Social Media Trends for the second half of 2020
So, what's happening in the Social Media world right now and what should we be on the look out for the remainder of 2020?
Stories and reels, These are becoming the most popular trends in Social Media marketing, and since the launch of Instagram's 'Reels' feature to rival TikTok anything that you can do to look fun and cool is going to be a win.
Most of the top social media platforms have already incorporated short stories into their posting options, also known as ephemeral content, ephemeral content is something that is only available only for a short duration and disappears afterwards. Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat Stories are perfect examples of this type of content.
So, make sure that you're benefitting from all of them, and you can use the same story for all the platforms out there, so it'll just be more efficient in the long run and get your message across.
Stories focus on the storytelling aspect of social media. They allow you to use photo, video, text, emoticons, and tags to create both long-form and short-form content.
So, what else is important to focus on for the remainder of 2020?
It's more important than ever to also focus on Niche Social Media platforms, as mentioned in other blogs, why blogging is so important, when you create a blog, you should try and replicate your blog across as many relevant marketing platforms as possible. Although some of the other platforms don't yet rule the social media world, they are likely to capture other audiences that you are not reaching by just posting on the 2 largest platforms shall we say.
However, do ensure you are using marketing messages in the correct way for the different platforms, some are more aimed at B2B, others will be a more informal and more of a friendly audience.
Let's use Pinterest as an example for a niche market, Pinterest would be a more informal platform, although not as big of a social network platform for marketing as others, it would be an ideal platform for targeting the female demographic that may be interested in home décor products for example.
Whereas LinkedIn is a business platform and you would use the LinkedIn platform to make connections, generate leads, improve brand awareness, foster business relationships and partnerships, share content, and drive traffic to your website.
Social media platforms in order of popularity include:
What's TikTok?
We would like to take a moment to talk about TikTok in particular, why is this you ask? The reason we would like to talk about TikTok, is because TikTok is noticeably becoming more and more popular in the Social Networking world. However, it is just one to watch closely at the moment, as although it's becoming increasingly popular, the demographic in which it seems to be popular with right now is between the ages of 15 & 24 based on statistics measured In March 2020, with the UK being 3rd country for the increasingly popular app to be downloaded, expecting to reach 10 Million users in the UK by 2021.
However, all that being said, it could be a handy platform to keep an eye on to monitor content and trends that may be relevant for your other more suitable platforms.
What is Social Commerce?
Social commerce is one of the most exciting trends in social media today, and it looks to have an even bigger impact in the months ahead.
Social Commerce is different than social media marketing, where you might try to drive referral traffic from social media to a website or online store. With social commerce, the store is within the app itself, and does not require you to link through to the website to purchase a product for example.
removing the need to bring up a separate webpage and therefore leaving the app you are browsing in.
You can learn about a product in a tweet and purchase within Twitter itself.
Three social media sites that are owning the social commerce space: Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.
Exciting Huh?
AR (Augmented Reality)
Oh, how we get excited about this one…
Augmented Reality has been around for a little while, you may be familiar with filters on Facebook or Instagram that overlay silly faces or backgrounds to your live photo, we would be surprised if you or your family have not yet discovered these.
AR is evolving fast and we are seeing more and more businesses including this functionality into their website to view products in which they are browsing in situ in their actual home. Real life size! I recently decided to purchase a mirror in fact, using that functionality.
So how Is this going to be used more within social media in the months ahead?
Be sure to watch this space…
Lastly, we would like to talk to you about this last Social Media trend, and that is the use of videos in your social media marketing.
According to recent studies, internet video traffic is in increasing exponentially, so if making live videos on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram or any other video relevant platform is not yet in your marketing strategy, now is the time to incorporate it for that extra boost to your brand awareness.
Social Media Trends for the second half of 2020 Stories and reels! These are becoming the most popular trends in Social Media marketing, and since the launch of Instagram's 'Reels' feature to rival TikTok anything that you can do to look fun and cool is going to be a win.