It is fair to say that, within a relatively short period of time, social media has completely revolutionized the way we live and interact with others.
Throughout the years, however, our craving for connection morphed into one for high-quality interactions. Unlike what was the norm in the rising stages of social media communication, we’ve now stopped settling for automatized, standard, and small-talk chatter, and the need that we perceive, as consumers, to be more and more recognized and talked to in a way that suits our particular needs and wants is stronger than ever.
But this is just one of the social media must-haves for 2020.
The industry is always moving forward, and, in order to stay (and thrive) in such a competitive and saturated environment, it is necessary to adapt to the always-changing trends’ list. But how?
Just like a skilled craftsman, in order to create a beautiful piece of art, we need the tools that would allow us to perform and stay at the top of our game for a long-enough timeline.As it pertains to social media, the most important ones, for 2020, will be:
- Paying attention to what your customers are saying.As Jeff Bezos once said,“Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.”Are you aware of what people are saying about you and your brand?Are you actually doing something in order to improve (or change altogether) such perception?Providing great service and overall-decent customer experience is a great starting point, but it’s not the only thing needed to get the job done; just as much value has to be placed on both past and present customers’ opinions about your business.It’s not surprising that most owners deliberately choose to delegate all the other administrative (and even more strategic) tasks in order to focus more on customer growth and retention.Knowing your niche’s and your customers’ point of view and opinion about your business is conducive to further business success.Hence, pick a tool that lets you know just that.If you don’t know where to start, I recommend you Talkwalker, Mention, or Awario (each of them offers a free trial). Check them out, and if you do choose one, pick a plan that fits your business’ size and goals.
- Generating high-quality interactions as often as possibleAs we’ve already mentioned, high-quality interactions will be the name of the game.Online folks are sick and tired of seeing their point of view left unanswered. If they found some time to write something on your page, making your business’ engagement rates go up, they pretend to get something back, and they’re not going to settle for anything less than a one-to-one communication response or action.The more a brand grows, the more value will be attributed to the number of micro-interactions it is willing to have. Your number of followers or to-do lists aren’t factors that give you permission to skip healthy community management.
- Choosing the right Social Media Management toolWith the multi-channel (or even omnichannel) communication approach as popular as it’s ever been, it becomes necessary to make use of a tool that gathers all of our social media channels in one, easy-to-use platform.That’s when a social media management platform comes into play.Buffer, Hootsuite, or PostPickr provide great services at reasonable prices, and all of them have a free-trial period that allows you to get used to each platform’s basic features.
- Having a concrete strategyYou can pick whatever tool you’d like, but if you don’t fill your content pipeline with consistent and contextual material, no tool will come and save you from wretched outcomes.To create meaningful content, you must necessarily start by adopting a small, two-step process that will get you on the right path:— Know your goals → Where would you like to see your business in the next 12 months? Tailor your content to the vision you have.— Know your audience → If you don’t know what makes your customers tick, stop right there. You could jot down ideas and even put out some content, but if it’s not thoughtful or contextual enough to THEM, getting any type of leverage will be much harder.
- Betting on your strengthsThere are people out there making a great living with vlogs, how-tos, and anything that entails a certain “spin” upon the content’s outcome.People love it when someone does things in a certain, always-recognizable way, no matter the industry or the format.There has to be something that no one else can do your way.Think about it: no niche is monopolized. Within any field, there are different players, doing the same thing, providing the same service, catering to the same audience, yet within completely different margins, with totally different spins.The last tip refers to just this: find your “spin”, find something that only you can do a certain way, and you’ll be sure to never find yourself behind as 2020 moves forward.
Social Media Must-Haves For 2020: Conclusions
Every single one of these tips won’t probably be enough for you to get a decent social media ROI. However, success is never a one-piece puzzle. These social media must-haves have to work in common (at least, most of them). The key is to always start with the end goal in mind, and work backwards from there.
Don’t get discouraged if things don’t work out right away, and don’t get too cocky in thinking that your following (and success) will always be there. The social media world is a jungle, and if you stop playing catch up with the latest news and updates, you’ll be unapologetically left behind.
