As you may know there was a Social Media Week event downtown Toronto. I attended seminars that would either add value to my current Digital Marketing Manager role or the Influencer Marketing industry. Here’s a summary:

FACT: 2.5 Billion people will sign up for social by next year.

– Socialbakers ( A global AI-powered social media marketing company offering a marketing software-as-a-service platform called the Socialbakers Suite. )

Social Media Week: Look to your community

to stay informed.

When Instagram came out with Instagram Polls, Question/Answer stickers for stories, everyone first used it for fun. More businesses are now catching on that this is a great tool to learn more about your community.

It’s not as easy as just asking a direct question. If you ask the right questions that pertain to a specific marketing strategy, this could lead to successful campaigning. Here’s an example, what if you need to confirm your hypothesis of what you’ve concluded about your communities needs? McDonald’s had an idea that their customers were eating McNuggets in many ways. Whether it was with ice-cream or dipping it in more than one sauce.

They went to Facebook to simply ask their community, “How do you eat your McNuggets?”

McDonald’s took this data and created an entire campaign around all the special ways people eat their Nuggets and then strategically planned a promotion around it.

2020 is the year of Community Engagement

For all those businesses, bloggers, influencers and personalities on social media who said “I don’t have time”. They will be making time in the coming months when they start to realize the shift. No one cares about the likes. Even the images are questionable. It’s really about how you’re connecting with your people. Do your followers actually feel you provide value to their day? What does that value look like? Among all of this, especially for influencers; we need to balance our authenticity to ourselves and our audience. Doing it just to make it? Your community will see right through you. However, if that’s your “thing”, be honest with everyone.

Spend more time having CONVERSATIONS than posting content.

In a nut shell:

1. CREATE your community
2. Identify trends and pain points
3. CREATE content you can both love
4. Analyze the engagement
5. LEARN from the data

Think Forward to 2020

Trends that you’ll see come up in 2020 in the realm of Social Media are:

Added Value: There will be more value on digital content and creators will go through a behavioral change. Brands that haven’t been crediting content creators for their work will receive backlash from followers and content creators will stand their ground vs. shying away in fear of not getting more business.

Social Self Care: People are re-balancing their digital lives. Seeking out online optimism and engaging better with wholesome content. Opting out of unhealthy social habits. You’ll also see more brands promoting mindfulness and self care. Telling their followers to take a break from being online and enjoying offline activities.

Bad Influence: Yes, there is such thing as bad influence on social media. If you’re being fake, be ready for people to call you out on it. If your life isn’t so lavish as you make it seem on your pretty little squares, you’ll start to lose your communities interest. People want to relate to you. If they can’t relate to you, they’ll leave. As for businesses, stop trying to sell your products and look at selling the experience attached to owning your products. That’s where marketing has been going for the last 3 years. Experiential marketing isn’t just about events, it’s the story behind your product and what it stands for, how it fits into YOUR life.

Not to leave you hanging, but these were the most important takeaways I had from Social Media Week this year. I hope some of this knowledge helps you in your marketing efforts moving forward. Leave me a comment if something really resonated with you.

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