What to Expect from Social Media Marketing 2020?

Out of the various revolutions that have changed the face of this planet, the Digital Revolution is perhaps the most radical transformation. Social Media is yet another by-product of digitization, and after years of evaluation, its roots have dug deep within the arena of Marketing. The grip is firm to the point where one cannot think of Digital Marketing without the existence of Social Media.

Social Media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc., were formerly used to connect with others and share essential information. Much later, these platforms transformed the techniques of Digital Marketing. Business owners found it profitable to invest in advertisements over such platforms to increase their sales and generate a loyal customer base.

Over the years, marketers have realized that social media is a dynamic realm that changes with the slightest of tremors. With each passing year, social media is garnering immense popularity.

Here are a few transformational changes we can expect from Social Media Marketing as a tool.

1. Location Specification:

Whether you are attending a party or visiting an art gallery, your social media followers always want to know the places you’re going to. After the introduction of this Location-Specific feature, lives have become easier. If they’ve added the location to the place they’d been, all you need to do it tap on it, and you have the coordinates of the place on your phone screen.

This has also become a widely used Digital Marketing Strategy for a lot of businesses. As a business owner, you just have to get your entity listed on the Google Business List, and the rest shall fall in place. It is a free service platform that enables your business to take its place on Google Maps, making it easier for your prospective customers to find you.

So if you are a local business and I am your target market, chances are, I might show up at your shop one day. Thanks to the Location Specific feature!

2. Ephemeral Content:

[Image Source: Statista]

Ephemeral Content is temporary content that takes advantage of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) and prompts an immediate response. Snapchat was the first one to use ephemeral content in a mobile application, and for a long time, they were undefeated. Later, in 2016, Instagram introduced ephemeral content within Instagram stories and since then the two social media giants have been on an Ephemeral Content war, trying to one-up each other. Recently, Instagram seems to be on the winning side for the sole reason of user-friendly interface and engagement. Instagram stories attract an older target audience whereas snapchat is still pretty much entrenched in the younger demographics.

Ephemeral Content is popularly used in digital marketing terms because it urges potential customers to think on their toes and click before the story disappears.

3. ChatBots:

Chatbots are revolutionizing social media marketing by dealing with customers, of a particular business, on an online basis instead of telephonic conversations. It is a computer program that is designed to stimulate conversation with human users. Popular social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, etc., use this feature. Facebook alone has around 33,000 chatbots on its messenger app.

4. Product Discovery Through Social Media Posts:

Reports suggest that in 2019, 50% of all searches for products, goods, and services were through social media and that number is only going to grow in 2020. 3.8 billion people spend more than 144 minutes per day on these social media platforms. As a business owner, it is imperative to capitalize on this opportunity, and sell products, create awareness, and invest your time and energy on product discovery via social media.

Social Media Platforms allow you to buy a product or service by simply clicking on the post on your mobile phone screens which will re-direct you to the website. A lot of us spend our time scrolling through our Instagram Explore or our Facebook page, and as an aware business owner, one saw that as an opportunity to increase sales volume.

5. Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, and Virtual Reality:

In simple terms, Artificial Intelligence is the process of making machines smarter. Various social media platforms and e-commerce based companies use this feature to entice prospective customers. Amazon uses artificial intelligence to suggest products based on frequent searches for each user. Facebook uses AI to analyze existing data for a particular domain and then forms suggestions for prospective advertisements than can drive substantial traffic.

With the growing use of Augmented Reality, companies like LensKart and Snapchat have implemented the same within their online websites and Mobile Applications. Lenskart uses AR to put a frame on a person’s face. This enables buyers to shop for spectacles within the comfort of their homes. Brace yourselves to witness the growth of AR technology alone or in combination with virtual reality and artificial intelligence. Speculations are going around that the combination of AI, AR, and VR is going to be the next big thing of 2020.

6. Vanishing Metrics:

Over the past years, social media was all about the numbers of likes received over a post, but recently, the key players have decided to take down the Metrics that show the number of likes on a post or views on a video. All this is to promote the importance of content rather than the prominence based on the numbers. Social media has restricted our thinking to the number, higher the number – better the post was our frame of thinking. Not all social media platforms have taken down the metrics, some have converted into a shorter form. If a post garners, 51234 likes, it shows 51K likes instead.

Social Media is an important link to the realm of digital marketing. Every little step holds the potential to cause a huge stir. The aforementioned ways have the potential to change the face of social media marketing, drastically.