By Anastasia Psarra, PR Account Director at Cerub PR 

Marketing through social media is one of the most flexible and cost-effective strategies that companies of all sizes across different sectors can use to reach their target audience, increase brand awareness and ultimately boost sales.

Posting consistent, high-quality, and engaging content which is relevant to your audience are an important part of developing successful social media strategies, however you need to keep on top of the latest social media trends and improve your output all the time to make sure you make the most of your social media investment and don’t fall behind your competitors. Here is what you need to keep an eye out for in 2020 to make a success of your social media platforms.

The rise of ‘nano-influencers’ continues!

It’s time to focus on authenticity and engagement and forget about reach when it comes to enlisting influencers. In the early days of influencer marketing, brands and marketeers used to look for influencers who had large numbers of followers across different platforms to widen the reach of their content. However, the influencer landscape is changing as influencer marketing now relies on trust and authenticity between the influencers and their audience which is why ‘nano-influencers’ are becoming a powerful marketing tool. Typically, ‘nano-influencers’ have between 1,000 and 5,000 followers and they produce niche content for their hyper-engaged audience. This tight-knit relationship they have with their audience means that their followers are more likely to act upon their recommendations. ‘Nano influencers’ are not necessarily just for consumer brands as they can be found across most sectors focusing on a variety of topics.  Different tools and databased can be used to identify them but ultimately it comes downs to marketeers researching and identifying those influencers who align with their organisation’s values and whose content will have an impact. Small and mighty is the way forward!

Ephemeral content is here to stay

Ephemeral content is available only for a short period of time and disappears afterwards with Instagram and Snapchat Stories being the perfect examples of this type of content. Even thought it may seem like a waste of investment to create short-lived content that will disappear after a few seconds, this type of content will more than likely remain popular in 2020 with more companies focusing on it. With our attention spans getting shorter, the way we consume content

has changed and the fear that we may miss out on something important means that we can easily get sucked into watching Instagram stories looking for interesting content.

Say it with a video

According to a Cisco study, by 2022, 82% of all online content will be video content. Right now, YouTube, which is classed as a social media platform, is bigger than Facebook and ranks #2 on

the web behind Google. This clearly shows why companies should be focusing on utilising videos on their platforms. Video content will not just be a nice to have, it will be an integral part of every successful social media strategy.

Augmented Reality is Making Headway

Augmented Reality (AR) is making its way into social media with Snapchat leading the way among social media platforms. Last year, Snapchat announced updates which support AR functions including enhanced movement tracking, object scanning and landmark manipulation to name just a few. Branded filters, Immersive adverts, ‘Try before your buy’ and Immersive visualisation are all blurring the lines between an imaginary world and reality, helping e-commerce companies in particular to interact with consumers on a deeper level. In 2020, we can expect AR to keep advancing on social media enthralling audiences.

Metrics that matter

Your social media tactics should always be shaped by analytics and data. Making the right metrics the cornerstone of your approach means that you will have gain insights that will help you design the most efficient strategies. Taking industry trends and changes as reference points is important but you also need to establish your individual metrics and ways of determining what success looks like for you. Over the past couple of years, we have seen marketeers shift away from vanity metrics and this will hopefully take off in 2020. A combination of inferential data and transparent social media measurements measurement will allow you to draw clearer conclusions about the user journey. The companies that know which data is relevant to them and have found their own ways of measuring outcomes that relate to their bigger business goals will rise to the top of the social media world. After all, people are looking for connections on a personal level on social media even when it comes to interactions with businesses and brands.