Social media is an ever-changing landscape that doesn’t stay in one place. With already a decade and a half of social media reign, the culture of social media marketing has come a long way. Social media has been in the midst of a turning point for a while now. 

The biggest trends of this turning point have been user privacy and the prevention of spreading misinformation. These trends are foremost a challenge that social media networks are facing. But these challenges affect greatly what people expect to see on social media. Brands that want to use social media to connect with people should take these expectations into account when creating their social media marketing strategy. Below are the social media trends that will help you build a strong brand image and connect with your audience in 2020.

Let’s reveal the Top 6 social media trends in 2020

Invest your time in the right social media platforms

There are far too many social media platforms now, and with TikTok’s moment of fame, many brands are rushing to platform. But is it a proper place for every brand? In the ever-growing noise of social media, brands need to utilize the purpose of each social media platform more than ever. 

Not every brand can afford to execute a strong social media marketing plan on each social media platform. Therefore it’s better to concentrate your main efforts on platforms that matter the most to your brand. Choose the platforms that have the most relevant audience base to your brand’s offering and give those the priority in your strategy.

Video is still on the rise

People prefer video to text. It’s just easier at grabbing user attention. This is the reason platforms like TikTok take off so quickly. At this point, it’s too obvious to point out that video is a must for any social media marketing strategy. Video has been a social media trend for quite a while now and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to go away.

A good video will help you present your brand in a memorable way. Find ways to implement this format into your content strategy. Whether it’s a product or service spotlight, customer success stories, or interviews, tell your stories using visuals that will reflect your brand and its values in the best light possible.

Make influencer marketing authentic again.

Influencer marketing has been around for quite a while now and has changed a lot since its beginnings. The format became a format when brands and marketers understood the power of social media users that had a large following. In the beginning, when these users gave recommendations it was genuine, without any expectation of making a profit out of it, and it worked like magic. 

Now the picture is quite different from its roots, even contradictory to its beginning. Influencer marketing has recently got a bad reputation of being unauthentic and for a reason. The influencer market is full of social media personalities whose sole interest is making a living out of being an influencer by getting brand sponsorships. This is not to say that this is a bad thing, but consumers don’t trust people like this and brands that cooperate with them.

Influencer marketing is still a quite powerful marketing strategy for raising brand awareness and connecting with new customers. Just make sure you know how to find and collaborate with the right influencers for your brand, who understand your product or service and will present it in an authentic way.

More personalization

Users don’t want to see messages that don’t directly address their needs. Social media platforms have done a good job of providing the necessary tools for brands to create personalized campaigns.

Paid advertising will get even better this year with companies like Facebook rolling out new personalization features for improved targeting. Last year, Facebook announced dynamic ads, which will personalize the ad format to each user based on the data of their interactions with ads, i.e. if the user mostly engages with carousel ads, then the algorithm will present the ad in that format. 

Whether it’s through tools or extra effort make sure that you personalize your advertising to meet the expectations of your prospects.

Stories are here to stay

Disappearing social media stories became popular thanks to Snapchat, which the company first introduced feature back in 2013. Shortly after this, the feature was adopted by all manor social platforms, except Twitter. That is until recently. Recent reports show that Twitter has been testing its version of auto-disappearing stories and is reportedly calling it “Fleets”.

Twitter’s move goes to show that stories do still have a great demand from social media users. Twitter is likely to see high engagement from its users once the feature is widely released. This, of course, presents a good opportunity for brands that use Twitter.

As to stories on other platforms like Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook still present themselves as a good way to get noticed by users and stand out in the noise of overpopulated feeds. 

Deliver the promises that your content marketing sets

Last but not least, make sure that your product or service meets the standards of your marketing sets. Nothing is worse for a brand than the unmet expectations of customers. Authenticity is the most important trend of all time for marketing of any type, but recent cases made it even more important.

Whether you are just building a social presence for a newly established brand or just adjusting your existing strategy to current trends, the tips above will help you keep up with the ever-changing best practices of social media marketing.

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