SME’s 2019 Industry Report – LKO’s Key Takeouts, Reflections & Predictions
“The digital marketing landscape is ever-changing” – that’s a sentence you’ve probably read a thousand times in your career as a business owner or marketer. Now make it one thousand and one.
But there’s an obvious reason you hear this all the time. With algorithms updating daily, new features rolling out by the minute and viral phenomenons popping up left right and centre, it is undeniably difficult to feel like you’re all caught up. Making your way through industry reports is one way to stay informed, however, not all of us have time to hoard through 50+ pages of data…
So, we’ve done it for you. Specifically, we’ve taken the 2019 Social Media Marketing Industry Report from Social Media Examiner and drawn out what we believe to be the most relevant takeouts. Since this report was published earlier this year, we’ll also be making some reflections and predictions heading into 2020.
#1: The Downfall of Facebook & The Rise of Instagram?
While Facebook is still the most popular platform for marketers, its popularity has decreased in 2019. This is likely in reaction to the increasing costs for advertising and decreasing results for organic reach. According to the 2018 report, 67% of marketers said that Facebook was the most important platform, and in the 2019 report, this dropped to 61%.
In comparison, Instagram has been the star of the show in 2019. With creative features and more active users every month, both customers and marketers are loving the platform more than ever. According to the report, 73% of marketers are using Instagram, up from 66% in 2018.
Instagram has also shown to be a platform that most marketers want to learn more about, and we predict this curiosity and popularity will continue into 2020. The question is, will it surpass Facebook? We’ve got high hopes for IG, but only time will tell…
#2: Bye Bye Snapchat
In “The rise and fall of social platforms” section of the report, Snapchat is off the charts, and not in a good way, like literally not on there…
Snapchat has become a redundant platform for so many marketers as it provides no new value that Facebook and Instagram don’t already offer. In 2018, 16% of marketers were planning to increase their marketing activities on Snapchat, this year we saw an almost 50% decrease, with only 9% of marketers with plans on increasing their Snapchat activity/budget.
Our prediction is that Snapchat won’t make a major break-through anytime soon, so we’d recommend using your marketing budget elsewhere.
#3: Importance of Video
We all know how important video has been in 2019. The algorithms love them, they generally get high engagement and they’re easily digestible content for your audience.
Some interesting takeouts from Social Media Examiner’s report are:
- YouTube was the number-one video channel used by 57% of marketers, followed by Facebook native videos (50%).
- Out of 12 video channels, IGTV scored 8th, indicating marketers and users still haven’t fully caught on with the IGTV buzz.
- The most popular video length was 1-3 minutes (39%) followed by 16-59 seconds (30%).
Our predictions for video going into 2020:
- YouTube & Facebook will continue to be the favoured channels.
- Vertical videos will become more popular as Instagram continues to be a favoured platform.
- More marketers will become interested in LinkedIn as a video platform, particularly B2B.
#4: The Rise of LinkedIn & YouTube for Paid Advertising
When you think about the best place for social media ads, Facebook and Instagram are the first players that come to mind – and for good reason, they are the top two preferred paid advertising platforms. However, the underdogs (LinkedIn & YouTube) are becoming increasingly popular. The report indicates that:
- 40% of marketers surveyed are planning to spend more on YouTube advertising, 11% plan to keep their budgets the same and 50% don’t plan on using it.
- 35% of marketers surveyed are planning to spend more on LinkedIn advertising, 14% plan to stay the same, 50% have no plans to use it and 1% plan to decrease their budget.
- When marketers were asked what social media ad platforms they wanted to learn more about, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn ads came in 1st to 4th place respectively.
#5: Distinctions between B2B & B2C
Facebook remains the favorite platform for both B2B and B2C. However, there’s an obvious trend towards using LinkedIn for B2B, a strong lean towards Instagram for B2C, and an equally increasing popularity of YouTube for both B2B and B2C. We predict this trend will continue into 2020.
The most important platforms for B2B follow:
- Facebook (48%)
- LinkedIn (30%
- Instagram (9%)
- Twitter (5%)
- YouTube (4%)
- Messenger bots (2%)
- Pinterest (1%)
In comparison, the most important platforms for B2C follow:
- Facebook (69%)
- Instagram (16%)
- YouTube (5%)
- LinkedIn (4%)
- Twitter (3%)
- Pinterest (2%)
- Messenger bots (1%)