2019 was incredibly exciting in the marketing world. There was an increased focus on new platforms and mediums which will undoubtedly trickle through to 2020. Our Communications department at Managing Matters compiled some trends that can be used for your organization.
Video
TikTok became the most downloaded app in 2019, so we can reasonably predict that it is going to continue to grow in 2020. With 800 million active users and counting, the app has been downloaded more than 1.5 billion times. In early January 2020, an Ohio doctor used TikTok to demonstrate disease prevention through vaccination.
The use of Instagram and Snapchat stories also increased in 2019, with 500 million in 2019, up from 400 million stories produced in 2018.
LinkedIn’s most recent update to its platform now allows users to post videos directly to its site. Before this update, users had to link to another site, like YouTube or Vimeo, if they wanted to post video.
Bottom line: video is being used more than ever and can be used for education, information, as well as for fun. Not-for-profits and associations would benefit by claiming their share of voice using this medium.
Shoppable Posts
“Shoppable” posts are also on the rise thanks to improvements to Instagram’s platform. What this means is that Instagram added a feature so that you could buy a product or event ticket directly in a post, without leaving the platform to do so. You can tell that a post is “shoppable if it has a shopping bag icon in the bottom corner.
Bottom line: associations can use this feature to sell their event tickets or products (like a syllabus) directly through Instagram, which takes out a step for the consumer. If an association is already doing a paid post, adding the shoppable feature could make attaining sales that much faster and easier.
Privacy and Consent Privacy and consent continue to be hot topics into 2020. In 2019, we saw Facebook be exposed for collecting data inappropriately and brought forward to testify about it in the US Congress. This, alongside CASL and GDPR being implemented, brought a new awareness to the general public about the importance of privacy and consent when collecting user information.
Bottom line: ensure your association is following the guidelines outlined in CASL and GDPR. Also, make sure that cybersecurity best practices are in place (check out last month’s article on that topic here) and you have sufficient insurance that covers potential data breaches.
Personalization
The capabilities of personalizing communications and content continued to grow in 2019 and we suspect that 2020 will be no different. Spotify users received their most listened to songs in 2019, which they proceeded to widely share across social media platforms. Facebook also creates a look-back of popular posts, as does Instagram (through third party tools). Consumers are now used to receiving personalized or curated content.
Adding a personalized subject line or opening line has been shown to increase open rates by 26%. Fortunately, personalizing mass communications has never been easier by using an easy-to-deploy function in your email tool. Platforms like MailChimp, Constant Contact and others make it relatively easy to look like you’re sending a personal email, when you’re in fact sending out a communication to hundreds or even thousands of contacts.
Bottom line: add a personal element to your emails and they’ll be opened more frequently.
References: https://hootsuite.com/pages/social-trends-2020
https://www.business2community.com/digital-marketing/8-digital-marketing-trends-for-2020-are-you-ready-02272775 https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2019/10/03/top-marketing-trends-for-2020/#7669fbaf13d5