Social media trends for 2020

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With all this experience, I now share through the text below some of my bets for digital marketing in 2020.

1. The creation of a new cultural model of business.

Marketers are increasingly being pressured for results as digital and online commerce advance. Brands must urgently reinvent themselves by creating a new value culture for this new consumer or they will no longer be attractive and desirable. The agenda today goes beyond digital transformation, more in the construction of new cultural positions, because the consumer is constantly changing.

In the communication industry, what is striking is that the billing model of many agencies has been falling dramatically in recent months, and the growth targets of many agencies, year after year are redirected to smaller numbers due to numerous factors.

Today, more than ever, it is necessary to rethink a sustainable and scalable business model, or within a few years, there will be a collapse where agencies will disappear and few of the giant content and media companies will survive.

2. In-house agency, an effective solution?

As brands increasingly seek transparency in their advertising expenses, more control on creativity, and increased production agility, many companies are beginning to acquire resources internally, creating new ways to work with partners and experts. The creation of “in-house” agencies is increasingly making sense since the excess of junior professionals across all bridges is very large, many agencies suffer a blackout of talent.

And the solution found by many brands for retaining talent and senior professionals is the creation of structures linked to the marketing department to do more strategic work. In-house often makes it possible to take control of costs, increase transparency and agility, but the practicalities and challenges of implementing in-house are not so simple.

Some market professionals believe that this trend will be transient, after all, it is not just hiring professionals, it is necessary to create innovative methodologies to make the process of internalisation of services really effective.

3. Data segmentation and the use of AI and implementation of AI in marketing

Marketing teams should always re-evaluate their strategy and refine it when necessary to engage and manage the community around the brand. It's good to keep in mind that trends don't go away, they point the way to business success.

Today, leading digital media platforms and tools implement AI in their algorithms in time. Such a change was responsible for classifying social posts, deciding what content to display for what type of users, searching for data, and more.

By 2020 and in the near future, AI will do better in data segmentation and ensure that algorithms deliver the best content possible. The big opportunity today is to use some tools that can work with AI to find better segmentation and thus maximize the investments in digital media.

4. Augmented reality - An ever closer reality

Augmented reality encourages viral marketing on social networks, with the possibility of creating filters, many brands are already using this feature to interact with the user and gain amplification of their content. In 2020, the major trend is the creation of projects that enable interaction in events with the possibility of expanding a message in the digital environment using this technology.

Another bet is the creation of experimentation platforms, this technology helps consumers to make decisions that, although unable to touch products, they can measure dimensions, refine colours and see how they interact in the real world.

5. Engagement and reputation in focus to boost sales

A company's image reputation in the digital universe is increasingly valuable, not only on proprietary channels but throughout the digital ecosystem. Feedback from other users is increasingly a deciding factor when buying a product.

By 2020, engagement will become more important than in the past, brands should worry about thinking about content that has a lot of comments. This will make your content better qualified by the algorithms and presented to a larger number of people. Once these comments are positive they end up strengthening sales.

6. Differentiated content and an extremely segmented strategy

In theory, everyone knows, but many companies still replicate the same content on different platforms. Considering that more and more new communities will emerge, companies need to structure themselves to create relevant and different content for each micro-moment. Now we have the news of the arrival of Facebook groups, as an interesting tool to deliver more personalised messages.

Another major trend is the consolidation of 2 universes, podcasts and influencers. In 2019, we saw a huge increase in podcast consumption worldwide. According to statistics, 22% of Americans listen to podcasts every week. And the rise of influencers is not new to anyone.

By 2019, 80% of social media marketers find influencer marketing effective. We can safely predict that by 2020 and beyond, more and more social media influencers will grow and play an important role in building brand awareness.

7. New platforms and the strengthening of micro-moments

Online e-commerce is an obvious solution, and everyone can already measure the return on their sales. The world of digital marketing has long since moved out of the arm of brand building and achieved something vital for a brand.

Today platforms like Houseparty, Steemit, Caffeine and Lasso are gaining popularity and should already be used as platforms for brands in some markets. By 2019, TikTok has over 500 million active users worldwide, and the number is increasing. LinkedIn also gains a different status and becomes a great platform for brands. Now the challenge in 2020 is how to manage and build micro-moments according to audiences and resources that are increasingly different from platform to platform.