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Social Media

Top Social Media Trends to Watch in the 2020s

Social media has been evolving quite drastically over the past decade. In the early days, it was all about MySpace. Facebook, launched in 2004, was limited only to college students and Google+ came and went (RIP, Google+) as Google attempted to take their slice of the pie.

What began as a way to stay in touch with friends and family has evolved into a branch of marketing. As social media continues to mature, and we move into the next decade, here are a few trends I expect to see in the coming years.

More Privacy and Better Security

Privacy has always been a concern for many social media users as has security. With major data breaches happening on a regular basis, users are becoming more cautious about the information they are making available via social media. Though not limited to just social media, data shows that as of the first half of 2018 there were 609 global data breaches pertaining to identity theft. In 2018, there were 1,244 data breaches in the United States alone.

When we sign up for Facebook, we are required to provide basic information about us and as we continue to use the platform, we are prompted to fill out other information as well. The data has been collected by the social media giants and used for advertising dollars among other things.

In response to Facebook’s data breach, additional privacy and security measures are being taken to protect user-information, however, we can’t be sure any of these solutions will be foolproof. As technology continues to grow, we can expect privacy and security to continue to improve. Still, it’s advised not to put anything on social media that you want to keep completely private.

New Social Media Platforms

I’ve already written about TikTok and how it has grown massively. Within the past two years, the platform has become a great hit among teens and now businesses are capitalizing on it. But beyond Tik-Tok, there are a number of new social media platforms popping up. Many of these promise not to sell your data and will not be ad-based because they want to be different from Facebook and Twitter.

The lack of advertising dollars puts a struggle on the ability of the new social media platforms to stay afloat,  so it will be interesting to see what happens to them. Recently, the founder of Wikipedia launched WikiTribune – where people are currently on waiting lists for access unless they contribute a monetary donation of $12.99/month or $100/year.

Beyond WikiTribune, other social media platforms that are gaining traction include:

Social Media TV

We consume more online content than ever before, with the Internet going to great lengths to replace TV. With streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and the latest Disney+, along with YouTube, there’s no reason to believe that social media video content doesn’t have the potential to completely replace TV.

YouTube data shows that among 18-34-year-olds, YouTube on mobile alone reaches a wider US audience than any television network. Data shows Netflix has over 158 million subscribers as of Q3 2019, and Disney+ had 10 million subscribers within one day after launch.

Millennials are consuming so much online mobile content that Samsung believes they want vertical TVs – and they may be right!

Engagement Becomes More Important

Engagement is already vital to your success on social media. Without it, you’ll have a hard time convincing the social media algorithms that your content is interesting and people enjoy it. In the past, it was a simple as getting a bunch of likes and followers to make your content appear authoritative and popular on social media.

The algorithms have since shifted away from this strategy since it is clear that these can be fabricated by purchasing likes and followers that are from fake accounts. Because of this, it’s becoming more and more crucial to focus efforts on comments, shares, and live features across Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Take advantage of video features available to you, because the video will rank better in feeds than text or images, even text and images that have a lot of likes but no comments.

To foster more engagement, ask a question in the post and do your best to reply to all the comments. If you can’t reply to them all, at least make sure you’re replying to as many as you can so that your audience knows you’re paying attention and the social media algorithms see that interactivity and engagement.

As time goes on, we can expect to see the way we engage with our social media audiences shift, but no matter what, the actual engagement will always be an indicator of quality and interest.

Social Media Becomes the Primary Source of News Information

As the internet works to replace TV and newspapers, more people turn to consume information, especially news, on the internet. Many users find the breaking news stories on their feed and use that to navigate to the main news site for more information.

With social media, the news spreads fast, with Facebook and Twitter becoming the main sources of news. Forbes conducted a survey that revealed half of the internet users surveyed say they hear about the latest news on social media before they ever hear about it on a news station. The survey also found a 57% increase in traffic to news sites from social media websites.

“Social on Social” Communities

We already see a lot of social on social activity, because of groups within Facebook and Twitter parties on Twitter. As social continues to evolve, it will become even easier to build a small social community around a niche or topic. As more of these communities form, it will be easier to find and filter information on various topics and niches.

At this point, your social media platform won’t just be a platform, but a platform that supports a platform. It presents the chance for these mini social communities to represent their social media presence as their own platform.

What are your thoughts on these trends? Do you have any other ideas about how we can expect to see social media evolve over the next decade? Share them with me in the comment section.

