we would love to see your thoughts on social media!