How you should be planning your social media marketing for 2020

Since its explosion, social media continues to evolve. Trends are changing all the time, so there’s no room for lack of planning when it comes to your social media marketing strategy for 2020.

It’s important to keep in mind that it’s not only social media ‘trends’ that are always changing, but the technology related to posting and surfing the social media sites is also being reinvented.

It’s essential to your overall digital marketing strategy to adequately plan ahead for your social media marketing for 2020. To keep abreast of the latest social media trends and technology it’s a great idea to complete a digital marketing course, which will equip you with what’s hot and what’s not when it comes to social media marketing.

How did last year’s social media marketing measure up?

So, you’re excited about planning your social media marketing for 2020? Well, you should be. There are so many new exciting things happening on social media platforms and 2020 promises to lead the way in this form of digital marketing.

But, before you get cracking on your 2020 social media marketing plan, it’s wise to review how well your 2019 social media marketing strategy panned out.

Let’s take a closer look at some of last year’s social media marketing trends so you can make an informed decision as to whether your social media marketing plan was on track or not.

• It’s all about engagement – A good way of measuring your social media marketing success is by your level of engagement with your audience.
• Sales channel – During 2019 social media wasn’t only about building brand awareness, social media can now be targeted as a sales enabler.
• No more fake followers – The days of accumulating ‘fake’ followers are most certainly over. For example, Instagram started removing fake likes, comments and even follows.

The most popular social media platforms

There are many social media platforms and virtual communities available on the world wide web. The most popular are Facebook, Blogs, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Vimeo.

Let’s look at these most popular social media platforms in more detail.

• Instagram – This is an image and video-based social media platform which is square-based and is a very appealing way to get your message across visually.
• Facebook – Nearly everyone has a Facebook profile and this social media platform is by far the most popular. Facebook is a user-friendly platform that allows it’s users to engage effortlessly.
• Twitter – Twitter started out as mostly a character-based social media platform, however, it’s now become much more visual and includes lots of top-quality images and videos.
• LinkedIn – This platform is used to establish a professional, career-based presence online as well as being a useful job advertising site.

How you should be planning your social media marketing for 2020

In the digital world of social media, it’s now become more important than ever to always be engaged with your audience. It’s a fact that the social media sites are leaning towards focusing on the number of meaningful interactions a user has rather than racking up their ‘likes’.

A hot trend that is set to continue in 2020 is influencer marketing. Having a popular personality to punt your company in front of thousands of followers often is a great part of any social media marketing plan.

Artificial intelligence has made a massive positive impact on customer service. Savvy online consumers today demand nothing but the quickest, most efficient service.

Stories are a sure bet. A story post is only available online for 24 hours and it’s become a very popular trend on Instagram, Facebook, and even YouTube. About 500 million people watch an Instagram story every day. That’s an incredibly large audience. Stories, whether on Instagram, Facebook or YouTube are interactive and highly entertaining.

Social media platforms have seen the number of Groups steadily increase, so consider creating a Group or becoming part of one to add to your social media marketing strategy for 2020.

YouTube was the first social media platform to launch ‘live’ video feeds in 2008, which was followed by Facebook and now Instagram. Creating live videos that showcase your products and business should be part of your social media marketing plan for 2020.