by Stuart Banbery, director of marketing at Orlo
It’s that time of year again. 2020 has kicked off at breakneck speed and it’s like Christmas never even happened. Organisations that are set to succeed this year are already thinking ahead - setting long-term objectives, strategic plans, measurable outcomes and ring-fencing budgets. Strategy season is well and truly upon us.
One thing’s for sure, a solid digital engagement strategy is no longer a nice to have - it’s a must-have. The public are now receiving great levels of customer service from the private sector, with their ever-increasing expectations being put on to the public sector too. There are opportunities there for the taking - for both comms professionals and service users - and our round-up of the latest digital comms trends for 2020 will help you do just that.
We’ll “channel” our efforts appropriately
Organisations have a plethora of choices in terms of places to engage with their communities. And new channels are popping up all the time. In 2019, everyone became obsessed with TikTok. And rightly so. They have grown from 500 million monthly active users in June 2018, to over one billion. We could list many other emerging social media platforms, but the main networks aren’t going anywhere, so there’s only one question: how will comms managers spread their time in 2020?
Now, more than ever, you need to consider carefully which channels you focus your valuable time and resources on. And, most importantly, where your communities and target audiences are actually spending their time. Think about what they care about, where they spend their time online, and what they look for from you. What problems are you, as an organisation, solving in their lives? And how (and where) can you best deliver content that does just that?
Remember that the quantity of social content we see is staggering. If you’re going to make any sort of impression, you need to focus on what you can do well. Less is more, especially if you work on your own or in a small team. It’s best to do a great job on one or two channels than an average job on five. Ross Middleham, Social and Content Lead at the Met Office, gave an amazing talk on this subject at Orlo’s recent Future CX event, you can watch it here.
Keep it personal
Let’s face it, personalisation in digital engagement is nothing new. But recent research shows that people are twice as likely to view personalised content as important to them. But before you get started, your personalisation strategy needs excellent data – your attempts to get personal are only as good as the data you have on your community.
Think of disruptive brands such as Netflix. They are winning the personalisation game because they can tap into so many customer data points. Bruna Gill from Linkedin recently explained how the Netflix homepage is personal to each customer. But it doesn’t stop there. Netflix even customise the thumbnail they use to promote a film or series to you based on your viewing history and preferences. So, if you have a tendency for romantic comedies, the algorithm will naturally serve you a more romantic image. Now that’s personalisation!
You really need specific content for each and every one of your customer groups. It’s clear that automation is your friend here. Now most of us can’t go as far as Netflix (even if your customers expect you to) but think as much as possible of your specific audience groups, and how you can best serve them relevant content. Get them hooked with your useful content and then you’ve earnt the right to deliver messages around your services.
We’ll (finally) stop counting likes
I see a change coming in how we report on social media engagement. It’s well documented that Instagram is trialling the removal of public likes. Back in July of this year it was reported that they were expanding the geographic regions of the “like count ban” test. Essentially, the test hides public like counts from users. And Twitter has been testing an app called twttr that no longer displays the number of likes, retweets, and replies on reply threads. YouTube is ahead of the game, they have already simplified the way in which they display subscriber counts.
So, what does this mean for those of us required to report on social metrics? Well, a focus on quality engagement rather than sheer volume of likes is nothing new. Since the dawn of click farms and bots, many of us have looked further than the numbers. We’ve always recommended to our clients that we determine success on metrics that show quality engagement, or that truly signal success for your organisation and campaign. We get it – likes and a growing subscriber count make us feel loved. But in 2020, the smartest comms professionals will look for other genuine metrics of success - that might be email list growth, web traffic, form completions or a PDF download.
All conversations in one place
By now, customers expect that you’re able to join the dots between digital touchpoints. Whether it’s social media, live chat, or email, you need to be able to move as seamlessly across channels as the general public does. And crucially, you need to be able to tap into relevant insights about your communities wherever they are.
So, what does that mean for brands? Once again, it’s all about data. Solutions such as Orlo can manage all of your social media, live chat, WhatsApp and SMS interactions in one place, as well as integrating with your email systems. By centralising all communications you’re able to streamline processes internally and offer a superior digital experience. Anyone in Comms or Customer Service will then be to provide faster and more informed responses as they will have complete visibility of all previous interactions with someone.
The future is private
As well as keeping all conversations in one place, your communities are increasingly expecting brands to meet them exactly where they are. They want to talk to you using the channels most convenient and comfortable for them. And for many, that will involve private messaging – SMS and WhatsApp.
Facebook bought WhatsApp in 2014, so we’ve all been waiting for the company to shift focus to messaging. In 2019, Mark Zuckerberg indicated just that – a pivot towards “private, encrypted services” and specifically, messaging. Here at Orlo, we’re leading the way on “private”. We’ve added private messaging to our platform in the form of WhatsApp and SMS, so you can create a unified view of all digital customer interactions and manage them all in one place.
With over 1.5 billion users on Whatsapp (and counting) and 63% of people now preferring private messaging channels to share content and recommendations, this focus makes sense for everyone. It allows for instant one-on-one customer service, and comes at a low cost to customers and brands.
So, there you have it. A quick run-down of the hottest digital engagement topics for 2020. Wherever you are on your journey towards providing an exceptional digital experience, we hope there’s something you can take from these insights. Remember: focus your efforts and resources on what is going to move the needle, think strategically when planning your campaigns, and meet and delight the people you serve on the channels where they spend their time.
If you think you might benefit from a chat about how Orlo helps hundreds of forward thinking organisations to implement some of these trends within your own strategy, then we’re always here to help at www.orlo.tech hello@orlo.tech @HelloOrlo
Stuart Banbery is marketing director at Orlo
