With ever-increasing popularity, a new survey and report from Adobe Spark looks to find out the social media trends that will shape how people work in 2020.
The researchers spoke to business owners, freelancers, marketers, designers, side-hustlers, students and influencers regarding their social media and content creation habits. The goal is to identify the trends around the content they are creating in video, how-to content, remixing and more. Not only that, but Adobe Spark also says these trends will shape what is created on social along with how and why it is created.
By identifying these trends, you can better communicate with your audience on your social media channels. For many small business owners who now use social media as part of their digital marketing mix, the report offers some valuable insights.
2020 Social Media Trends
Social Media is the New Branded Homepage
With more brands adopting social-first, optimizing every ‘share’ and ‘like’ is an opportunity to build an identity and community. This strategy has the potential to convert target audiences for brands to community members and eventually brand advocates.
In order to make this happen, Adobe says, “brands have to have regular offerings that are interesting, helpful, delightful, surprising, thought-provoking, or simply resonant.” Furthermore, you have to be there to nurture these connections from your offering (your content). So, your content has to be on point.
Engaging Video Content
The report says social media posts with video have 48% more views than just text or images. Moreover, social video generates 1,200% more shares than text and image content combined.
Video is able to connect with people, especially if the message is personal and it resonates with the viewer. The good news is you don’t have to be a Hollywood director to start posting videos on your social media channels.
Using your smartphone and even free video editing tools, you can put your small business on the map with social media. The key is to keep recording, editing and posting, because the more you do it the better you will get.
Conversation not Broadcasting
According to the report, brands that figure out how to convert target audiences to community members are going to win in 2020. And this will require brands, or anyone on social media for that matter, to have conversations with their audience.
The days of broadcasting without any interaction is ending. From ‘how-to’ and ‘… with me’ (cook with me etc.) videos to 1-1 messaging, you have to have a conversation with your audience. Adobe says your social media content is an ice-breaker for having a personal connection and conversation for eventually forming deep and long-lasting relationships.
Some of the other trends Adobe Sparks sees in 2020 are creating beautiful moments and not perfect aesthetics; remixing content is the new creating; AI will become your new production assistant.
Social Media and Marketing
According to the report, there will be 3.1 billion people using social media by next year (2021). And this it says is responsible for turning the technology into an activity which has become essential for jobs and goals across all industries.
And more often than not, brands are doing their own marketing on social media. Even when marketing agencies are used, brands are using their own employees to become evangelists. Furthermore, they are also leveraging their own customers to shape content with participatory viral challenges to co-create, co-market, and shape the conversation.
When it comes to small businesses and individual entrepreneurs, social media is allowing them to personalize their brand. And according to Adobe Spark, it is working because they are winning their audience by being transparent, real, and human.
The convergence of big and small businesses, influencers, creatives, creators and professionals on social media has forever changed marketing. Professional lines are getting blurry. Adobe says this multi-hyphenated identity social media users have adopted is essentially making users marketers by default.
Everyone from small mom and pop stores to large enterprises and those in between are using social media. And while it was initially intended to bring people together, businesses are now using it to engage with their audience.
Whether you do the marketing or hire a professional, social media is a great way to grow your brand.
Take a look at the report here.
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