'Tis the season for end-of-the-year reviews and retrospectives of What It All Meant in the wide world of social media marketing. The year 2019 saw social media platforms overall offer increased opportunities for businesses - especially small-to-medium-size businesses - to connect with their target markets through paid ads and organic reach. Taking a look back can help you see if you've made the necessary adjustments to keep up, or if you missed some significant trends and are now wondering why your competitors are pulling ahead.
Facebook loses young consumers to Instagram
Compare this to Instagram, which Bayer writes is the only social network where use in 2019 was greater than 2018, and also for the first time, the most popular social network among the same demographic that's rejecting Facebook. One can only wonder if Facebook anticipated this shift back in 2012, when it purchased Instagram for $1 billion.
That being said, a Facebook business page is still a solid foundation for social media marketing for companies with the right target market demographic - which is . However, the third trend we list - the death of organic reach -seriously impacts your ability to connect with potential customers on this platform, so keep reading!
Instagram covers its bases
Instagram, Instagram Stories and IGTV gave businesses great opportunities for reaching their target market in 2019. Companies marketing to the right demographic with "Instagramable" products or services were well-positioned to increase traffic, leads and conversions through a combination of organic reach and paid ads.
The death of organic reach
Lyfe Marketing reports that organic reach across social media channels is continuing to decline. "As social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram try to make the user experience more effective, they tend to cut down on the number of branded messages in a user's feed ... In fact, there's a good chance that even your fans and followers are not able to see the organic content that you create even though they are following you on these channels."
Facebook, specifically, has experienced a decline in organic reach from 26% in 2011 to a mere 0.5% in 2017.
The rise of ephemeral content
Snapchat content can be shared for up to 24 hours before it disappears forever. Businesses targeting its demographic can create organic content or buy 10-second ads that appear between users' story feeds. Users can swipe up on the ad to go to the full content - which would typically be on your website. The basics also apply to Instagram Stories and Facebook Stories, with each platform's variations, of course.
"Facebook is encouraging brands to post to Stories in order to consistently engage with their audience, making it very easy - you can automatically post to Facebook Stories from Instagram - and offering Stories a premium placement in the app."
So hold this thought for next week's post on our humble blog, which will forecast social media marketing trends for 2020! Facebook Stories could become an important component of your strategy!
Influencers still going strong
From celebrities to micro-influencers, businesses catering to younger millennials and Generation Z continued to realize the benefits of reaching out to influencers in order to further engage and connect with their audience.
Influencer marketing is the successful combination of celebrity endorsements and content-driven campaigns. The definition of "celebrity" doesn't only apply to the show-biz variety. It can be anyone who is considered influential in a particular endeavor and has a strong social media following. Influencers engage with their followers on social media, building connections based on trust and accessibility - which makes them attractive to the brands and businesses targeting that specific buyer demographic.
For example, Sprint's #LiveUnlimted campaign has used with great success. As reported by George Beall for , Sprint formed Candybar - a team of Generation Z and millennial experts who run Sprint's youth marketing. One major difference from previous marketing tactics has been Sprint's use of influencers instead of actor portrayals, leveraging a unique group of influencers to develop a well-rounded team to drive brand awareness and brand loyalty. For their most recent video, they integrated Lele Pons, Prince Royce, Bradley Martyn, Rachel Cook and Gerard Adams.
TikTok takes over - and it doesn't stop
What we called right for 2019
Our good calls include the following:
Messaging apps continue to grow
Mobile messaging apps allow you to send text messages, share photos, videos and make voice and video calls while avoiding SMS and call charges. The emergence of messaging apps earned this trend the top position in our blog post, and it grew as strongly as predicted. Facebook's , Facebook Messenger , and are among the most popular.
Video marketing
Actually, this topic has been interspersed throughout this post in covering Instagram Stories, Facebook Stories, Snapchat and TikTok. YouTube is still a major platform, but better suited for longer videos and building an audience through regular postings on your channel. Video comprises a full 85% of online content, giving brands in every industry a good reason to incorporate video into their marketing strategy.
It was a very good year
We hope you enjoyed this retrospective of the year in social media marketing. Unlike too many other lists taking a look back at 2019, the news has all been positive. Based upon the innovations the industry has experienced, there are good reasons to be upbeat about 2020 - and next week, we'll explore them!
today to get started in making 2020 an epic year for your business!
