Social Media Marketing: What We Learnt in 2019
In 2019, an array of ground-breaking developments, including new platforms and controversial updates, hit the world of social media marketing. In this blog, we discuss the impact that they had on the industry and what we can expect from the major platforms in 2020.
Firstly, as we mentioned in our last blog, social media was once again an extremely dominant force in 2019, with regards to marketing and general public life. Over the course of the year, the term ‘social media’ began to fade out, as the majority of marketing experts are now preferring to label it as just ‘social’, highlighting the fact that social networking platforms are quickly becoming a vital anchor of society.
In addition to this, some of the world’s biggest brands, including Estee Lauder and Airbnb, opted to put the majority of their marketing eggs into the social media basket, as they spent almost all of their marketing budget on growing their social presence.
As for the platforms themselves, just like their new updates, some flourished, while others failed to hit the mark. However, they all played a huge role in allowing brands to connect with their audience and generate sales, and have edged closer to overtaking traditional forms of marketing, such as TV advertising.
Without further ado, here is a platform-by-platform breakdown of the biggest social media talking points from the past 12 months.
Facebook, which remains the largest social media networking channel, had a relatively quiet year in terms of platform developments. They aimed to improve their user experience by introducing an Ad Library, which helps users and advertisers to make and see ads that are more relevant to their interests. However, with the expansion of social commerce on the platform, the level of organic reach a brand can achieve significantly declined. While this isn’t an issue for conglomerates like Nike, who’s last organic post was shared in January 2018, smaller businesses will suffer.
With that in mind, marketing experts are now advising businesses to use Facebook more as a platform to build loyal communities and groups, as opposed to a platform to push promotional content.
Similar to Facebook, Instagram also made huge algorithm changes, which had adverse effects on organic reach. Although, by offering excellent paid advertising tools to brands, the platform remained one of the best channels for targeting niche audiences with engaging imagery.
The platform hit the headlines at the end of the year, as they began to roll out a test feature which prevents users from seeing likes on posts. This news received a mixed response, as some believed that the move was good for mental health, while others claimed that it was essentially taking away the currency of social media.
Twitter also announced that they were going to make some controversial updates to their platform, which included banning all political ads and removing accounts that had been inactive for 6 months. The first update was welcomed by most, but the latter was met with a lot of criticism and consequently revised by the platform.
With regards to marketing, organic reach has also declined on Twitter at the hands of paid advertising, but the platform still remains a very useful tool for creating conversations around your brand and communicating directly with consumers.
Once upon a time, LinkedIn was predominantly used as a recruitment tool for young business professionals. However, gone are the days where the platform is used purely for job hunting, as LinkedIn emerged as a great platform for marketing in 2019, especially for B2B businesses.
Unlike Instagram and Facebook, LinkedIn offers brands the opportunity to build awareness organically, without the need to buy sponsored posts. Although, the platform has also worked very hard on their paid social tools and brands can now target niche audiences very effectively.
TikTok
Lastly, this blog wouldn’t be a review of 2019 social media trends if TikTok didn’t get a mention. The video-based platform, which has a similar user experience to Snapchat, has taken the US and Asia by storm and is now making giant steps in the UK.
With almost 2 billion downloads over the last couple of years, TikTok is set to become a major part of many brand’s social media marketing strategies in 2020, especially those who target younger audiences. TikTok has evolved into much more than a platform just for creators, as a number of e-commerce tools are being rolled out on the platform.
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