4 Examples of Social Media Marketing That Work in 2020

Social media marketing is constantly evolving. New features are added to major platforms every day allowing brands and businesses to educate their customers, drive conversions, and sell their products and services in new and innovative ways.

It’s never been easier to implement cost-effective methods of social media marketing to drive brand awareness and reach. Still, many brands and businesses starting out in 2020 are overwhelmed by the abundance of content, new trends, and technological advancements involved with social media marketing. 

This leads business owners to question: “what are some examples of social media marketing that actually work in 2020?”

Since the onset of COVID-19, social media usage has surged in countries most affected by the virus. Daily routines have changed due to shelter in place and social distancing orders, opening up new high-traffic periods on popular social media platforms like Instagram where people are browsing, posting, and shopping at times of the day where before they may have been working or traveling.

Yet with our unprecedented circumstances come unprecedented opportunities. Over 74% of brands are posting less on their social media accounts than in 2019, and with customers spending more time on social media, brand and business owners are able to capitalize on their current ad campaigns to drive new conversions.

Let’s review the 5 best examples of social media marketing for your brand or business to implement in 2020.

1. Live Videos

The data proves it: customers love live videos. In 2019, internet users watched 1.1 billion hours of live video with a bevy of platforms offering live video options from Instagram’s IGTV to Twitter’s 1,200 live streamed events to Twitch’s staggering 2.9 trillion hours of live content. In the era of social distancing, live videos bring social media marketing into a new era of direct customer engagement.

Major brands have created numerous live video offerings from BuzzFeed Tasty’s coronavirus benefit concerts to Bon Appetit’s BA Test Kitchen Variety Show. Since January, the number of people watching Facebook Live content has risen by 50%. Today, 1 in 5 videos on Facebook is a live video. 

In May 2019, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced several improvements to Instagram Live, including the ability to livestream directly to IGTV, Instagram’s dedicated video platform. Instagram Live has experienced a 70% usage jump between February and March.

While IGTV has only been downloaded 4.2 million times since May 2019, accounting for just 0.5% of instagram’s massive user base, the recent addition to IGTV previews have been shown to elevate IGTV views by 300% – 1,000%.

TikTok, with 800 million monthly active users and 2 billion downloads, has also made great strides in the realm of live video with their “TikTok Live” feature, which allows users with 1,000+ followers to livestream to their audience. 

Despite the possible threat of a ban by the Trump administration, TikTok opened up a “self-serve” ad platform in May allowing companies to buy and manage ad campaigns directly while providing $100 million in advertising credits to SMBs. Brands are now combining this opportunity with the TikTok Live feature to create cost-effective live content as a form of advertising.

2. Cause Marketing

Customers expect their favorite brands and businesses to engage with the world around them, whether that means financially supporting a cause, sharing resources, or offering useful information on a topic. 

As a testament to the power of cause marketing, corporate behemoth Unilever increased ad spend on cause marketing campaigns, with its end-of-year earnings report demonstrating that cause marketing supports short and long-term growth, and was a fundamental part of the company’s 2.9% sales growth in 2019.

Cause marketing involves a cooperative effort between a for-profit entity and a non-profit entity for the mutual benefit of both. Some types of cause marketing include donating proceeds to a cause, BOGO offers that benefit a charity, donations made with purchase, gift-matching, and co-branded events and posts.

According to the Porter Novelli Purpose Tracker, 71% of Americans believe companies have more of a responsibility to address social justice issues, and 56% believe that companies that don’t talk about social justice issues in their marketing are “out of touch.”

Major brands from Nike to Amazon to Starbucks showed solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement this year using cause marketing campaigns to highlight the issue of racial inequality in the United States and address issues of diversity within their own organizations.

In 2020, cause based marketing grew by an estimated $2.2 billion, with unique campaigns responding to COVID-19 from Ikea’s donation of 50,000 face masks to Facebook’s offering $100 million in cash grants and credits to SMBs in 20 countries.

3. Cross Channel Promotion 

If your customers are using multiple social channels and devices, you should too. In fact, you should be on every available social media platform if you can. Social media is one of the best tools for implementing a cross-channel marketing strategy in 2020.

Over 72% of customers prefer to buy from companies that incorporate an integrated marketing approach across their social media channels and 91% of retail brands use at least two social media channels. As COVID-19 has ushered employees from office to home, customers have turned to social media as a way of directly engaging with brands and businesses.

Using social media for cross-channel promotion is a cost-effective way to reach untapped customers, improve SEO, and compete with competitors. Cross-channel social media marketing allows brand and business owners to improve their customer conversions through audience personalization. 

Maintaining multiple social media channels allows brand and business owners to establish multiple touch points, improve customer experience, and gain valuable insights on customer personas and pain points to inform retargeting on paid social campaigns. 

Brands and businesses should encourage their customers to follow them on multiple platforms and keep a consistent brand image and customer experience across those platforms.

4. Interactive Content and Hashtag Challenges

A recent trend in content creation is interactive or “gamified” content, referring to content that incorporates game-like elements and competitions to drive user engagement. Gamified social media campaigns range from hashtag challenges to the use of actual game mechanics in apps, websites, and on social media through use of features like Instagram stickers.

Hashtag challenges have allowed numerous brands to start cost-effective viral campaigns using user-generated content. One example is Chipotle’s viral #GuacDance challenge on TikTok, which resulted in 250k video submissions and 430 million video starts in six days with an estimated $800k earned in sales of guacamole on the popular chain’s National Guacamole Day.

Other examples of interactive content include quizzes, polls and surveys, webinars, Q&As, calculators, and more. Interactive content is the best choice for brands and businesses to educate their target audience. Go-Gulf’s State of Interactive Content Marketing report shows that 93% of marketers agree interactive content is more effective than static content.

BONUS: ALL OF THE ABOVE!

Combine these examples to make a winning social media marketing strategy in 2020. Invest in creating live videos that offer cause-based, cross-channel marketing opportunities and build brand loyalty with gamified content your customers will love.

For more social media marketing examples, tips, and tricks, contact us for a free 30 minute social media strategy consultation.