Five Social Media Marketing Facts For 2020

The narration around technology advancement, especially the development of major social media platforms has always been one filled with concerns, dilemmas and arguments. A recent study, published by the leading American Marketing Association’s Marketing News found that “the change expected for social media use is a predicted 6% decrease (Charney, 2019).“ What does this number mean for digital marketers, and how accurately does it reflect user psychology and behaviors when it comes to the interactions with social media platforms, and the information brands push out on those platforms.

Social Media Marketing in 2020

Surprisingly, a decrease in social media use is not equivalent to a decrease in the value social media marketing can bring for brands. While a national Techlash has always been in the conversations among digital marketers through the past few years, the negative forecast of social media user growth signifies that social media marketing, when done properly, might be more impactful than ever.

“Net audience change expected for social media use is a predicted 6% decrease.”

While there is no guaranteed wins in the digital marketing world, educated guesses, updated information and practical experience are always what keep us ahead-of-the-game. Therefore, it is more important than ever that, as digital marketers, we stay informed of the latest trends, forecasts and predictions of different platforms and policies. However, with the development of information technology, and the ease communication has been put to, anybody can make a prediction, just like there are thousands of gurus on your daily Facebook feed. And as a result of that information overload, simply following the trends are not enough.

We got to follow the real-deals so we are informed, but not misinformed.

#1 User’s concern about data privacy on social media will continue to increase

If you are fairly knowledgeable regarding the digital world, then you should know the Social Media tycoon Facebook has been repeatedly screwing itself over. Dated all the way back to the debut of “news feed” in September 2006, unsettling voices already emerged. With around 8 million users back then, the new integrated feed that puts all friends’ activities in one received backfire from users who were not too happy about "every move of their personal life being blasted into a daily feed for their friends (Newcomb, 2018).”

The fact was, users have always been worried about their private data. The real problem underneath is that the issue of data security and privacy breach has never been so conspicuous until our technology development has literally allowed nearly every single of our movements on this planet to be tracked and traced. Thus, when Facebook admitted that they were aware of the massive data theft yet did nothing about it in 2018, it simply triggered a long-run phobia: where is privacy and safety when large data is everywhere, yet the ones managing and collecting the datas refuse to hold themselves accountable?

“Where is privacy and safety when large data is everywhere, yet the ones managing and collecting the datas refuse to hold themselves accountable?”

#2 Personalized ads will continue to lose favorability

The same concern goes behind the “personalized ads” showing up seamlessly across each social media platforms. According to a study on consumer favorability to march conducted by the Future of Marketing, a majority of (65%+) consumers unfair personalized ads while only a brief 30% consumers find them useful and favorable - easily one of the most unfavored Martech/digital marketing methods. These “customized, targeted” sales messages and lead generation campaigns are yet another sign of privacy invasion caused by large data, creeping up on your social media feed, often disguised in a friendly tone, trying to talk you into “changing your life.” As a matter of act, at least 75% of consumers found these ads somewhat creepy, and share their experiences interacting with marketing campaigns on social media platforms with their families and friends (Duran, 2018).

On the other hand, expectations for an ad-free social media platform continue to raise among consumers. In November 2015, Wikipedia co-founder finally launched an ad-free social media network called WT: Social, stating that "The business model of social media companies, of pure advertising, is problematic (Wales, as cited in Fuscaldo, 2019).“

As digital marketers, we must understand a crucial fact. In the past few years, social media marketing and advertising’s frenzy growth granted accessibility to business owners and marketers with different background, expertise levels, and understanding of the marketing and advertising world, which, in return, tormented consumers with countless ad copies that sounded exactly the same with each other, that did nothing but annoying the consumers by treating them like idiots. It is inevitable that personalized ads accumulated such notoriety. 

“The business model of social media companies, of pure advertising, is problematic.”

However, neither the creation of an ad-free network, nor the consumer feedback regarding “stalker-like” ad experiences, is equivalent to a fall of the social media advertising industry. While consumers complain about personalized ads, they still seek meaningful and fruitful interaction with brands on social media, whether via native content or sponsored campaigns.

#3 Social media ad spending faces continual increase

Sounds self-contradictory, doesn’t it?

But this is what numbers are telling us: while users of social media platforms become more peculiar than ever, social media marketing, especially social media lead generation is nowhere close to seeing a winter, or suffer the potential tech lash enough to slow down the actions. According to a forecast published by Statista, social network advertisement spending will reach 37.71 billion US dollars in 2020, presenting over 17% of increase. 

There are a few reasons behind this increase.

1. SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING WILL BECOME MORE EXPENSIVE

On social media platforms, the audience is constantly blocking, reporting and reacting to advertisements pushed out by brands of various sizes, feeding into personalization algorithms, encouraging and educating the system to only show what they’d like to see.

The change in the audience’s knowledge base thus calls for higher quality copy, on-the-spot offers, and more accurate targeting in the world of social media marketing. This is a natural occurrence after and that gave the notorious name to “personalized ads.”

2. NET NEUTRALITY IS GOING AWAY

“Small companies would be wise to start thinking about other sources of marketing — possibly sponsorships or branded content — that venture away from traditional models of online advertising.”

The second reason is that many businesses will be forced towards seeking alternatives as net neutrality gradually fades out of the landscape. This will significantly impact the bandwidth accessible to non-major sites, including almost all small-to-mid-sized business websites, posing a few critical challenges to the survival of small business marketing efforts:

• Paid ads on 3rd party websites, such as banner ads and floaters, will load much slower in order to ensure the native content of the website loads first.

• Small business SEO will become more expensive in order to compete with those simply have the funds to “purchase” higher ranking.

#4 Advanced technologies challenge social media content marketing

Voice assistants, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR)… While the shadow of a Techlash is still hovering in the air, we cannot deny the fact that are living in an age of rapid changes, aided by technologies once only imagined by science fiction writers. In fact, a few industries are already seeing direct impact created by new technologies.

For example, voice assistants sort their internal ranking in a much more competitive way. A business must be “no.1” in order to be found whereas Google first page, or at least no.2 or no. 3 would have been considered an ideal result previously.

Being on the front-line of consumer interaction, social media is always deeply involved in technology advancement. Snapchat recently raised a new wave of excitement with their Augmented Reality lenses. Similarly, many beauty camera apps are also making great use of AR filters to create playful images and even adding smart makeup for those who did not want to go through the full application process on their faces just for a casual selfie.

Consequently, brands are being challenged to think outside of the box and utilize these new technologies to keep their audience engaged. Simply imagine an e-commerce store posting shopping posts and simple images when 80% of its competitors are using AR technology that allows users to “project” an item directly into their home environment - see where the competition is?

The digital marketing world is changing faster than ever, both on a regulatory level and on the technological plane, whereas businesses must adapt to these changes in order to survive and succeed. To win the social media game in 2020, businesses, brands and especially professional marketers must think like the consumers do and educate themselves with the latest changes in social media policies, algorithms and accompanying technologies.

And most importantly, be social, be active, and behave like genuine human beings. Consumers are becoming less tolerant and smarter every day. Shoveling a “quick-success” ads into their faces may be the last thing you want to do in the year 2020.