It's a well-known fact that some things are dependable, such as forecasts for social media and digital marketing for the new year. This year, too, there are trends that will be hard to avoid. You can find an overview of the top 5, including which topics have remained, where the focus is increasingly directed, and what 2020 has in store.
1. Shoppable Posts in Social Commerce
With Instagram Checkout, Facebook set a new milestone in social commerce. Of more than 500 million daily users, approximately half are looking for products on the platform. For a year now, it has been possible in many countries to seamlessly complete the entire customer journey, from campaign and detailed product view through to purchase. Currently, in Austria, only a button with a link to the website is available, with a Europe-wide roll-out planned for 2020. For this, the product catalogue merely needs to be stored in the Business Manager and connected to the Instagram profile.
This is certainly an exciting feature with potential that retailers should not forego. Snapchat and Pinterest are also experimenting with this function, as a seamless shopping experience has now become a top priority. New platforms like TikTok have also opened their doors to social commerce, and due to strong user growth, it is certainly to be seen as a serious player in social commerce, even if only the linking function with redirection has been activated there so far. Thus, we can look forward to a growing shopping experience with many more features on social networks.
2. Voice search SEO
Voice search refers to the Google function that allows searches to be made in around 120 languages using voice input. While the function is not new and has been available since 2011, albeit initially only in English, Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant have long since taken a firm place in content searches. For a long time, search engine optimisation focused on keywords, but with voice search, context semantics and relevance come even more to the fore. And since voice search delivers only one result, relevance is essential to be found. Google itself states that by 2020, half of all queries will be made via voice search, which will increasingly elevate the importance of Featured Snippets. But how does one secure a place in the SERPs? The challenge for online marketers here is to direct the search query further to the website, as Google itself already provides the answers. Therefore, the task is to position oneself in the Featured Snippets, but then to tease the answer, awaken curiosity for more information, and thus force a click on the website. To combat Zero Click Searches, traditional (tried and tested) blunt SEO methods are being superseded; sensitivity is key.
3. Augmented Reality
Augmented Reality applications are strongly on the rise and have been successfully used in corporate communications for years. Ikea led the way, enabling everyone to position desired furniture items in their own home using a smartphone. Whether for product launches at trade fairs or as filters on Instagram or Snapchat. AR is still in its infancy, and its possibilities are far from exhausted. Especially with the opening of the Spark AR Studios, companies, as we did with the Live-Ball filter, the Song Contest filter, and the Color Blindness Awareness filter, can try out new filters as they wish. Snapchat also offers AR applications for its platform with Lensstudio since the end of last year. Recently, Snapchat also launched Cameos, which are short looped videos that can be personalised with the user's face.
According to a Gartner study, AR will fundamentally change users' shopping behaviour, and up to 100 million customers are expected to shop via Augmented Reality (AR) or virtually in-store in 2020. Just two years ago, 46% of retailers stated that they wanted to offer AR / VR solutions by 2020 to enhance the brand experience. It remains to be seen whether this goal can at least be approached. Anyone who wants to familiarise themselves further with the topic of AR can take a look at our whitepaper.
Data-driven Marketing and AI in Content Marketing Hardly any other topic is as hyped right now as the use of AI and Machine Learning. A great deal will happen in content marketing in this regard in 2020. Tools such as Evergage and Monetate for real-time personalisation will gain importance, as will proper Marketing Automation. The goal, more than ever, is to position different messages at different touchpoints of the customer journey, because it makes a difference whether one is in initial contact with products or services or already close to completing a purchase.
4. Video Marketing
Whether it's an explainer video, a screencast, or YouTube TrueView and Instagram TV, there's no getting around video marketing in 2020. Videos evoke emotion, achieve significantly higher attention than an image, and sustainably increase organic interaction and thus conversions. In 2019, videos accounted for around 80% of all internet traffic; native Facebook videos have a 10x higher reach within the network than YouTube links, and especially on Instagram, Story videos are the absolute trend, which also affects ad spending and a sustainable shift towards this format. Videos also have a positive impact on search engine rankings; Google rewards their use with significantly higher ranking results, and video marketing can be used extremely efficiently in both B2B and B2C sectors. However, for videos, too, it is important not to neglect SEO, and in addition to the correct keyword selection and title, the focus must also be on a proper description.
