A lot has changed in the past 10 years in marketing and the online world as a whole. When it comes to the future of business sustainability, brands must focus on shifting their mindset from "buying" to "belonging" with their audience.
Belonging focuses on having a common bond, purpose, loyalty, advocacy or community and is the key to sustainable growth.
Private dark social conversations will continue to grow in 2020. Therefore, we will have a choice to either use relationship marketing best practices for organic and sustainable long-term growth OR understand that the only alternatives for 2020 online marketing will be pay-to-play.
For earned attention and sustainable brand growth, we must build a brand that's "Craveable" (i.e. one that keeps our audience wanting to come back for more). There are several best practices or "2020 dos and do nots to build a #Craveable brand."
Here are some of the industry's leaders best tips on how you can build a #Craveable brand and what works/doesn't work. These are tools and tactics that have helped them along the way and the things they feel will be key for brands to know in 2020 for organic growth.
Gavin Bell
Gavin Bell is a multi-award winning entrepreneur, speaker, podcast host & director of Fat Pony, a Facebook advertising agency that works with brands across the world. Gavin helps brands across the world to utilise Facebook in a way that not only builds their audience but turns that attention into revenue. His work has been featured on the likes of Virgin.com, Huffington Post, Entrepreneur on Fire, KissMetrics and Social Media Examiner.
Follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
What social media channel, technique, or tactic do you feel must be focused on in order to be #Craveable? In other words, what keeps audiences coming back for more?
TikTok will continue to rise and we'll start to see more marketers move to the platform.Building a Craveable brand in 2020 means that:
Bernie Fussenegger
Currently a director, product management, customer experience, proven digital marketing leader with over 26 years of background experience in QSR and healthcare that includes engaging the customers with digital experiences within CRM, eCRM, Social, Mobile, Web Content and Performance Marketing. Success with managing in a fast-paced environment and delivering strategic solutions for both the customer and franchise organization. Solo with B2The7, Working with small businesses on how they can target and engage their customers with digital and social solutions from real, practical experience that I have gained over the last 26 years. Host of #Digital360Chat on Twitter, which covers topics around digital, marketing and the customer. The chat takes place on Twitter every Friday at 12 p.m. ET.
Follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram.
What social media channel, technique, or tactic do you feel must be focused on in order to be #Craveable? In other words, what keeps audiences coming back for more?
There will also be more of a focus in building brand communities in which the focus is on relationship building and having more meaningful conversations between the brand and audience (building brand loyalty). When digital/social moves to more pay-to-play, which it will, the relationships that have been build is what is going to help brands stand apart because they have taken the time to engage, listen and built a loyalty tribe.
Building a Craveable brand in 2020 means that:
Building a Craveable brand in 2020 means that people want to be a part of the brand because you are authentic, transparent, engaging, genuine and have built trust with your audience that THEY want to tell others about you.
Angus Nelson
Angus works with executives of the world’s largest companies as a speaker, coach, and facilitator. He’s spoken at corporate headquarters for Walmart, Whole Foods, Coke, BMW and others; hosts an Inc.com Top 20 business podcast called, “Up In Your Business”; and has been featured on Aol.com, Huffington Post, & VentureBeat. His book is called “Love's Compass: How Do You Recover After a Lost Relationship”.
Follow him on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.
What social media channel, technique, or tactic do you feel must be focused on in order to be #Craveable? In other words, what keeps audiences coming back for more?
Live Video will continue to climb.Building a Craveable brand in 2020 means that:
Brian Fanzo
A Pager-Wearing Millennial Keynote Speaker Translator of geek-speak, change evangelist, podcast host, emcee, and keynote speaker on social media marketing, cross-generational communication, innovation, and digital empathy!
Follow him on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
What social media channel, technique, or tactic do you feel must be focused on in order to be #Craveable? In other words, what keeps audiences coming back for more?
Consistency & simplicity are the keys to not only standing out from the noise but creating that trust and loyalty that keeps you top of mind with your audience and helps manage expectations.
Building a Craveable brand in 2020 means that:
Creating content in real-time while listening to your customer so you can deliver the content at the RIGHT TIME consistently and simply."
Mike Gingerich
Mike’s passion is to "add value", seeing businesses and people grow into their highest potential. He wears many “hats” to do this including authoring books, management and personal coaching, and leading businesses: Mike Gingerich Global, Digital Hill Multimedia, and partnership in tech startups Vision Financial Marketing and TabSite.com. One way he gives back globally is through the non-profit he founded, iGive Global.
Follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and YouTube.
What social media channel, technique, or tactic do you feel must be focused on in order to be #Craveable? In other words, what keeps audiences coming back for more?
We are seeing growth in our Build-A-Product software for websites where businesses can allow the consumer to customize their product, like a kitchen, house exterior, pontoon boat, and more. By offering the public the easy ability to customize a product they want on your site easily you are being a resource and offering a desired value to your soon-to-be customer!
Building a Craveable brand in 2020 means that:
Being a resource! Add tools to your website for the consumer to use to help them make decisions.Mordecai Holtz
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Mordecai is the Director of Global Brand Management at United Hatzalah of Israel and Chief Strategist of Blue Thread Marketing, a boutique Israeli digital agency. Over the years, Mordecai has spoken at several international conferences. Mordecai is an avid blogger and an active contributor to the digital marketing space, including contributions to Fast Company and mentions in Buzzfeed, CMO.com, Forbes & Inc.
His articles have been featured on industry-leading sites including Social Media Today Business2Community, Social Media World, Post Planner, and coschedule. Mordecai recently launched Empathize It, a podcast focused on entrepreneurship, empathy and the digital economy. Mordecai is part of the global network of key opinion leaders for Huawei, China's largest and fastest growing tech company.
Follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
What social media channel, technique, or tactic do you feel must be focused on in order to be #Craveable? In other words, what keeps audiences coming back for more?
Building a Craveable brand in 2020 means that:
It's personalized, creative, poignant and consumable.%20-%20Bella%20Vasta.jpg?width=200&name=Headshot3%20(1)%20-%20Bella%20Vasta.jpg)
Bella Vasta
Bella Vasta is the dynamic personality behind the one-woman coaching company, Jump Consulting. She is an expert of Facebook Groups and leadership and sales. Since 2002, Bella has been a trailblazer in the pet sitting industry consulting with multi million dollar companies all the way to hundreds of small businesses. She is an author, podcast host, blogger, and been featured on NBC, CBS, FOX, NPR, Entrepreneur Magazine, Huffington Post, and Social Media Examiner. After the birth of her micro-preemie daughter, Bella sold her pet sitting business and now lives out her passion to inspire, motivate, and challenge business owners through her speaking, coaching, and consulting.
Follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
What social media channel, technique, or tactic do you feel must be focused on in order to be #Craveable? In other words, what keeps audiences coming back for more?
Connecting with people directly and making them feel special has to happen. They can be found in the Facebook groups and followed up with by the "Hey Girl" messages sliding into the DMs. @Bellas_Pets (Click to Tweet)
Building a Craveable brand in 2020 means that:
Your brand is the destination for the viewer to see what you are up to. They want to check up on you because you entertain them, educate them, or make them feel good. You are the first they think about when thinking of a certain topic. Like Mari Smith for Facebook or Kelly Noble Mirabella for Chatbots.Christine Parma
Christine Parma is an Intuitive Coach, Authentic Marketing Specialist and Soul-Aligned Success Mentor and absolutely obsessed with helping conscious entrepreneurs start and grow soul-fulfilling businesses that make a meaningful difference and give them the freedom and lifestyle they want. By combining whip-smart business strategy with powerful energetic and mindset transformation methods, she helps you move past what’s been limiting you to quickly grow your impact and income while doing more of what sets your soul on fire.
Follow here on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
What social media channel, technique, or tactic do you feel must be focused on in order to be #Craveable? In other words, what keeps audiences coming back for more?
More than ever, people are looking for brands they resonate with and that are a reflection of who they are. That means bringing more of yourself to your brand, including the "imperfect" parts. People are tired of brands flaunting their success (rented Ferraris and airplanes in videos, for example) and making it seem like they never have a problem or challenge along the way. We all know that's not true and that kind of messaging implies that if you are experiencing bumps along the way, that somehow there's something wrong with you. Life will never be "perfect" and neither will your business. It's not supposed to be. They ARE supposed to be journeys of learning, growth and expansion as you evolve and make your unique contribution to the world. That's the truth.
Building a Craveable brand in 2020 means that:
You must stop marketing and creating in ways that are out of alignment with who you are and how you truly want to help people. Because when you try to "force" yourself to do that because others have said you should, that energy of resistance carries over into the results you get. So if you've been doing all the marketing things "right" but you haven't been seeing great results, you need to look at this. When your marketing and offers truly reflect who you are and also communicate that you truly understand your ideal client's urgent problems and desired solutions, that's when you have a brand that is both craveable and grows a following of raving fans as the natural outcome.
