Social media is constantly changing. Platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube are constantly pushing out new updates in order to meet consumer’s demands.
As a business owner, you need to stay on the leading edge of social media trends. These trends will ensure that you stay on top of your customer’s minds. It’s important to stay relevant as dozens of other brands compete for their attention.
Read on to learn the latest 2020 trends in social media marketing today, and how you can utilize them to boost your brand’s reputation and value!
Rise of User-Generated Content
User-generated content, or UGC, is content created by the customers of a brand instead of the brand itself. There are now high-quality cameras in smartphones and easy to use editing apps. This makes it easy for users to create compelling content featuring products from the brands they love.
Brands are now using, featuring, and crediting UGC more than ever before. Not only does this help build relationships with current customers, but it also lightens the load on marketing teams–they don’t have to create as much original content as before.
If you want to encourage your customers to create more UGC, remind them to use your branded hashtag. Offer more incentives such as contests that award discounts and freebies.
Customer Service
You’ll also notice that more and more brands are using their social media profiles as their hub for customer service. This means that customers can post and tag businesses with a question or contact the company directly on the same platform. This provides great service to current customers. You’re interacting with them and responding to them on the platforms they prefer.
Customers can easily become frustrated by waiting for customer support representatives on the phone. They can instead send a simple message and receive a timely response. Even better, working out customer service issues through social media platforms can benefit companies as well.
New leads can see how your business resolves and deals with customer service issues in real-time. If they find that your business provides prompt, courteous, and professional help, they’ll be more likely to convert.
Shopping-Friendly
Because of the rise of social media, more platforms are making shopping even easier for customers by providing swipe-up links for verified accounts. This cuts down on the resistance to purchasing by allowing customers to make purchases directly on the social media platform.
For instance, Instagram now allows businesses to use shopping tags in their posts. You’ll just need to ensure that your account meets Instagram’s commerce eligibility requirements.
Short Video Content
With the rise of Snapchat and TikTok, consumers are far more used to short, punchy videos than longer content. In fact, according to Harvard Business Review, in 2015 50 percent of businesses were using some form of video content in their marketing strategies. The number has only risen since then.
In order to make video content even more valuable to users and companies, brands can add personalization to videos, such as adding a user’s own content to the videos with their permission. This is similar to what Facebook does in order to celebrate someone’s birthday or mark a long friendship anniversary.
Brands are also creating more transparency with customers by creating more vlogs. “Vlogs” is a shorthand for “video” and “blog.” It’s a less commercial form of video content that gives users an insight into someone’s life or “behind the scenes” at a business.
Customers don’t want to be blatantly sold to anymore–they want to create genuine connections with the brands they choose to do business with. Vlogs can act as a natural social media advertisement without becoming too pushy.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is a great way to grow a budding brand or to build authority with an already established brand. Influencers who are in the same industry as your brand or who have similar followers are paid to feature your products or services on their social media platforms.
How much it costs depends on the influencer’s following. You may think influencers with the largest followings are the most effective. However, the cost is often prohibitive to growing brands. Micro-influencers can be just as effective and sometimes even more effective because they are better able to engage with their smaller audience.
A micro-influencer will have between 1,000 to 100,000 followers. Remember to be careful about the influencers you choose. This way, you’ll ensure that their audience is also interested in your brand. You’ll benefit from more traffic and brand awareness.
Engagement
Last but not least we have engagement. The algorithms of social media platforms are becoming more sophisticated. Attaining the largest number of likes or followers is no longer as important. Your engagement is what matters.
A smaller number of highly engaged followers are always more valuable than thousands of followers who don’t see or engage with your posts. This means a shift away from purchasing followers and likes.
There’s now more focus on using genuine methods of interaction. These methods include featuring UGC, replying to comments, conducting polls, and more.
Follow Social Media Trends for Smart Marketing
It’s important to always stay updated on the latest social media trends, even if you don’t plan on implementing them for your brand. This is because you’ll be able to analyse what’s working for your company and what isn’t. By knowing these online marketing trends, you’re essentially granting yourself more tools to use.
Ready to give your brand a boost by staying on the leading edge of the latest social media marketing trends? Contact us today to get started!
