In today’s digital world, practical business knowledge is more than powerful.  As the social media landscape is changing at a fast pace, it’s critical to keep up with the latest social media marketing trends and techniques to ensure that your social media marketing strategy is still successful.

And with many new and trendy marketing strategies, there are plenty of opportunities to succeed as a business.

This article takes a closer look at the key social media marketing techniques of the year and how they will affect your business to help you proceed to the necessary changes to your strategies.

Here Are the Most Powerful Social Media Marketing Strategy for 2020:

1. Social Media-based Public Relations
2. Influencer Marketing, Micro-Influencers, and Nano-Influencers
3. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Augmented Reality (AR)
4. Live Streaming, Podcasts, and Video
5. Stories or Ephemeral Content
6. Chatbots and Facebook Messenger Marketing

1. Social Media-based Public Relations

Today, 98% of digital consumers worldwide use social media. They spend an average of 2 hours and 22 minutes every day on social networks and messaging apps. Needless to say, the online population spend much more time on social media than ever before. And so public relations professionals are pivoting their strategies from solely focusing on placing their stories in news outlets’ publications to concentrating on driving online traffic to their social media profiles as well.

To successfully pitch your stories to news outlets and journalists nowadays, you should account for the content that performs well on their social media profiles and their publication too. So, before you pitch your story, be sure it’s interesting and relevant to the news outlet’s social audience.

2. Influencer Marketing, Micro-Influencers, and Nano-Influencers

Influencer marketing has continued to leverage the creative expression and provide advertisers with authentic opportunities to tell their brand story, with over 6 out of 10 of online shoppers have interacted with an influencer at least once a day and 35% have interacted with influencers multiple times a day.

As influencer marketing grows, big/mega influencers are becoming more expensive for small and medium-sized brands. That’s when micro-influencers came in to make up for the gap between being interested in influencer marketing and having the right budget to try this strategy out.

According to a study conducted by Klear, Micro-influencers dominated the highest number of sponsored posts on Instagram, with 84% of sponsored posts were posted by micro-influencers.

Micro-Influencers Preference by Brands Over Celebrities

There is also a new trend which is nano-influencers or influencers who have up to 10k followers. Such influencers may not have a big audience to follow them, but they can still have a great influence over them.

Although you may need to spend a lot of time on the research to find the perfect one for your brand, the best thing is that nano-influencers don’t require a big budget to work with them.

3. Artificial Intelligence and Augmented Reality (AR)

Artificial intelligence enables businesses to analyze consumer behavior while allowing them to search patterns and use data from all social media platforms and blog posts in order to help businesses understand consumers found them and their products in the first place. AI also offers tips and information to users by getting into conversations.

Augmented reality is already impacting social media – and it’s taking over the most popular social media networks in the world – Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. Considering how much Augmented Reality is a part of social media today, AR will be a huge part of our everyday lives, including, of course, social media.

4. Live Streaming, Podcasts, and Video

Content consumption goes further than written text, with podcasts and videos seeing great success. From the increase of Youtube to the rise of IGTV, social media networks were always interested in highlighting video content. Also, live streaming is a new video. When you do anything live, it enables your audience to simply interact with your business instantly and gives the opportunity to show your own personality in real-time; which is very important when it comes to your business.

Users turn into broadcasters and brands become publishers to come closer to their audience. There are various opportunities to benefit from a live streaming strategy. So, It’s only a matter of time until videos and live streaming take over the whole social media world.

According to Wyzowl, 87% of businesses now use video as a marketing tool and short videos are the most preferred way to learn about new products or services.

A Pie Chart Shows the How Important Are Short Videos in Increasing the Awareness of New Products or Services

5. Stories or Ephemeral Content

Stories are booming, they’re everywhere and have turned into a global trend for people of all ages. There are over 400 million people consuming Stories on Instagram on a daily basis and Facebook is trying to integrate them into our daily routines.

Ephemeral content or stories are visual content in a vertical format that usually lasts for 24 hours and then disappears forever. They enable you to be more authentic, as the content you post is more real-time content. They’re a way to also share new content to bring and engage your followers to your actual page.

Such content is successful because they’re easy to create them, engaging, don’t require editing before uploading them, rely on the authenticity, don’t necessarily last long, and they’re fun.

6. Chatbots and Facebook Messenger Marketing

Facebook Messenger marketing is the new face of email marketing. Facebook Messenger is used by millions of Facebook users and billions of messages are sent between people and businesses each month. It’s a great tool to use when connecting with existing and future customers and smart brands are taking full advantage of Messenger.

Also, Chatbots have started becoming popular through Facebook’s Messenger. They give customers the opportunity to get answers and/or interaction quickly which feels very personal. It’s an easy way to add additional customer support to the mix. According to Drift, 37% of online users in the US are more likely to use chatbots mostly to get a quick answer in an emergency and 35% would use them to resolve a complaint or a problem.

So, if you haven’t already used this technique, 2019 might be the year to test Chatbots for your business and figure if it’s right for you and your business.

The Most Predicted Chatbots Usage Cases