Predicted social media trend for 2020
Social media has become “more than” entertainment tools for people’s lives. It has elevated the level, make people addicted to it. Hootsuite predicted there are 150 million internet users in Indonesia, that equates to 56% of total population. Also there are 130 million or about 48% of total population were mobile social media users. This number is only growing for sure.
Knowing the hype and the importance of social media in consumer’s livers, the marketers and business do not want to miss the change. In the hope to getting closer to consumers, they doing some work in social media. Create unique and engaged content is their main target. However, there are so many content in the different social media platform. How marketers can create content that would stand out among the other?
One for sure, the marketers and business need to stay update for social media trend. Matching their strategy then create unique content yet having clear message to consumers.
Influencer Marketing Hub have released latest report in early December 2019 talked about some of predicted trend in 2020 specially and beyond generally. Here I tried to summarize some of them, so let’s check it!
- Ephemeral content will keep gaining popularity
What is ephemeral content? Ephemeral content is content that only lasted for short period of time. Instagram stories and Snapchat are perfect examples.
Today people are more engaged to content that doesn’t take much their time. They way they like to consume the content were changed.
Statista stated that the number of daily active Instagram Stories users worldwide has upward trendline since October 2016 to January 2019.
According to Hootsuite report 64% of marketers either already have incorporated Instagram Stories into their strategies or plan to.
So, don’t be surprised if you would seen more Instagram Stories Ads in 2020.
2. Niche social platforms will perform well
We all know that Facebook and Instagram is the largest and most popular platforms. Instagram even gave birth a new professions called “Influencers” or “Selebgram” in Indonesian. We’ve been seen a lot of those people while surfing in Instagram, promoted some brand or events.
However, in recent years several social media platform have significantly risen to fame e.g TikTok, Twitch, Reddit etc. TikTok even could be found in Instagram. There are some many TikTok vidoes can found in Instagram now.
The marketers should consider other social media platform, anticipate if their audience feel bored to Facebook or Instagram.
Here are some of the most popular social media platform by the number of users or registered accounts per October 2019 by Statista.
3. Instagram will remove likes
As the one of the largest social media platform, there are so many business depend on Instagram as one of marketing channel. Traditionally, most of marketers still using Instagram engagement for their ROI. This could be problem if Instagram really going to remove likes as the business won’t be able to measure the direct impact of their campaign easily.
Some expect says that this was Instagram marketing strategy, they want the business spend more money for their ads. But, who knows?
Instagram has recently tested this in some country and might apply this soon globally. If it so, there are so many aspect will be affected such as influencers and marketers to make a move.
4. Social commerce will expand
There are a lot of brand out there using Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest to sell their product. They feel that using social media are easier to reach the audience. This trend will strengthen further with more social networks introducing pro-selling feature like shoppable posts (You must have seen this kind of post in Instagram)
5. Video content will dominate
In last few years, video content has been predicted as the next big thing in social media. This kind of content is the most engaging content for audience and the rise fame of TikTok is one proof of that. Don’t forget about Instagram stories we’ve talked before.
According to Cisco study, by 2022, 82% of all online content will be video. So it’s better for marketers and business to start early to prepare to next trend in social media content.
6. Technology adoption will be at an All-Time high
As social media platform grow, the users tend to demand more and more engaging experience. Virtual reality (VR) and Augmented reality (AR) is the example how technology are catch up with the market demand.
Platform that offer enhanced technology are high likely loved by the audience. Augmented reality filters are now being used on several platforms like Snapchat and Instagram, and the users are loved it!
Technology adoption could be the next future of social media.
7. Influencer marketing will continue to soar
Despite facing the updated of remove likes by Instagram, seems that the influencers will stay still in 2020. Today content are full of paid content of promoting brand or event. There are so many influencer can be find today.
Investing in influencers is much cheapers yet some of marketers feel that they delivered good results too. Today people tend to buy brand that have been promoted by someone they know. They feel more the sincerity there, than from brand’s ads directly.
Moreover, the (micro) influencer can help brand to reach specific audience that maybe will difficult to reach if they used conventional ads. Going forwards, seems more marketers will work with multiple micro influencers instead of one celebrity.
8. More regulatory control and legal security
Data privacy and security are two such issues in social media headlines like Facebook (since Cambrige Analytica). Yet can be very easily to gather informations, social media also risk in misuse.
I used to use some free tools found in website for my study, but some of its were deprecated since GDPR regulatory have been echoed. In the future, social networds and regulatory bodies will tighten their norms and put more policies in place.
As a users, we need to keep our privacy and increase our awareness while using social media platforms.
Above are 8 social media trend that I summarize from Instagram Marketing Hub reports. There are still 7 trends left, however, in my personal opinion the previous trend are the highlight and the closest to happened in 2020. You can check the rest here.
Once again, that is not my personal explorations, I just tried to deliver what in Instagram Hub Marketing report in my perspective and add some few data from other sources.
Hope that helps :)
