Brief Guide into Social Media Marketing Trends 2020

These days, the Internet permeates every single facet of our lives on a daily basis. Indeed, there is rarely a thing that anyone does without consulting the Internet. Because of this, every customer-oriented business sector in the world has adapted to the advent of the digital age. In fact, if there’s one worldwide business trend that’s unmistakable in the developed world – it’s the slow death of retail. As even the late adopters become familiar enough with digital technologies to make purchases online, brick-and-mortar stores are bound to dissipate.

With this rapidly rising percentage of online purchases in the overall share, all companies are looking to have the best possible digital marketing. After all, the webpage is not only the storefront of the future but of today as well. That’s why every single business must have an engaging presence on social media if it hopes to stay in the game. Bearing this in mind, we’ll take a look at the most engaging social media marketing trends for 2020.

Shopping on Social Media Platforms

Obviously, there is no need to spend too much time dwelling on the power of social media in 2019. Five years ago, this would’ve been an exciting conversation. Today, social media is as embedded in contemporary culture as television or radio. Still, the number of people who use social media to purchase all kinds of products may not be an undeniable fact. In reality, though — social media platforms have become some of the most essential product platforms on the Internet.

Businesses have caught on to this fact, and they’ve spent the past half-decade in increasing their efforts to market products on social media. In 2019, an astounding 70% of users had purchased some sort of service or product on Instagram. Whether we’re talking about online coding courses or small kitchen appliances – you can find it on social media. It doesn’t matter whether you want to promote your webcomic or make your moving business well known – social media is the way to go. This trend has grown beyond merely Instagram and Facebook as well; for example, Pinterest is registering a constantly rising number of users who use the platform to find products.

The companies managing social media platforms are fully aware of their commercial significance, as well. That’s why they’ve made outreach to businesses in the form of shoppable posts. Indeed, e-commerce stores can make particular types of sponsored posts – from which users can shop directly. In 2020, the number of online stores that will make their merchandise available directly from social media will grow even larger. We would even be so bold as to state that these posts will be the norm.

Cutting-Edge Technology Implementation

Three years ago, Pokemon Go took the world by storm and brought the somewhat underappreciated augmented reality game genre to the mainstream. Fast-forward to 2020, and all kinds of businesses are looking at the ways virtual reality and augmented reality tech can aid them in social media marketing. And while VR is a more revolutionary technology, it is also the less practically developed one, which is social media marketing teams are looking at opportunities to utilize AR.

For example, you’ll find furniture stores offering AR-powered apps that let you place a virtual version of a piece of furniture inside your actual home. Lowe’s has included a “holoroom” on their website, allowing customers to experience their future interior in virtual reality before making any purchases; while also learning DIY skills in real-time. And clothing retailers are also looking at ways to let people virtually try on a jacket or a shirt, though such tech is still in development.

More Personalized Approach

Digital marketers have been trying to connect with their online audiences more directly for ages; this isn’t necessarily one of the most recent social media marketing trends. However, the days of simple e-mailing lists are long gone. The appearance of Big Data and related analytics has enabled companies to examine their users’ personal tastes and shopping patterns like never before.

Because of this, taking a more personalized approach to interacting with customers is more possible than ever. Audience targeting is not merely guesswork anymore; with tons of insightful metrics, companies can give their customers the exact experience they want.

Interactive Content

There’s no need to state it explicitly, but we’ll do it anyway for the sake of this article – most people access social media on their mobile phones. And while this may not seem like an important fact at first, it definitely shapes the form of content people have gotten used to on social media. Seeing as using touch screens as a control mechanism is an extremely tactile experience; people expect their content to be interactive, even when it comes to online shopping.

That’s why a vast majority of social media users are more likely to engage with interactive and visually engaging content. By all standard metrics, content that offers even a rudimentary level of interactivity scores much bigger points with the average user. It’s more likely to be shared on social media, and products marketed with such posts are more likely to be purchased by online consumers. Also, these types of posts manage to keep the average visitor on a page for much longer. With that in mind, social media marketing trends indicate that more companies are focusing on this part of their campaigns, which used to be little more than a novelty for the core audience.

For example, Domino’s had made a big splash a couple of years ago, by enabling their customers to order pizza via Tweets. It not only proved to be great new customer service but also a marketing technique; each pizza order via Twitter was also essentially an advertisement.

Conclusion

As you may have noticed, the social media marketing trends for 2020 are not so revolutionary, as they are evolutionary. Some companies have their in-house teams for this, and some of them decide to seek help from popular social media marketing agencies. One thing is pretty clear, though — instead of companies dictating the way they interact with customers online, it will be the other way around for the foreseeable future. The ease of marketing any product on social media means that there will be a lot of competition in even the most obscure niches. And thus, all future trends will be demand-driven for some time.

About the author: This is the guest article by Jacob Daniels, SEO Content Manager and Copywriter from Movers Development.

Title images from Pablo pack on Ouch, free vector library

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