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7 Hot Trends for Social Media Communities in 2020 – Ep 114

Wondering what is going to be hot for online communities next year? In this episode, we're talking about the top 7 trends for social media communities that we think will take off in 2020 and how you can take advantage of them.

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7 Hot Trends for Social Media Communities in 2020

Hot Trend #1: Private Communities

  • Closed groups (by invite only), often called “velvet rope” or “walled garden” communities are where people go and have an experience with a specific community that isn’t open to the public. It’s either paid or requires a certain level of influence to join. 
  • Facebook is still the King of online communities, with 400 million people active in Facebook groups, according to Mark Zuckerberg, but it is a good idea to look at other alternatives since you never know what will happen on Facebook. We link to an insightful article below that outlines what could happen, Beware Facebook Groups, Long Live Communities.
  • Slack communities are used more and more to connect companies and communities for quick, private conversations which can be archived and referenced again. 
  • Telegram is an app that’s really taking off. It can be used as a broadcast channel, but also a community channel.
  • WhatsApp is an ongoing favorite of people worldwide. It’s a global phenomenon that connects people and is also owned by Facebook.

Hot Trend #2: Pop-up Groups 

  • A pop-up group is a short, limited-time Facebook group aligned with a specific promotion to get people excited, engaged, and ready to invest. Once the promotion is over the group is closed.
  • These groups are a great way to warm up your audience or introduce them to a person or product that you would like to promote. They’re trendy because it doesn’t require a huge long-term commitment.
  • Starting a pop-up group is a great way to get started if you’d like to build and learn how to run a new group without a huge commitment that’s overwhelming. 

Hot Trend #3: New Features That Support Group Functions 

  • Facebook is investing in its group products, so you can expect more features like post topic tags to help admins better organize content. 
  • Facebook already offers features such as announcements, units and events. Familiarize yourself with features, even if you don’t need them right now so that it can benefit you to know how to use it. 
  • We didn’t mention it in the podcast, but also look for ways that Facebook will monetize it’s group project, such as becoming a payment processor for your groups.

Hot Trend #4: Communal Watching

  • Watch Parties on Facebook have been taking off and becoming more popular. People want to watch and consume content together and it’s so powerful in a group, kind of like using a hashtag when watching television shows or televised events in a live setting. 
  • There are so many ways to use this tool and it’s just going to get bigger and better. If you use Watch Parties properly, you can bring a group of people together around a common topic, and help them to connect.

Hot Trend #5: One-to-one Communication

  • More PMs (Private Messages), DMs (Direct Messages), Private Conversations and even bots are becoming more common to connect people with the course creator or social media support team. 
  • Messenger bots are also getting more sophisticated and developers will start using Augmented Intelligence or AI, to make bots more lifelike. 

 

Hot Trend #6: Group Chats

  • The chat sticker in Instagram, Facebook Messenger, 
  • Streaks in Snapchat and 
  • Group Chats in Tumblr allows people to connect and talk about issues, interests or passions.
  • More features like this will become available and more people will start to use them.

Hot Trend #7: Privacy Issues are Front and Center

  • More and more layers of privacy will be built in to social platform products as social networks come under more scrutiny. 
  • Facebook doesn’t give 3rd party apps data about people in groups without explicit permission.
  • WhatsApp now blocks group admins from adding new members without their consent.
  • All networks will continue to add consumer privacy and safety features.

BONUS Hot Trend: Niche Business Communities – B2B

There are many new and improved social networks forming for niche business communities:

  • Alignable connects you with people local within a certain radius and then charges monthly to connect outside of that radius. Depending on your niche, it may make sense to connect to other locals in this way. 
  • LinkedIn is improving features, adding live stream video and groups. 
  • Pink Petro, started by Katie Mehnert was started for women executives to connect on oil and gas, topics, find jobs and network. 
  • There are several paid communities available to join on a range of niches and industries and these communities are a big trend right now.

Tools and Links Mentioned:

Take Action

Share one thing you think will be hot in social media and online communities in 2020. Tag us @madalynsklar and @kamichat and use the #CTCPodcast hashtag wherever you use social media. If you haven’t already, join us in our Facebook group and use the secret word! (Secret Word: ACTION)

Join Our Community

Come join our community on Facebook where we extend the conversation from each episode and deliver bonus content.

(shhh. The codeword is ACTION)! 

How to reach Kami:

If you’d like to learn more about Kami Huyse, visit her website at www.zoeticamedia.com. You can contact her by email at kami@zoeticamedia.com or tweet to @kamichat.

How to reach Madalyn:

If you’d like to learn more about Madalyn Sklar, visit her website at www.madalynsklar.com. You can contact her by email at madalyn@madalynsklar.com or tweet to @MadalynSklar.

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