Top 4 Social Trends For 2020

While social media has given artists a variety of great platforms from which to promote their music, the level of saturation has made it difficult for bands and artists to get their music to stand out. Here we look at how to tailor your strategy in order to take advantage of social media trends and break through the noise.

Guest post by Alexandra Kennedy of the Symphonic Blog

Social media is a constantly evolving world. It has given artists and labels endless opportunities to promote their brands, share music and engage with fans. But now, social media is more saturated than ever. In order to thrive on platforms, you need to stand out. Being aware of current and projected social media trends is a must. From there, you can fine-tune your social media strategy by taking advantage of these trends. So, how do you do it?

Here are the top 4 social media trends to watch in 2020:

Trend #1: Video Is King

The days when video content required steep budgets and entire production crews are gone. The exponential growth of Instagram Stories, IGTV, Live Streaming and the recent blowup of TikTok can all vouch for that. If you don’t have it already, you need video in your social strategy like, yesterday. Video on socials isn’t a new topic, but it’s one that is only gaining more traction.

Did you know social posts with video have 48% more views than plain text or images? (HubSpot) And social video generates 1200% more shares than text and image content combined (G2 Crowd). Those are hefty stats. Social platforms and apps have made it easier than ever for you to create customized video content. Why wouldn’t you take advantage of it?

Trend #2: Create a Community and Bring Back Connection

Remember the days when social media was a place meant solely for connecting with other people? It seems like a lifetime ago, I know. Personal connection is something social media was created for in the first place, but over the years has gotten lost in translation. Instead of talking at your community, start talking with your community.

Here are some  ways to build your community and connect with fans:

• Create a Facebook Group: This is a trend that has really gained traction for artists in 2019, and it’s only becoming more widespread. It’s a perfect place to not only have conversations with your fans but also reward fans for being part of the group. Let it be the first spot you share news of your upcoming release, merch launch or anything you know they’ll be excited about.
• Engage with fans on socials: You’d be surprised how far one quick reply can go. Depending on your current social reach, acknowledging as many of your tagged posts as you can is key to showing your followers you care.
• Have contests: This has always been proven to create high fan engagement. Whether it’s a few free tix to your upcoming show or a meet-and-greet, doing a contest is a sure-fire way to show your fans you care about them and not just ticket sales or streams.

Pro Tip: be sure to utilize all your social channels to promote a contest.

A great example of a win-win contest idea would be to have your fans complete a series of steps i.e. re-sharing and favoriting the contest photo or video, tagging a friend, or even having the entry step be simply to sign up for your email list. Hive is a great tool for contests that gives you the ability to require a list of steps to be completed in order to enter. It can even help you rack up those Spotify and SoundCloud followers too!

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Learn More:

Creative Ways to Advertise on TikTok

Join our Symphonic Facebook Group!

How to Create a Killer Facebook Video Marketing Strategy
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Trend #3: Authentic Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing might seem overdone at this point, but it isn’t going anywhere in 2020. It’s no secret that Gen Z and Millenials can see right through traditional advertising and promotion tactics on social media. They’re fully aware when an influencer is paid to promote a product or service and might decide to not buy into it because of that. Although this comes with the territory of influencer marketing, it only means the marketing needs to be done more authentically in order to convince an influencer’s audience they can trust what’s being posted.

How is this done? For starters, the product or service needs to make sense for the influencer’s community of followers. It wouldn’t make sense for a musician who has a following of mostly country music fans to be promoting the latest version of a DJ production software. Luckily, though, music fans have overlapping interests that don’t even involve music, so musicians can be great target influencers for brands of almost any kind.

Authenticity is key. Creativity and originality are great ways to do this effectively when incorporating a product or service into an influencer’s social media feed. The more engaging the content is and how seamless it flows into their current feed, the better. Sometimes brands will already have a creative idea ready to go for the influencer to approve. Other times they may give the influencer creative bandwidth to craft content all their own as long as it aligns with the end goal of the campaign.

Trend #4: Remixing Viral Trends and Memes

We saved the best for last! This tends to be the MOST fun trend to get on board with. If you’re active on social media already, you’ve become accustomed to seeing a new meme or challenge go viral in a matter of days. This is a MAJOR opportunity to be part of the conversation and get yourself noticed in a way that highlights personality–because let’s face it: funny sells.

We’re not all naturally comedians, and that’s fine. The beauty of meme culture is the ability to “remix” the original viral meme or trend so that it fits your own brand. It’s essentially a guaranteed-to-be-funny template at your disposal.

Here are some examples where Symphonic took the opportunity to remix popular memes recently:

Baby Yoda Meme

Netflix’s You Meme

2020 Viral Tweet

The key to capitalizing on viral memes and trends is to be aware of them from the get-go. Wait a week and you’ve already missed your window of opportunity.

Pro Tip: Twitter is the spot where most memes and trends start. If you’re not active there, get on it partner!