Indulge on social media is not a trend anymore but a successful adoption spotted in many people's lives. It creates a new community online, and one after one they simulate different functions that you used to experience in real-life: interaction, sales, customer services, and so on.
But what’s next when the atmospheric settings of social media become more mature? How’s your business could retain and gain more grounds in such a dynamic internet? How to distinguish yourself from numerous variable news bubble and content farm? Prepare to be inspired from the following 5 trends that you can leverage on in 2020!
隨著社交媒體越趨成熟，它亦成為使業績飆升的關鍵戰場。看完以下介紹的五大社交媒體的發展趨勢後，你或許能更加懂得借住這股網路熱潮，令你的業務變得更強大。
1. Dominance of Video Content | 影片內容主導網上行為
The biggest names in the online marketplace, Amazon and eBay both revealed that video advertising causes 35% increase in sales-conversion rate. It is because people may get snappy when they need to read tons of words especially for some lengthy passages that drive people patience. It makes words content hard to live alone as it needs to be utmost-precise and meaningful to gain readers’ eyesight.
Images may still supplement the impression of article, yet words that are brought alive in an animation/video do a much better job in transmitting your concept in a catchy way. It’s logical to say so as video comprises visual and audio elements in one, including images, text and sounds. Audience could better receive and interpret your message through stimulation in sight and hearing. It makes video stands out of others ,for its capability to mention the same content as a hundreds-word passage do in 1 minute.
According to the findings of international internet service pioneering company - Cisco Systems, by the end of 2022, 82% of all online content will be in videos. This clearly shows how important it is to start utilising video content in a bid to stay relevant in the social media domain. If you're still unsure about video production, such as the process and your suitable style, feel free to consult Allua team anytime!
兩大網絡購物營運商亞馬遜（Amazon）和電子灣（eBay）均表示影片及動畫內容能為展示的商品增加35%的銷售率。明顯的，長篇大論的表述更容易消耗觀眾耐性和令人感到煩厭，文字內容難以獨自生存下去。
以插圖配合文字描述或許能令內容表達更豐富，但始終不如影片及動畫般出位吸睛。這凸顯出視像內容的優勢－文字、影像、動畫、聲音等視覺聽覺效果合為一體，讓你可以用更短時間、用更多個角度灌輸資訊給你的潛在消費者。原本需要數百字的篇幅，換成影片一分鐘就已經完成表達，可想而知，視像內容會為你帶來前所未有的營銷優勢。
根據國際網絡業務領袖思科系統 (Cisco Systems) 的調查，2022年底前82%的網絡流量將由影片及動畫內容主導。此數據清映反映出影片及動畫內容對於維持社交媒體競爭性的重要。要是你對影片製作存在疑問，如不清楚製作過程，如何挑選適合自己的影片風格等，均歡迎來找Allua的專業團隊查詢。
2. Rising of Ephemeral Content | 限時內容的掘起
Ephemeral content, literally means activities that last shortly and will disappear from the internet soon. Since Snapchat got an unprecedented success on this, Instagram and Facebook had followed so and launched similar functions respectively. It revealed that ephemeral content is welcomed by general users, and 2020 should be another fruitful year for this.
Ephemeral content is suitable for delivering core and short messages. In comparison to normal newsfeeds, it consists of more creative functions, such as camera filter, bitmoji, polling, sales, so and so. Increasing number of marketers have adopted this method in expanding their customer base, like announcing discounts, special features, market research, or some photos that are taken randomly to give novelty to followers. Therefore, its novelty and ephemeral features do let people feel they will “miss something if they don’t see the stories on time”, and keep on track with your page as to update those ephemeral news.
限時內容 (Ephemeral Content)，顧名思義就是指只會短暫出現的內容，並會於限定時間內刪除。自Snapchat「閱後即焚」取得巨大成功後，Instagram、Facebook等平台爭先推出類似功能，可見社交媒體用戶已對這股別樹一格的風潮作出肯定，而2020年也必定會是限時動態大放異彩的時代。
限時內容適合傳遞核心而簡潔的訊息，加上限時動態比即時貼文的影片帶來更多創意空間，例如表情濾鏡、導購、子母畫面、投票、多樣影片後期微調功能等，越來越多市場策劃人員已採用此方法拓展用戶群 - 優惠發佈、焦點功能、市場調查、甚至隨心在路邊拍下的照片，都能為你的支持者帶來源源不絕的新鮮感。也由於內容新鮮、限時開放、一去不復返的特性，更會讓人覺得「沒有點開就錯過了什麼」而更頻繁地把你的限時內容全部看完。
3. Expansion of Social Commerce | 社交媒體營銷的擴充
Brands using social platforms like Facebook, Instagram is not news nowadays. As long as people are still engaged to the social platforms, brands can introduce its products through these channels.
