5 Social Media Predictions & Trends for 2020
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2019 saw the rapid rise of TikTok, more Instagram Story features, an updated UI of Facebook’s app, and more. Here are some predictions and trends for 2020…
The “Professionalization” of TikTok
TikTok became the darling of social media in 2019. The short-form video app has become one of the most popular social platforms among teens and Gen Z. The app gained an incredible over 500 million users in 2019 and is close to a total of 1.5bn. With more users, comes more brands, agencies, influencers, and the like. Businesses now have access to a self-serve platform where they can run ads, similar to Facebook’s Ads Manager. The music industry has already infiltrated the app after the breakout success of Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road,” and celebrities, politicians, journalists, and of course brands are all joining the party. With all these players comes looming questions for the platform: how will it balance organic vs paid media? How will it handle controversial content? How will it utilize the data of billions of teenagers? Will the app become too saturated with similar content of brands looking to replicate others’ success? In 2020, TikTok will be forced to answer these questions.
Stories Level Up, Again
Here are some crazy stats:
- 500 million Instagram users now use Instagram Stories everyday
- 500 million Facebook and Messenger (combined) users now use the platforms’ respective Stories everyday
- 500 million WhatsApp users use WhatsApp Stories everyday
- One in four Milennials and Gen-Z-ers look for Instagram Stories of the products or services they want to buy
- 86.6% of Instagrammers post on Stories
See a trend? The idea of “Stories” — ephemeral content that documents your daily life, thoughts, food, friends and family, pets, work-life, and more — is has taken over social media. Instagram, Facebook, Messenger, and WhatsApp are all Facebook-owned but YouTube has its own version of Stories, Pinterest is testing “Story Pins” with some of its business accounts, and of course, the originator of it all, Snapchat, is still going strong. Since launching in 2016, Instagram has continued to add features (e.g., “Create Mode”) to make Stories more compelling. In 2020, this trend will likely continue — adding new ways for people to share their daily lives as well as new ad formats for business to get engage with customers. All platforms will continue to innovate in the space and create new tools for sharing Stories.
Augmented Reality Innovates Past Face Filters
Speaking of innovation in Stories, this past October, Instagram opened Spark AR, their augmented reality (AR) building platform, for all to use to create and publish AR filters. Since then, augmented reality filters have continued to explode on the platform — celebrities, especially in the music and beauty space, influencers, brands, and more are creating their own filters. The latest trend are filters that tell you what Disney character you are, Harry Potter house you belong to, etc. — essentially a little box appears on top of your head and spins around until it lands on a character within that topic (Harry Potter, Disney, etc.). 2019 saw Mark Ronson and King Princess create the first interactive Instagram Story music video — offering viewers the ability to interact with different AR filters, polls and lyric stickers. In 2020, AR filters and effects will become even more comprehensive. Entire worlds will be created, which people will be able to view through their phone screen. Retailers will create interactive experiences within their shops when customers use their Instagram filter. Coffeeshops and restaurants will have hidden menus, only available through their Instagram filter. Artists will build off of Mark Ronson and King Princess’ innovation and continue to create interactive experiences for their fans. While I’m mainly focusing on Instagram as it’s the hot platform right now, AR will see usage across other platforms (i.e., Snapchat) and companies (Apple has made incredible strides in AR capabilities of iPhones and is apparently working on a headset). In 2020, augmented reality will become an everyday staple of social media usage.
Shopping Through Instagram
Speaking of augmented reality…In 2018, Instagram made it possible to “shop” on its platform by clicking on certain products in a post. This past Spring Instagram enabled the ability for one to shop and checkout without leaving the app. This past October, Instagram introduced augmented reality shopping. Brands that sell their products directly on Instagram will be able to allow customers to “try-on” their product their Instagram’s camera effects. For example, let’s say you follow Rayban on Instagram. You may one of their posts for sunglasses, see the model and price in the post through the shopping function (just by clicking on the item in the picture), and then tap on the post to see, through augmented reality, how the glasses would look on you. If you like them, you can then checkout without leaving Instagram. Although the shopping feature, and even more so the AR feature, is very limited right now, Instagram is clearly looking to become a significant player in digital retail. In 2020, Instagram will continue to offer more features for both brands and consumers that make it easier to shop.
Tidying Up Twitter
With a sure-to-be heated US election coming up this year, Twitter will be a focal point for candidates, journalists, and us common folk to get our thoughts out to the world. With Twitter being the most real-time and effective way to get a message out broadly and quickly, it will surely be under intense scrutiny. This past November, Twitter introduced “Topics” — allowing users to follow certain topics they’re interested in. In 2020, Twitter will place a larger focus on cleaning up timelines to increase engagement and interest — allowing users to sort them in various ways, follow conversations within and outside the people they follow, follow trending hashtags in a more intuitive manner, and more. I’d also expect Twitter to test increasing the capabilities of tweets — perhaps adding the ability to restrict your tweet to only chosen hashtags or regions, enabling an “edit tweet” button, and more. In 2020, Twitter will continue to cement itself as the social platform for breaking news.
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