The landscape of social media marketing is constantly changing. New apps and platforms are appearing all the time, and popularity can rise and fall almost instantaneously. Consequently, it’s important for digital marketers to keep up-to-date with the latest trends, so we’ve broken down a few trends that you should continue to watch during 2020:

#1 Diversification of Networks

Advertisers should be one step ahead of the game with new apps and platforms that provide opportunities for brands to create relevant content for a wider market. Apps suchs as Tik Tok have recently seen a huge rise in popularity, with some brands deciding to collaborate early on with the platform.

Just one example is Guess, who created a hashtag campaign that reached all users of the app on its landing page, encouraging them to show off their latest looks. Tik Tok, with an estimated 800 million active monthly users, is the seventh most downloaded app of the past decade and is a goldmine of untapped brand extension. Further information on forming a Tik Tok marketing campaign can be found here.

Another positive side of diversification is risk mitigation, expanding dependency beyond traditional social media apps such as Facebook and taking advantage of minimal competition and low costs on these up-and-coming platforms. Advertising strategies can also be diversified, e.g. brands being able to provide behind-the-scenes marketing material on apps such as Snapchat and Instagram.

#2 Micro-Influencers

Influencers from YouTube, Tik Tok, Instagram and many other platforms with enormous followings continue to be an incredibly popular source of marketing for advertisers. However, these influencers are now being put under the microscope.

An Influencer Marketing Hub survey of over 4,000 advertising firms found that marketing with smaller “micro influencers” was up 300% in 2020. Part of the reason for this is more focused and meaningful audience engagement with micro influencers, as well as the decrease in risk of “fake influencers” with largely bot followings.

Influencer marketing is expected to grow to be worth $9.7 billion this year. The average earned media value per dollar spent on influencer marketing is also increasing, with some firms reporting an impressive $18 in earned media value per dollar in 2019.

#3 Stories Advertising

Instagram Stories continues to be hugely popular with social media users, with much of Instagram’s 2 million average monthly users utilising the feature extensively. The recent introduction of advertising by Instagram within its story feature, gives advertisers the opportunity to make short, attractive marketing content to capture the user’s attention and encourage click through.

An alternative to news feed advertising, the story advertising feature presents a greater challenge to prevent swipe through and encourage engagement. The only give-away that a story is not organic user created is the “sponsored” tagline at the top left of the advert, which provides the opportunity to create user-focused content that won’t appear as typical advertising but instead offer the opportunity of interesting media.

User generated content (UGC) is also an incentive for businesses to encourage customers to engage enthusiastically and directly with products, participating in the marketing process such as hashtag campaigns using stories.  Facebook and Snapchat stories are also an opportunity for brands to utilise.

#4 Creativity to Increase Engagement

Dating apps often require non-paying users to watch in-app adverts or see advertising content while using their apps. 90% of Match Group’s (owner of dating sites such as Tinder and OkCupid.com) 59 million total monthly users are non-paying, meaning that they are exposed to in-app advertising.

Social media networks such as Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat don’t offer an advertisement-free option, meaning that the majority of internet users are somewhat accustomed to skipping through ads. For this reason, advertisers need to create appealing, entertaining and engaging content that won’t drive people to either skip or swipe away.

Seeing marketing from the perspective of media engagement rather than brand promotion will enhance an advertiser’s experience using social media marketing. Short, easily consumed media is what catches social media users’ attention. Being able to engage the user with creative content that is disconnected from brand advertising but serves the purpose to entertain or educate, will increase brand awareness.

#5 A Slow Goodbye to Vanity

Metrics used by digital marketing agencies to track the success of a marketing campaign is constantly evolving, with Facebook and Instagram potentially soon removing views of the number of likes per post.

This means that many brands and agencies will be forced to look beyond vanity measures, and instead review more relevant metrics such as click through rate (CTR), conversion data, and brand sentiment or conversation shifts.

Long-term extended engagement will ensure a more meaningful connection with your audience and remove the reliance on spikes in likes and shares to maintain engagement metrics in monthly reporting.