Flow focuses on digital marketing trends for 2020 at first client function of the year

Flow welcomed clients and friends to our Johannesburg office on 28 January 2020 for our first client function of the year.

The mood was great, the presentation on “Trends for 2020” was on point and the company was hilarious and engaging!

To succeed at digital marketing, organisations need to be forward-thinking, and Flow prides itself on the work we do on behalf of our clients across multiple industries. This means being up to speed with the latest advancements and all the trends that are sure to be big over the next 12 months.

Here are some of the digital marketing trends you need to know about in 2020:

The animated GIF (or “graphics interchange format”) was first introduced to the world by Compuserve in 1987.

The GIF’s usage started dropping around 2006, and by 2011 it was rarely to be seen anywhere. Unexpectedly, though, it started making a comeback in 2012. These days, GIFs are everywhere – they stand in for everything, including random thoughts and reactions to online posts.

These days, GIFs are a medium that is celebrated just as it was criticised a decade ago. GIFs live on websites, blogs, emails and instant messaging.

Voice search has quickly become one of the biggest developments in the world of digital marketing. More and more consumers are using voice to run search-engine queries, find local businesses, make purchase decisions, and more.

The voice search command has been widely adopted by users across the globe. The result? Marketing professionals have had to find creative ways of optimising their websites to rank higher than those of their competitors for targeted keywords and queries. This trend is going to continue growing in 2020.

According to market-research consultancy Global Market Insights, global smart speaker sales will surpass $30-billion by 2024. A substantial 65% of 25- to 49-year-olds speak to their voice-enabled devices at least once a day, followed closely by 18- to 24-year-olds, and those older than 50.

TikTok is a 15-second-or-less video-creation app that has users sing, dance, act or meme to the backdrop of pre-recorded audio clips or songs. The video-sharing social networking service, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, was founded in 2012.

By December 2019, TikTok had an additional 75-million new users – a whopping 275% increase from the 20-million it had in December 2017, according to SensorTower. The application ranked at number 3 for new installs among all apps worldwide.

Brands can use TikTok in three ways: by creating their own channel and uploading videos relevant to their business strategy; by using influencers to open their content to a much broader (but well-targeted) audience; and by paying to advertise using TikTok’s new campaign options.

Building and maintaining a relevant audience is one of the hardest things to do on social media. To this end, companies have found creative ways of maintaining their social media relevance without having to go the far-fetched route of buying followers online.

These days, brands partner with social media influencers with large followings and voices in their respective industries, such as renowned writers, celebrities or business leaders. These types of social media influencers can give your company profile a significant boost by endorsing and sharing your content with their followers.

Companies need to build relationships with influencers by commenting on, sharing and liking their posts in a positive way and – in return – influencers might share your mention with their audience, and they may link to your content or follow you.

Alternatively, brands can reach out to influencers and pay them to post content on their behalf in order to reach a wider and diverse audience.