As we head into the second half of 2020 it is imperative for brands to connect with their audiences across a wide range of digital platforms, especially with everything going on in the world right now. Social media platforms are a great place to grow not only your audience but also engage with them since we cannot meet face to face.
The largest problem that most content marketers face is catching their audience’s attention. Competition in every market space is increasing and our attention spans are decreasing to an average of 7 seconds.
Content marketers are trying to catch your attention as a user scrolls through 300 feet of content each day, giving brands only a small window of time to grab the eye of their audience. So how can your brand engage with their audience with ideas that work? Here are a few key social media trends for 2020 that we hope you can incorporate into your content marketing strategy.
Trend #1: User-Generated Content will be KEY for Higher Engagement Rates
Organic social media reach is continuing to remain steady but businesses are looking for alternative ways to reach their audiences.
One way is to have your users create content. Major brands such as Target, AirBnB, Chipotle and Starbucks are reposting user-generated content as part of their content strategy.
If you think that your brand would not be the right fit for user generated content, note that B2B and B2C companies that feature user generated content instead of created in house content drive 7 times higher engagement than others. Also, 56% of people are more likely to buy a product or a service after seeing positive customer-generated posts.
Trend #2: Influencer Marketing Will Dominate
Influencer marketing is not a new thing for 2020 and if you want to stay competitive you may want to look at joining the trend. Audiences want authenticity and real reviews and brands want to reach new customers and engage with them.
Since the algorithm changes the last few years in both Facebook and Instagram, it is harder for brands to reach people organically. Influencer marketing is a great way to reach new audiences.
To do this correctly there are a few things to keep in mind. Audiences do not want to see micro-influencers promote products or services that are inauthentic. Meaning, those that you can tell are paid to say how great someone or something is. Viewers are too savvy now and they can see through this strategy.
But micro and macro influencers do work, and you need to decide which route is best for your brand.
Micro-influencers are “regular” people with no more than 30,000 followers. Although macro-influencers expose your brand to millions of people, there are a few reasons why you should consider working with micro-influencers instead:
1) They have special connections with their niche audience – Macro-influencers, such as Kim Kardashian or Selena Gomez have a huge and diverse fan base, located all over the world. If you’re not a multinational company, using macro-influencers will do you no good, because you need a very specific, niche and local audience for your brand. Micro-influencers may be more of what you need.
2) They are authentic – Micro-influencers are real people with a passion for a specific topic (such as traveling or sneakers). They spend their holidays and days the same way as any other person, which makes them more relatable, and their product reviews would be more genuine and authentic.
3) Be prepared to spend a lot of money – On average, micro-influencers charge around $180 per post. If you’re lucky and some of them love your product so much, they will agree to promote it in exchange for getting the product for free. Macro-influencers can cost well over thousands of dollars per post.
4) They are easier to connect with – Thanks to the popularity of influencer marketing in 2020, we now have numerous platforms with a huge influencer database.
Trend #3: Video Content Is King
If you’ve been following social media news this year, you know how the new algorithm ranks posts – the more time people spend on your post, the better ranking you get.
That’s why video is not optional anymore it is a must in your content strategy. It is a key technique to attract the attention on your social media channels.
Buzzsumo did a research on 880 million Facebook posts in 2019 and found out that video posts have the highest average engagement and twice the level of engagement of other post types on average.
When you add one or all of these trends into your content strategy you will attract new customers and engage with the ones that are already following you!
Which of those top social media trends will you use in your content strategy this year?