T’was the quarter before the new year, when all through the agency,
not a worry was stirring, not even a doubt.
The videos were edited by the producer with care,
In hopes that 2020 soon would be there;
the cameras were nestled all snug on the shelf
while visions of hero, hub, help danced in the lenses
And emails in their queue, and tweets in the app
and everyone was signed out of slack.
That is the ideal way we all want to finish 2019. Feeling prepared and ready to take on 2020 like the champions we are. In order to do that, we can’t forget about two major pieces of content that sometimes get left behind in planning and strategy sessions. Social media and video.
Now, one might think that the two are completely separate entities that don’t go together for a strategy, but that is where you’d be wrong. For the last few years, we (and just about everyone) have been telling businesses that video is taking over social media and it's going to be even bigger in the years to come. Spoiler: IT’S GOING TO BE BIGGER IN 2020! The reasoning is obvious, every social platform is still focusing on video and even introducing new ways to use it in organic and paid placements.
Let’s dive into 2020 predictions, the importance of each strategy and how these elements will work together like candy canes and hot cocoa or eggnog and bourbon (if you’re into that kind of thing).
Social Media 2020 Predictions and Trends
Social media usage will continue to grow...old
Now you’re thinking, “Tell us something we don’t know.” Well, according to
Hootsuite and We Are Social, by 2020, we’ll see the increased dominance of Instagram, especially among older demographics. “Instagram users are a lot older than people often imagine,” says Simon Kemp. “There are more 45 to 54 year-olds using Instagram than there are 13 to 17-year-olds.” With that being said, Instagram will no longer be just for millennials and you are probably already seeing that. It’ll be more like the channel where your parents are testing Stories and asking questions about filters.
Chatbots
Social commerce itself is on the rise, but as consumers turn to social media more and more, we need to be prepared to answer questions effectively and efficiently as possible without missing a beat. No, really, speed is the name of the game here. To help with this, social media chatbots are here to save the day and keep social media managers from getting overwhelmed with simple customer service requests. The idea is that instead of the consumer having to wait for a person to answer them (sometimes someone in a different time zone) the chatbot will be able to answer your basic FAQs. The goal would be to eliminate the time used by managers by answering questions that are easily found on the website and focus on more complex challenges. For starters, Facebook Messenger already has about
1.3 billion monthly active users worldwide. (And these aren’t Google Plus “active users” either...you know what we mean.) We're talking about active users who have adopted Messenger as a primary communication channel. The future is here.
Organic traffic will continue to decline via the Facebook algorithm
As if our clients weren’t tired of hearing this already (we’re tired of saying it), it means that we need to focus on what the new metrics will actually provide to us. While Facebook hasn’t released a confirmation, we have seen some speculations from social media leaders such as Matt Navarra (
See the tweet here) about more negative changes for organic content producers. So what does this mean for marketers? Organic metrics will be more precise like ads — yay, but organic metrics will not be as impressionable as ads are — booo. (See the vicious cycle here?) It means reporting numbers could drop, but doesn’t mean it’s completely bad. So this means you will only see one impression per person versus repeat impressions. You’re thinking, “In order for people to see my post will I have to put money behind it?” Not completely, but don’t expect the huge numbers you may be used to. But remember this catchy phrase, friends don’t let friends report on impressions. So really, this shouldn’t be affecting the majority of marketers looking for reach, trends or more tangible metrics.. Trust us, if you are using ads, you are already used to this process.
Advertising will be bigger than ever
Exit stage left the decline of organic posts and enter stage right the paid strategies. What does this mean for marketers? That the ad space is going to become more competitive and the cost to advertise will go up. Regardless of the cost, the type of ad is going to be more important. Not only are users familiar with (and maybe tired) of their feeds being full of ads, stories placements are still on the rise. HOWEVER, story placement is not for every company or ad campaign. You are going to have to get creative on these. Speaking of creative, using the new
Instant Experience ads (which are like mini landing pages) is going to take more than just a couple photos and some text. Add video or videos and make it as personable as you would a real landing page. Last, but certainly not least, the rise of the
video ads. These ads have the option to go straight to the feed/ story placement or they can be more like buffer ads before you watch an organic video.
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As social becomes more about ads, we know that one thing that keeps rising on social media is video. Good video. Good, story-rich multimedia. Video drives around 60% of engagements on Facebook. According to
Cisco, by 2020, there will be almost a million minutes of video per second crossing the internet. Cisco adds that, by then, 82% of all consumer web traffic will be video. Just let that sink in...now it’s time to unwrap the second gift of this blog…
2020 Video Trend Predictions
Long-form videos
We have been told for years now that the human attention span has been decreasing and is now shorter than a goldfish. Apparently that’s 12 seconds and if you are reading this, we clearly have kept it for longer than that, so let’s pass judgement on that tale another time. But in 2020 that is all going to change. Having a long-form video on your website will keep users on the site longer and keep them more engaged in the site afterwards. If you want people to stay on your website, get their attention by adding useful video content. Try creating product videos, demos, and how-to explainers for your audience. We also like to refer to this as a component of a Hero, Hub, Help video strategy. We also recommend using Google Analytics to see where visitors are visiting the most on your website and building the video content off that curiosity.
360-degree videos
If you don’t know what this is, watch this great live video cut of
Lions from National Geographic. We may have spent the whole 4:30 minutes watching this before we continued writing and are assuming you did as well. Let's talk about how this new tool can affect marketers and strategies. Personally, if we were selling physical products (not our awesome services) we would absolutely use this to show the product in action. Experience brands, tourism, manufacturing and more can spot simple ways to create a highly-engaging video with the right story and right effect.
Targeting affinity groups through video
Video isn’t a one-size-fits-all strategy, especially if you are trying to hit multiple generations in your audience. If you are trying to reach millennials, there is a chance you are going to use a more casual format and even use slang or trendy references in the copy, but hitting those generation Xers and boomers will require a different structure. The good news is, reaching these groups via ads will actually be simpler moving forward. Thanks to advancements in AI, long-tail keywords will be easier to find and use in your video marketing strategy. Why should you care as a marketer? This means you will have more options to layer when you are pushing the videos out as ads. Why waste the time to make each video tailored to a specific audience if you can’t push it out to that audience?
YouTube, LinkedIn, Ads, Oh My!
Science says that the human brain requires 400 milliseconds (that’s faster than half a second) to engage with advertising on mobile according to
Mobile Marketing Association/The Advertising Research Foundation. YouTube ads are versatile. You can opt for 6-second bumper ads or go for 15 to 30-second skippable ads, it all depends on what the focus of the campaign is (brand awareness, conversions, etc). We dove into YouTube Ads 101 for you already,
but here’s your refresher. As for LinkedIn, it values organically posted videos over a URL now, take advantage before every brand gets there. As for ads, LinkedIn video ads are seeing more engagement and can help you stand out from others on this platform.
Social & Video Combined
So after that, you may still be wondering how social and video can combine for a killer strategy. Here are some quick hits you need to know:
- Social media is a distribution method for video, but video needs to be tailored to the channel’s audience in both format and story
- The same video won’t perform the same on different channels, so consider using different cuts for different placements and testing
- If you want to be the alpha with organic and paid content you need more video in your content strategy on both fronts
- Know. Your. Audience. Period.
As you wrap up 2019 and prepare for Q1 remember these trends. As usual, surprises can and will pop up in the social and video world. Maybe this time next year we will be using voice technology to write this.
Happy Q4 to all, and to all a good night!
If you’re looking for help with social or video or social video, slide into our DMs or contact us today.