8 Social Media Content Marketing Trends To Welcome In 2020

Digital Content Marketing Is Rapidly Growing & Developing

With major advancements in technology, we have entered the Information Age. People can access information online in just few minutes. The Internet has anything and everything. Today people have turned to the virtual marketplace to shop and they rely on the internet or Google to get information. Similarly, Social Media has become a huge part of our lives. Marketers understand this changing dynamics of the purchasing behaviour of consumers and where people spend most of their time. Therefore, social media content marketing has also gained popularity in the past decade.

Good content leads to a better marketing campaign. From a marketing perspective, content marketing through social media platforms has been extremely rewarding. However, the trends in social media content marketing keep changing from time to time. It is a rapidly changing and developing an industry. Many such new trends will also be seen in 2018.

Let us take a look at eight of these upcoming trends to watch in the near future.

1) Advanced Form of Content

The content will shift from text form to visual form. Videos will be used to convey information instead of long articles or essays. Informative videos with good content will be gaining popularity. The audio-visual form of content attracts more viewers or readers on platforms like social media. The content must facilitate user interaction. Many companies pay to advertise their products in such videos and it also features a direct link to the shopping site where people can purchase the product. This kind of marketing is both informative and entertaining. Currently, people have not realized the humongous benefits of this kind of content which makes this field less-competitive.

2) Rise of Ephemeral Content

Earlier marketers focused on creating evergreen content that can be used for a long period of time but recently all major social media platforms has launched features based on ephemeral content. This kind of content is time-based. Following their footsteps, many companies will switch to ephemeral content to attract more customers and viewers. Snapchat pioneered this idea and after analysing their success, many others have joined too. Brands can ramp up stories on the 'Add story' section of social media to connect with the customers directly. Social media influencers use these stories to add links to websites where they sell their products.

3) Mobile Friendly Content

With the increase in internet users through smartphones, many brands are starting to make content that is favourable for the small smartphone screens. Many websites have launched mobile apps to engage more users. Apps can be easily downloaded in smartphones. Websites opt for mobile-friendly templates that can adapt the layout suitable for smartphones. Smartphones are the perfect handy devices. More brands are realizing this fact and they are focusing on developing content suitable for the small screens. It is formatted to suit the smartphone's layout.

4) Augmented Reality

In the near future, the next big thing in social media content marketing is going to be 'Augmented Reality'. It's a new way to engage with the audience. Many social media platforms are trying to integrate features based on Augmented Reality. This means that a new way to showcase products is coming soon. Through this feature, different brands can project their products in the real surrounding with the help of special filters over the camera. This feature shows the buyers how a product will look in their natural surroundings. It is a great way to market products. More such features will support the content. The format of content will be upgraded to suit this added feature.

5) Investment in Professionals

Currently, social media is not considered a serious marketing platform and that's why the companies hire unexperienced writers for these platforms. However, companies have started realizing that social media is a vital platform for brand awareness and customer acquisition. More experts and professionals will be hired for it. Brands will invest more in professional and experienced copywriters. Companies will be hiring talented individuals to create content constantly for social media platforms. Specific content to target specific platform will be encouraged. Slowly, more investments will be made in this area.

6) Advanced Analytics

Earlier just the website had an analytics section that helped in determining the target audience. However, even social media platforms will start integrating analytics into its applications. By far, Facebook and LinkedIn have this feature. More social media platforms are following their footsteps and many new features are offered to marketers to advertise their products or to built a brand. With this new advancement, content will become more personalized. This will increase the customer acquisition and retention rate. More direct and niche content will be used in marketing.

7) Less Content, More Message

Most of the trending features that social media offers are time-sensitive. The stories are timed at a 10 sec duration. Timed videos and brief content will be used to match up with the latest features. Direct messages, short slogans, and to-the-point content will be used in advertisements. The companies will require short content in a constant flow to engage the consumers. Less means more in this case.

8) User-generated Content

The companies and their marketers are integrating more features to utilize user-generated content like testimonials, reviews, recommendations, referrals, etc. Consumers trust other consumers. People want to know about other people's experience and review of products. This has given rise to several forums. Real consumers feedback, testimonials and organic reviews are showcased to attract more customers. This is relatively easy for social media as it receives instant feedback. There are review section and comment section on all the social media platforms. This will also be affecting the content as people will strive for improved and audience-centric content. Marketers will be looking for more interactive content to get better reviews.

Astonishingly, the tally of total users of social media across the world is over 2 billion which makes it a perfect place for a marketer to advertise their products or services. This is a growing industry. The numbers are increasing every day and companies know this fact. Stay updated with the rising trends to establish an effective marketing campaign on social media. Integrate it into your campaigns and be ahead of others in the game.