7 Social Media Marketing Trends to Expect in 2020

One reason digital marketing degrees are becoming more
prominent and in-demand is because of the rise of digital marketing platforms
and strategies that continue to revolutionize the industry.

And for social
media marketers, there seems to be no end to the ever-changing landscape as new
changes and features from every player emerges nearly every week. So if you’re
starting to plan out your 2020 marketing strategy, we recommend being the first
to adopt the latest trends that are currently changing the game.

Read on to see the top 7 social media marketing trends that will change the way you do business in 2020.

Social
media marketing trends for 2020

User-generated
content will become more prevalent

One of the most
important marketing trends to look for in 2020 is the rise of UGC — or content that is created by
consumers of your brand to help you market it.

This is slightly
different from influencer marketing because, while both rely on other people to
talk about your brand, user-generated content can come from just anybody – even
without a large following.

One leader in
using user-generated content to market their business is GoPro. On their
YouTube channel, they regularly post content from their consumers
who use their products to create interesting and exciting content.

GoPro’s YouTube account is
full of videos captured by their consumers.

This works well
because the footage being shared not only shows off the specs of their cameras
– the clear video takes even in constant motion, the wide angles captured by
the cameras, etc – but it also shows prospects different ways they can use a
GoPro themselves.

This marketing
tactic works well because people trust people who are like themselves
instead of faceless brands. Even if a prospect had no idea who the other
consumers are, as long as they see some kind of social proof to establish
trust.

It also works to
encourage people to create content for your brand in the hopes of getting
featured.

How to
get user-generated content for your own business

Regardless if
your business offers products or services, you can make the most of
user-generated content to market your business on social media.

To encourage
customers to create content about your brand, consider offering great
incentives like discounts and freebies.

For example,
small business My Livia incentivizes leaving reviews on their site.

They’ve created a
scheme that gives an exclusive coupon code to customers who leave a text review
on their site. And for customers who leave a video review, they offer 6 months’
worth of free refills of their product.

My Livia gives exclusive
coupons for customers who leave a review

The rise
of shoppable posts

Shoppable posts
allow users to shop for items – from make-up to clothing and even cars and home
products – all without leaving a video or photo.

Many brands have already taken advantage of this
new technological advancement, especially brick and mortar and retail stores.
Instagram, for example, lets you easily tag products in your posts and allow customers
to shop what they see.

This works well
for boosting sales because it lessens the time a customer has to spend logging
on to the site, looking for the item they’re looking for, and then checking
out.

With shoppable
posts, users can check out an item immediately or browse related items after
adding a few to their cart.

A Shop Now button appears when a user hovers over an
item. (Image Source: Single Grain)

How to use
shoppable content for your own business

If you sell
goods, make it a habit to make the content shoppable on social media. For
Instagram and Facebook, there are ways to instantly tag your item as shoppable
so users can immediately check out.

While the use
case isn’t prevalent for service-based businesses, it’s still possible to get
creative with this new advancement. For services that have a fixed fee, for
example, you may link to it from a post straight away and allow for online checkout.

Shift
from global to local

By 2020, local
marketing will be a must, especially with the rise of mobile and voice search.
In fact, more than 55% of users use voice search to
find a local business near them.

Because of this,
it’s important to optimize for local search and implement other best
practices for local marketing.

Some tactics
include using Google My Business to get discovered right from a search result,
optimizing SEO for web pages, and using local and location-related keywords in
social media posts.

How to
use local marketing for your own business

Because local
search – whether on search engines or social media – will be more relevant in
2020, use local SEO to optimize posts and pages.

Include the name
of your city or state when creating copy for social media posts, and be sure to
have a verified or address linked to a map on all your social media pages.

Stricter
regulations and guidelines for influencer marketing

No matter how
much the critics might claim it, influencer marketing isn’t going anywhere. In
fact, it’s only expected to rise, as 90% of marketers reported plans to maintain or
increase their influencer marketing campaigns going into 2019.

Mediakix has even
projected that influencer marketing spend could hit a whopping $10 billion in 2020 as more marketers are
focused on partnering with different influencers`

But perhaps the
biggest influencer marketing-related trend is that marketers will be creating
stricter guidelines and regulations before engaging with influencers.

