Predicting the future of social media is always fun. Product managers make sure that their customers engage a lot more on their products than they did the previous day. Hence the product’s features and tools are rolled out in a way that it offers more ways to connect, track and maximize a product’s online marketing performance.

Though there are lot of products being launched, only the best will endure. I make my own predictions every coming year, then look back at them to see if I was spot on or way off. These are my trend predictions for social media marketing in 2020 and where things seem to be heading as we begin the next decade, based on my subject expertise and experience in 2019.

Influencer Marketing

According to the latest research, influencer marketing will skyrocket, with 59% of marketers planning to increase their influencer budgets in 2020.

Consumers always get confused when multiple ads are targeted towards them hence an influencer marketer builds that trust by reviewing the product and convincing them in their purchase decisions. These people can be friends and family, but the circle of trust has now grown to people they follow on social media, ranging from celebrities to niche artists and experts in specific fields.

Social media has always been great for small and medium sized business and startups, because it allows small brands with less budget to compete with brands on the same stage. Many small and medium sized business don’t have the budgets to go after the “named” influencers, so we see a rise in the growth of micro-influencers in the coming ages.

Shopping on Social Media

Shopping on social media is a trend that began this year and is predicted to grow. Through your fingertips you get to see the things you need without even making an effort to visit the ecommerce website. Now, with just a few clicks, you can go from seeing something you like while scrolling Instagram or Facebook. Within a few seconds you can acquire a product by COD or via borderless transactions.

Many startups sell their products online since this platform reduces storage space and helps cut down the budget.

Stories Will Become the Marketers’ Darling For a while, Stories were exclusive to Snapchat, but then Instagram and Facebook Stories came out, and recently YouTube also started to show Stories.

Stories portray reality and consumers are more eager to see what are the latest and most interesting things that are happening with their brands. Videos can be captured on the
spot and Stories can be easily created which gives traction to authentic insights. Stories offer a sense of urgency since they have a time limit of no more than 24 hours to boost sales and offer discounts.

Chatbots

When chatbots first came into the picture, customers only received pre-recorded answers to questions. Algorithms are improving chatbots’ effectiveness by “understanding” what users are writing to them. Brands no longer have to stock the bots with canned answers, as chatbots finds accurate answers online very quickly. Chatbots can interact with multiple audiences at the same time. Multitasking is where humans do multiple things at the same time to save huge chunks of time. Soon, chatbots will take the jobs away from humans.

Improved Customer Service

This second part is dedicated to chatbots. Every day, the duration of the time that elapses from the moment a consumer initiates a call and until he establishes contact and expect an answer is indeed shortening. We know that having a live 24/7 customer service team for every single business is a waste of resources. Utilizing chatbot technology, in combination with your live staff, enables a type of round the clock coverage.

Although bots do not answer every single question, nor do they allow the personalization of talking to an actual human lots of time can be saved for the customer service workers by handing over the same repetitive questions, changes to addresses and passwords to the chatbots. There are lots of improvements needed for an effective chatbots to run. They will be the major game changers in the automation industry in 2020; offering time, cost and savings efficiency, and enabling wise use of company resources.

Hence these are the main technology pivots in social media. A lot of new tools and shifts will take place in 2020, but in terms of actionable marketing potential, these are the areas where I predict to see the more relevant shifts. Hopefully these notes will help you make your strategic approach.