Aids with the convenient online payment, a more suitable environment is established for brands’ sales and advertising. For example, Facebook has launched the business features in the recent years which put sales and marketing in one, chat-bot programmer is also introduced to help brands in delivering customer services more efficiently. These new features reveal the potential and importance of social platforms in sales and marketing.
各品牌利用社交平台如Facebook、Instagram為企業健立形象已非新鮮事。只要人們還繼續緊貼這些平台，企業便有不少渠道介紹其商品予用戶。
此外，因受惠於便利的網上繳費功能，品牌便有更好的條件，配合適當的推廣來吸引客戶購物。例如Facebook在近年便引進商店功能，集推銷和付款於一身，更有聊天機器人(Chat-bot)的編寫程式以協助商店進行更有效率的客戶服務。這些功能的引進證明了社交平台對銷售及推廣的重要性和潛力。
4. Stricter Quality Standard | 更嚴謹的質量審查
According to a study done by the Royal Society of Public Health(UK) in 2017, Instagram can provoke depression and anxiety by creating comparison between users’ posted contents and the number of likes. Because of it, Instagram has launched a beta test on removing the like features on the posts.
It seems that Instagram like to make more profit from this, but they are not. Money that marketers invest on the key opinion leaders (KOL) doesn't split with Instagram. Influencer marketing is also getting more common and start replacing online advertising means and low quality and false quality content produced by content farms.
Stop revealing “likes” stop marketers blindly chasing “likes” as the key indicator while reviewing their marketing performance. It is a win-win situation as brands are now encouraged to invest in Instagram ads and be focused on its content’s quality, and in return, users experience is greatly optimized.
英國皇家公共衛生協會在2017年的研究指出，以相片為主的Instagram，會令使用者容易產生比較，或以讚好數目作為自我認同的標準，因而帶來高程度的焦慮、抑鬱、欺凌等問題。因此，Instagram近來開始對移除此功能進行初步測試。
或有人會認為Instagram能從中獲利，但事實並非如此。商戶在一些影響者 (KOL) 的投資並不會與該社交平台分帳。而影響者的行銷在近年亦漸見普及，高質量的內容逐漸取代了傳統廣告和千篇一律的內容農場。
刪除此功能的舉動真正影響的是營銷商再不能盲目靠讚好的數目估算其廣告的成效，促使令品牌投放更多資源於廣告內容和提升用家體驗，形成多贏局面。
5. Quality vs quantity | 質量與數量
Social media platforms have been improving their algorithms in individualising experience for each user. The calculation is not simply about numbers of likes, but also number of shares, comments, content quality, to name but a few. The era of content farms and purchasing likes online are now come to an end.
If someone continues to deliver spamming posts and messages, social media platforms are now more well-trained in detecting these contents, hence limiting one’s content exposure to users. It forces business and pages to improve the quality of the posts over time, such as initiating more forms of campaign, putting more effort into creative and interactive presentation and technical productions, and being more reader-friendly while synthesizing the messages.
社交平台等均會持續改進其計算程式以實現用戶體驗個人化。計算中不再只著重於讚好的數目，而是包括更多指標如分享的數目，留言，內容質素等。內容農場和網上購買讚好數量的時代已不復見。
如有人繼續在社交平台濫發訊息，系統亦能偵察並調低其出現的機率。這迫使專頁改善內容的質素，如增加內容的多變性，投放更多資源於制作技術和創意發展等，並在內容設計上更趨精準和易於接收。
Conclusion | 總結
Social media soon will not be a game of quantity only, but emphasizes on quality instead. All the trends shown above are designated to drive brands towards content and product optimization as they are the key factors that attract customers in point of sales. So, before embarking your marketing journey in 2020, take a step back and review your strategies of 2019 first! If you are in doubt, contact Allua in time before being knocked out from the race!
社交媒體將來而言不會再是訊息數量的對決，而更加取決於質量的比較。以上趨勢均與品牌營銷息息相關，內容及產品質素將會是大家需要努力的大方向。所以在訂下2020年營銷藍圖前，記得要回顧一下自己的2019年的營銷成果，或找Allua的專家討論吧！
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