As 2020 approaches, we’re all looking at Instagram’s upcoming trends to plan our marketing strategy for the year.
Along with other social media platforms, Instagram has been on the rise these past years. Almost a quarter of a billion people came online for the first time in 2017, that growth has continued and will continue because of places like Africa, who has had been showing 20 percent growth each year, according to some researches.
As a top web design & development agency, Mobiteam assigned the task to identify Instagram trends for 2020. Based on our studies and surveys, it looks like some trends will keep the same position, others will grow, and there are some new entries that look at least interesting.
Want to know more? Stay tuned and continue reading the article:
#1 Continued Rise of Instagram Stories
Since its release, Instagram stories have only grown their engagement, as of 2018. Instagram reported 500 million daily users, most of whom are using stories.
Stories are being used to connect with friends and family, and feeds are now being used to showcase prized content.
Moreover, Stories have a huge impact nowadays in both personal and corporate advertisements. As long as you keep publishing something interesting in stories, you will get your audience’s attention. In other words, it’s all about the content.
#2 Message Pitching
Direct messaging on Instagram has been around for a while, but more and more businesses are using DM’s as a way to more closely connect to their following. Ensuring that 2020, will have a high demand for direct user engagement.
Keeping the user happy in 2020 means, ChatBots are out when it comes to customer service or product information. Taking the time to have conversations with consumers will be the expectation for this upcoming year.
Just like on other social networks or even emails, you can search and find new business partners & opportunities on Instagram. Once you’ve prepared the ground for your future business partnership on Instagram, it’s easier to start a conversation with your target group.
It is important to understand that direct messaging is connected with other trends that already exist and coming in 2020, and for best performance, Mobiteam recommends to blend and mix techniques and tools.
#3 Micro-marketing
Instagram’s new algorithm erased the old chronological feed that was once advantageous for the marketer. Friends and family have become the priority on Instagram’s feeds, making it more likely for followers to take advice from a person they know on a product rather than trusting an AD.
Last year, brands began to market on the micro-level, reaching out to influencers with smaller followings that can organically promote their products to people they know. This tactic has had a slow rise and is still up and coming, but you can expect it to continue well into 2020.
#4 Sponsored Realness
Celebrities and influencers have been posting without filters or makeup. These posts have empowered their followers to be themselves, and they have gone viral.
Stars like Gabrielle Union, have encouraged us all to showcase our natural beauty. This inspiring trend has set 2020 on a trajectory for even more #nofilter attitude. Expect to see brands capitalize on this in the coming year.
#5 Sound is On the Rise
Instagram Stories’ continued success has made audio on videos have a spike in popularity. As we have been formatting for subtitles and detailed captions, users began turning the sound on again.
It is reported that 80% of Stories with voice over or music performed better than ads without, they also reported that 60% of Instagram stories are viewed with sound on.
This can be explained by the fact that content has been evolving in the past years, and became rich and colorful. Audio-Video content allows you to feel the message in any video, while subtitles are so ‘2000. Mobiteam experts estimate that the number of those who are going to view stories with their sound on will grow up to 75-80% in 2020, and will continue to grow.
Tip: make stories with audio – you will have both audience and popularity, and your message will be delivered more precise.
#6 Even more Augmented Reality (AR)
If you’ve never heard of the term augmented reality, my guess is you’ve used it. Instagram filters joined the app after a wave of popularity with their new rival, SnapChat. Instagram adopted these features and made them available for its users at the time of the release of Instagram Stories.
Filters have become more popular as the younger generations have utilized them more and more with their posts. Keep on the lookout for brands using AR to market their products in 2020.
However, filters come in contrast with the “Natural beauty” trend, but not so much as in the last couple of years. The latest series of filters come more as decorative elements and less as a mask or make-up to hide on-body uncomfortable shapes & lines. And now when you think that if there is enough creativity, you can use filters as marketing or branding tools, to associate them with different products and services you promote, and so on.
Again, it’s all about creativity.
#7 Using Instagram as a Source of Product Information
Search results have been the way users would look for product-specific information, but that could change next year.
GlobalWebIndex reported that there was a jump to 28% of users using social media to search for product information.
As Instagram evolves more and more, and it gets more popular in each country (yes there is space for them to grow), it starts to transform in a marketplace. But this marketplace has a key advantage compared to other social networks, as Instagram is all about photos & videos, and where #hashtags are the main written feature.
And yes, if you want to search for something, you can find everything by hashtags.
#8 More Tik Tok Inspired Updates
Historically, Instagram has had no shame in taking the features of a popular app and making them available on its platform, as we saw with SnapChat.
Let’s be honest, we all love of having our favorite features in one place, with Tik Tok on the rise you can expect to see some updates inspired by the up and coming app.
#9 Continued Activism
Along with the sponsored celebrity authenticity posts, you can expect to see more activism on your feed. And as posts become more geared toward activism, there will be a rise of sponsored activism in 2020.
Nowadays, younger generations are more knowledgeable of societal and global issues, and appealing to their moral senses will be a successful strategy.
#10 New Home for Brands
Brands are more at home on the platform than they have ever been, Oberlo reported, 50% of all users follow a business account. Advertisements are embraced on Instagram, and that sentiment is expected to continue to grow.
Because of the increased use of social media as a means for product information and the visual nature of the platform, brand popularity will continue to flourish in 2020.
To summarise everything, we have to go back to the roots, when Instagram grew as a trend among other emerging social networks. And now, in 2019, we talk about the matryoshka effect in marketing, when new trends come inside older and stronger trends, thus empowering and consolidating the image of the mother trend.
And who knows, maybe in 5 years we will talk about what we call micro-trends, like something huge that will eat from the inside the social network and lead to rebranding, and facilitate new features.