Brands are also
expected to partner with smaller influencers – those with
about 10k-50k followers instead of the then-sought-out 500k-1 million bracket –
for their higher engagement rates, niche followings, and lower cost per
campaign.

How to
implement effective influencer marketing campaigns for your business

When you’re
creating influencer campaigns for 2020, consider recruiting influencers with
niche audiences. These influencers tend to have better engagement than
mega-influencers with millions of followers.

Also, create
brand guidelines to help influencers know how to handle communications about
your brand. Allow them to be creative and genuine when promoting your brand,
but still enforce your guidelines to follow – it’s your business, after all,
and you’re paying for them to advertise you after a thorough deliberation
process.

Social
listening will become increasingly essential

With social
listening, you’re able to capture a lot of useful insights that are crucial to
the success of your campaigns.

For example,
social listening can tell you how well a current campaign is doing, and even
help you identify which factors of the campaign are the reason for the success.

By knowing what
people are saying about the campaign or your brand, you can tweak campaigns,
push successful ones longer, or pivot completely.

How to
use social listening for your business in 2020

There are many social listening tools you can use for this
strategy. What’s important is you check in regularly to see how your brand is
performing.

These tools let
you track who is mentioning your brand as well as what they’re saying about it.
You can even see conversations around your brand so you can pinpoint different
tactics moving forward.

You can use
social listening to bank on trends in your industry, such as how fast food
joint Wendy’s or tech company Microsoft has used social listening to develop new products for
their businesses.

More
social groups

While things like
Facebook and LinkedIn groups are far from new, in 2020, we can expect their
popularity to rise as people are looking for more ways to engage with brands
and communities of like-minded people.

Even without
brands stepping in, people have formed groups that are linked to common
interests, such as bloggers joining blogging groups to connect with fellow
bloggers and share tips and resources, or fans of the same TV series join
“fandom” groups to connect with other fans.

But when a brand
is behind starting the social group, it becomes easier to create brand-related
content with the help of moderators and in-house marketers.

For example,
Conde Nast Travelers started their own Facebook group in 2017 to let travel
enthusiasts come together and share their travel experiences.

Conde Nast Traveler’s Facebook
group, Women Who Travel (Image Source: Influencer
Marketing Hub)

Social groups
work well for a brand because many people are on the lookout for advice and
ways to share their own experiences or to be able to ask questions and get
opinions from people with similar interests.

How to use
social groups in 2020

Consider creating
some kind of freehub – Facebook and LinkedIn are great places to start because
nearly everyone has their own account – where customers and fans can get
together to share experiences.

This is a great
way to nurture your relationship with them in more personal ways, especially by
assigning moderators and brand spokespeople to engage with users and encourage
constant conversation.

To encourage engagement,
offer to feature answers in a future social media post or make it a contest for
the best ideas.

Social
media as customer service

These days, when
people have questions or concerns, they will more often than not turn to a
brand’s social media account to make their queries there.

Some examples of
ways people are using social media as a customer service tool are: making
product inquiries, asking for reservations, making formal complaints, and so
on.

Because of this,
brands must increasingly be aware of their social media presence, monitoring
messages from customers and prospects so they can make timely responses.

How to
use social media as your customer service hub

Prospects who
make inquiries about your product or service are probably willing to make a
purchase, so imagine the positive effect on your conversion rates if
you’re able to give timely and helpful responses.

Invest in
chatbots with pre-loaded questions and answers, or in real-life representatives
to monitor your accounts for you.

Have a list of ready-to-send responses to decrease friction, and if you don’t have 24-hour customer service online, be transparent about your business hours to set customer expectations.

Your turn
to make 2020 the year of social media

Many trends come and go, but that doesn’t mean
you shouldn’t try out some of them while they’re still on the rise. Use the
trends above to evaluate which ones suit your business goals, then create a
social media strategy with the tactics above as inspiration. Keep watching for
new trends, test them out in on-brand ways, and don’t be afraid to experiment
and push the boundaries of your next social media marketing campaigns.