In today’s world, the majority spend most of their time on one social media platform or the order, which has then made it an integral part of their life. Some people are so addicted to social media (especially the youth) that the first they do after waking up is checking their social media feeds on their phones.
Social media is essential to consumers, businesses, and marketers, but there is a whole lot of content on social media and making competition high as well.
However, having updates on the latest social media trends can help your business and make you stand out from the crowd. Social media trends do not stay the same year in year out, because of its broad user base, which is why you need to stay updated on the new trends.
Below are the latest social media trends that you should be aware of
The use of video contents
As a person who runs a business and your chief aim of being on social media is to get a potential customer. Putting up video content will be best for your business, mainly because video contents are the most engaging forms of content. They are the future of social media content. The video doesn’t have to an expensive or time-consuming. Now is the time to add videos as part of your content creating strategies. It is imperative to start using video content to stay relevant on social media platforms because studies show that 82% of social media content will be video content.
Posting of Ephemeral content
Ephemeral contents are contents that are made available to your audience for a short time and disappear afterward. Whatsapp status, Snapchat, and Instagram stories are typical examples of Ephemeral contents. Most people in today’s world have a brief attention span, and the way and rate at which they consume content have changed, and that is why stories get the work done. Stories are so addictive, short, and engaging, and people tend to spend hours going from one story to another, these stories disappear after 24hours. Stories have become popular, and marketers are using it to their advantage now, studies show that a marketer post on his/her story at least once in four days.
Instagram will remove likes
Instagram is one of the most used social media platforms, this platform has implemented a lot of changes over the time, and the possibility of removing of likes is the latest so far. Mainly because likes tend to determine the social value of a person, and expecting those likes can have an adverse effect on the mental health of people. Removing of likes has been tested in the beta test and might be implemented soon.
Although there are people who do not agree with the given reason, they think Instagram wants to implement the removal of likes so that they can earn more, due to the fact that marketing has become so popular. Brands pay a massive sum of money to these influencers to get their products advertised rather than using the traditional advertising method. None of the money paid by these brands gets to Instagram, but if Instagram implements the removal of likes, there will not be a way for brands to measure the impact of their campaigns which will force them to go back to use the Instagram ads which will make Instagram a lot of money and brands will easily track the ROI.
Other social media platforms performing well
Instagram and Facebook have been the most used and most popular social media platforms for the longest time. But in recent times, other platforms have come to existence and have become significantly popular.
TikTok is an example of such a social media platform; it can come into existence in 2016 and immediately become popular among youths. There are so many social media platforms aside from Facebook and Instagram, which are popular, namely; youtube, WhatsApp, Twitter, LinkedIn, WeChat, QQ, QZone, and many more.
The use of visual content
There will be an increasing use of visual content as brand and companies use images tailored and customized to add spice and more value to their post. Simply by adding their brand sticker on the image or the actual product into the stock image.
Connection + Community + Experience
In the year 2020, brads and companies have decided to go back to the basics. Self-serving social media will not work this year. The plan is to build a relationship with their customers, which is more important than just selling products and services.
As a brand, you also need to think of who your audiences are and focus on what they are interested in, and these two will help you in creating content that your audience can resonate with.
Majority of customers these days are looking for brands and companies they can connect with on a personal level; thus business needs to put in more effort into being a more friendly and helpful brand than just a service or product provider.
Furthermore, there are a lot of competitors on social media, adding a personal touch to your brand by genuinely connecting with people will help humanize your brand which will, in turn, will help your brand to gain your audience trust as well as potential customers’.
Also, providing an environment for your customers to do easily and quickly is essential, because these people want to know who they are spending their money with. Hence, creating a group on your social media platform (such as Facebook groups and specialized LinkedIn groups) is essential instead of just having a business page to get follows and likes. As a brand, you have the power to create an active community for your brand and create movements that will impact beyond just beyond increased sales.
Use of Influencers
Influencer marketing has become very popular, and it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere soon. Creating a crystal clear influencer strategy that integrates with your overall marketing strategy is vital.