Categories
Social Media

9 Social Media Trends to Watch for in 2019

The New Year is right around the corner. With it will come brand new advice from every social guru you follow. While you want to keep up with upcoming trends, you don’t have to throw your entire social strategy up to this point out the window. Make sure you go into 2019 with the following ideas in mind:

Video to Text Ratio

Video will continue to be a huge part of social in 2019. Right now, a combination of video and text is a great strategy. Tipping the scale a little more toward video in the first quarter is suggested. Video should be a priority, with text coming in at a close second.

Live video will become more important than ever, so you’ll want to create a strategy that incorporates regular live feeds on both Facebook and Instagram. Even though live video comes with its own set of technical issues, followers are more likely to accept errors because the real-time aspect makes brands more relatable.

Long-Form Content

Video aside, make sure the content you are creating is valuable. This means taking more time to focus on long-form content that provides a valuable punch as opposed to short nuggets of information. Many publishers are focusing on content at least 1,000 words long; most only publish content at 1,500 words or more. Experiment with long and short form blogs to see what works for your audience.

Data Security and Trust

This year saw an endless number of scandals due to security and data breaches. Earlier in 2018, the Cambridge Analytica scandal revealed that Facebook allowed unauthorized third-party access to the personal data of more than 85 million users. Just this month, they announced a second breach that accidentally exposed private user photos.

While you can’t do much to control the security of major social networks, you can make sure your own message is crystal clear. Communicate with your fans without always clamoring to collect data on forms. Social networks are asking business owners to be more transparent than ever in social marketing. With Facebook, anyone who visits a page can now see ads run by the page whether they are targeted or not.

Artificial Intelligence is Here

Are you using messenger bots to communicate with your customers? If not, you are likely falling behind. While the technology is still new, these tools can increase your response times and customer service turnarounds – when properly implemented. This method of communication is particularly appealing to millennials, who find it easy and engaging compared to the frustration of waiting.

Hootsuite recently predicted that more than “85 percent of all customer service interactions will be powered by AI bots” by 2020. Facebook and WhatsApp are now paving the way for integrating these technologies.

Personal versus Business Branding

To clarify, personal branding doesn’t mean you have to open your personal profiles to the public. It means that consumers are becoming more curious about the faces behind the brands they know and love. The public wants to know your company’s CEO is real and involved, not just a talking head.

What does this have to do with your marketing efforts? You need to become more visible about who you are and what you’re all about. Create separate brand pages for your business owner or public leaders, and cross-promote them along with your brand’s main social platforms.

Hiding behind your logo is a thing of the past. Real people and honest human interactions on social media, within guest blogs, and through public appearances (online and in person) are what build trust.

User-Generated Content

Brands are already deeply involved with UGC, but we should see exponential growth in this area throughout 2019. You should let your customers share photos and experiences, and then share them yourself to your own channels (with permission and credit). Most consumers perceive this type of content as authentic. It’s also a terrific boost to organic engagement in a marketing world that focuses on paid strategy.

Social Stories

The stories function on Instagram and Facebook continues to gain traction. Both show remarkable results compared to Snapchat because they allow brands to share quick snippets of information in a format that piques the interest of curious followers. The quick turnaround time from publication to disappearance creates a sense of urgency. Stories are cheap (sometimes even free) to create and allow you to generate regular content without overwhelming your main feed with too many posts.

Paid Strategies

Like it or not, Facebook and other social media platforms are pay-to-play in reach and exposure. We looked at a Facebook page with 100,000 “likes” the other day; some of their posts had as few as nine reactions. NINE!

According to HubSpot, brands saw around 16 percent organic reach in 2012. By 2018, that number fell to six percent. Brands seeking success on Facebook will need to set aside at least a small budget for paid promotions.

Some Users Share Content Privately

Users are still sharing content, but they’re sending content via private messages and text instead of sharing to their public timelines. This makes it harder to track how much engagement your content really achieves. This doesn’t mean you can’t continue to create and share great content, but it does mean you must pay attention to platform changes, so you can adapt to (and create more of) the things your audience reacts to most.

If there’s one thing you can rely on, it’s change. 2018 has been a year of change; a whirlwind of sorts. 2019 isn’t likely to be much different, but you can put yourself in a better position to deal with it. Spend some time each day reviewing social media and marketing updates. Staying on top of changes as they play out makes it easier for you to adapt your strategies as the year progresses.

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