To boost your career through social media in 2020, what social media trends are important for professionals? What can you apply from digital marketing to your work life? And what will most easily fit in your busy schedule?
There are three social media trends for professionals worth considering. How did they rise to the top?
As a start, sifting through dozens of social media trend reports over the last few weeks yielded significant data and insights.
Next, reflecting on the experiences my clients, my colleagues, and I have had on social media gave new perspectives on what’s changing.
Lastly, learning from the weekly industry news sharing in the class on social media I taught this fall rounded out the trends.
Here they are …
Private groups are the new black
More and more, social media is migrating away from public feeds into private groups with a curated group of members who have common interests. People are looking for more authentic and more meaningful interactions on social media.
Part of it may be a desire to skip the often negative parts of social media, in our polarized times in the world. Another big part is the role of Facebook, which has declared, “the future is private” in its strategy to integrate Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp.
For professionals, the biggest implication is the value of groups on LinkedIn. You can foster stronger relationships in groups related to your professional interests, among people with common interests. You can learn from each other and share relevant information. You can become better known among people who are the most meaningful for your career.
Joining LinkedIn private groups — meaning those that are unlisted — requires that you be invited by the group administrator. By connecting with new people frequently and sharing valuable content with your network, you may find yourself invited to join private groups.
In addition, joining groups, whether listed or unlisted, enables you to expand your LinkedIn network, which in turn makes it easier for people to find you.
You can even start your own group, if you want to create your own curated community of people who can support and learn from each other. And you can join up to 100 groups. Find new ones by using the LinkedIn search bar.
Video eats the web
The rise of video isn’t the newest trend, but it’s certainly accelerating. Cisco predicts that 81% of world’s internet traffic will be video by 2021. As someone who loves the written word, I find this a bit challenging. But it’s hard to deny the data on video traffic and engagement.
This year I experimented with social media minute videos on LinkedIn. The purpose? To share tips from my book, What Successful People Do in Social Media: A Short Guide to Boosting Your Career.
While my LinkedIn articles this year got views of up to 500+, my videos often performed up to five times better. The top performing video attracted more than 2,500 views. Of course, there’s a bigger commitment to reading an article or blog post than watching a one-minute video with captions.
There’s also a much bigger investment of time in writing an article than recording a video. So consider how you could incorporate more video into your professional updates in the coming year. Because the majority of people scroll through their social media feeds without sound, captions are a must. If you’re looking for an easy captioning option, check out Rev.com.
Instagram is your contacts list
Instagram for work, really? Bear with me for a moment. A strong presence on LinkedIn is a professional must. It seemed for a while that Twitter was the secondary place for professionals to share their ideas. However, with the tremendous growth in Instagram (1 billion+ monthly actives and counting), I believe it’s now the next-best place to share about your career, your colleagues and your company.
Instagram is also an easy way to connect with someone you just met in a professional setting. All you do is follow each other Instagram, and voila, you’re connected with a single tap. In fact, Taylor Lorenz of The Atlantic explores How Instagram Replaced the Contacts List.
If you will be hiring talent in the coming year among millennials or Gen Z, being on Instagram is a must. Potential job candidates will want to know what you’re like as a leader and decide whether they’d like to work with you. With unemployment still at historic lows, a vibrant Instagram feed of engaging content can help you attract great people.
And don’t forget about Instagram stories. With 500 million+ daily actives with stories, this is where much of the daily action can be found. Stories give you an opportunity to take a bit lighter and more playful approach to the workplace. You can save the ones you like to your highlights, and let others disappear after the designated 24 hours.
What if your Instagram is currently more focused on your personal life? If you don’t want to mix the professional and personal, you could consider making your account private for your friends and family. You can then open a second account that’s public and focused on your professional life.
What About TikTok?
TikTok is enjoying cool-kid status, for sure. TikTok is a video-sharing social networking service owned by ByteDance, a Beijing-based company. It reportedly has 800 million monthly active users worldwide, and it’s growing like wildfire.
How should you think about Tik Tok from a professional perspective? Because it’s so new, yet growing by leaps and bounds, it’s something to keep an eye on. Be sure to learn about it. Check out how people and brands are using it, and how that usage evolves. But you don’t need to add it to your professional arsenal just yet.
Just One Thing
If you do just one thing on social media in 2020, make it a commitment to sharing high-quality content with your network. What have you learned that could help others? What have you discovered that could inspire people in their work lives? What are you most excited about in your work life?
Share that.
What is the one thing you will do on social media in the coming year?
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