Top Social Media Trends for 2020
What are the top social media trends that we will all be talking about in 2020? This time of year is always fun because all the social media powerhouses are putting out their reviews of the previous year, key stats and predictions for the upcoming year. I can't help but get wrapped up in the frenzy of webinars, presentations, white papers, and reports. Each with a unique spin on the events. Some things everyone is agreed upon, like TikTok, will have a huge year! Many others are up in the air.
After watching the webinars, reading the reports, and taking copious notes, I selected my favorite predictions from the batch. This year my top predictions come from Hootsuite, HeyOrca, SproutSocial, and Later that capture the overall direction that social media is going in for 2020. One thing is for sure, change is inevitable, and 2021 will bring even more unexpected shifts!
Why These Specific Trends?
The trends I am featuring are the ones I believe are essential to the broadest range of businesses. I also selected things that were up and coming trends. Trends that we may not have fully explored yet. I left out things like creating more videos, utilize your Instagram stories, and the importance of engaging your audience. We have heard all of those before. So I did not see any reason to take a more in-depth look at those trends. Okay, so let's focus on some of the goodies! In the video below, I review the predictions and patterns and also include a list of the key trends.[
Top Social Media Trends for 2020 pulled from Hootsuite:
- The Importance of Balancing Public and Private Social Media Platforms
Social Media Trends to Watch Out for selected from HeyOrca:
- An Increase in the Power of User Generated Content.
- Groups Grow Across Platforms
Top Social Media Trends pulled from the Later predictions:
- The Focus Shifts to Captions on Instagram
- The Year of the Influencer (I titled it The Year of the Influencer, but they provided the information that led me to call it that).
- Authenticity Becomes Necessary: Fake and Staged are So Out!
- Collaborations Are Key
Social Media Trends pulled from the team at SproutSocial:
- Defining Differentiators Becomes Essential to Stand Out
- A business will need to Increase Trust and Transparency by Building a Communities Around Their Brands
The Single Biggest Prediction
- TikTok will be HUGE in 2020
The Big Takeaways for 2020
A couple of significant takeaways for your 2020 social media strategies:
Tell Your Story
Actively utilize social media platforms to tell your story. Be open, honest, and authentic when telling your brand story to your followers. Utilize your differentiator(s) to help you stand out from the crowd on social media. Tell your story, tell your story your target audience, tell your story again.
Engage Your Audience
Engage with your audience where your audience lives, the way they want to be engaged. Define your ideal audience and drill down to find out how they want to join and where they want to engage. Once you have figured out the who where and how to make sure that you engage with them, especially if they are engaging with you. Beat the algorithm in 2020 bu killing it with engagement and letting your superfans spread the word.
Add Value
Create and post valuable content that encourages engagement consistently. Measure success. Adjust creation to lean in favor of best performing content. Repeat
Keep an Eye on TikTok
Don't go all-in on TikTok, but learn the platform and experiment with ways you can create content. TikTok may not be in it for the long haul but look for the current platforms to integrate aspects of it into their platforms. Think about it, before SnapChat were stories a thing? Many brands don't need to be on Snap now, but they are “using Snapchat type features” on the other platforms.
The Excitement is About to Begin
2020 is almost here, and it is going to be an exciting year on social media. At JRH Graphics, we live for the changes, trends, and new options available to help us tell our clients winning stories! But for many of our clients, the changes are overwhelming, unsettling, and confusing. Don't let social media control your business. Contact JRH Graphics, and we can show you how to harness the power of social media and use it for growth, engagement, and the good of your business. From providing general information to tips, tricks, and best practices to courses to a fully managed social media strategy, we offer solutions that can be custom-built to help you succeed!