Tony Christensen
Tony Christensen is a creator, speaker, and the founder of Tony Does Ads. He creates and optimizes Facebook advertising campaigns for e-commerce business owners that get customers to stop scrolling and start buying.
Follow him on Twitter and YouTube.
What social media channel, technique, or tactic do you feel must be focused on in order to be #Craveable? In other words, what keeps audiences coming back for more?
Business owners and brands must be doing video in order to be #Craveable. There's no faster way to connect with people and to build a community online than through video. When you put videos out, people can quickly get your personality and the vibe of your business and brand.Building a Craveable brand in 2020 means that:
Be there for them and genuinely help them find the solutions they need. Radiate positivity and inspiration. This will grow your community and keep them coming back for more of your content, products and services.
Brice Woodard
Email Growth Strategist For eCommerce Businesses.
Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.
What social media channel, technique, or tactic do you feel must be focused on in order to be #Craveable? In other words, what keeps audiences coming back for more?
Telling authentic stories.
Upcoming brand personas and DTC companies are taking significant market share away from long-established companies because they're sharing a story that resonates more with their audience.
Building a Craveable brand in 2020 means that:
Understanding your customer at a deep level and telling authentic stories that make them feel like you are in business for the sole purpose of helping them.
Loren Bartley
Loren Bartley is a Digital Marketing Strategist and high energy entrepreneur, with three children and three businesses and she wouldn’t want it any other way. She has an uncanny knack for seeing an opportunity and jumping on it and pretty much everything she works on turns out to be best in class. Her Digital Marketing Agency, Impactiv8, takes clients from earning $20,000 per month from Facebook Ads when doing it themselves, to over $100,000 per month when working with Impactiv8. They are able to significantly increase return on ad spend because they understand that for Facebook Ads campaigns to be successful in the long run, your whole marketing funnel needs to be optimised. In 2018, Loren launched Click Engage Convert, Australia’s premier Digital Marketing conference and at the beginning of 2019 she setup Business Addicts Coworking, a Coworking space in Melbourne’s west. Loren has so much knowledge, expertise, passion and enthusiasm when it comes to helping businesses leverage the power of digital marketing and passes that on via her top-rated podcast, Business Addicts The Podcast, online training programs and as a highly sought after speaker.
Follow her on Facebook and LinkedIn.
What social media channel, technique, or tactic do you feel must be focused on in order to be #Craveable? In other words, what keeps audiences coming back for more?
More than ever, the power of social media is going to come from those things you do both on and offline to create a community of raving fans that will happily tag you when someone asks for a recommendation in your niche, will be bigging up your business in a private message and want to purchase from you over and over again.
That's going to mean providing your audience with value and an experience worth talking about. In other words, doing the unexpected and going above and beyond in everything you do from the value you share freely online, to the exceptional surprise and delight moments you provide your customers on a daily basis.
Think about what your audience craves most and deliver that to an exceptionally high standard via your free offerings and paid products and services.
This stuff isn't new, but it's becoming increasingly more important as social media continues to become more and more noisy and consumers are becoming more and more skeptical as a result of their first hand experiences of broken brand promises. This, combined with people becoming more savvy in seeking out reviews and recommendations means that what other people are saying about you now becomes more important than ever before.
Make other people's lives better and they will make your business and in turn, you life better.
Building a Craveable brand in 2020 means that:
Your community becomes your most profitable marketing channel.Katie Hornor
Katie Hornor is a popular author, Christian business coach, mentor and international speaker. She is also the author of over 50 self-published books, including 5 Amazon best sellers, the host of the For Your Success Podcast and the founder of SuccessfulOnlineCourses.com
Follow her on Instagram and Twitter.
What social media channel, technique, or tactic do you feel must be focused on in order to be #Craveable? In other words, what keeps audiences coming back for more?
Building a Craveable brand in 2020 means that:
Building a Craveable brand in 2020 means that you communicate to your people that you see and hear them, value them, and have a unique answer to their unique problem.%20-%20Judi%20Fox.jpg?width=300&name=fox_0030c%20(1)%20-%20Judi%20Fox.jpg)
Judi Fox
Judi Fox, hit 3 million views in 2018 on LinkedIn and has been featured in INC.com as a top Live Video marketer and speaker at Social Media Week, Video Marketing World, Broadcast Your Authority, and Vidsummit. With over 18 years experience in engineering, corporate fortune 500 consulting, and networking on LinkedIn, Judi Fox developed the LinkedIn Business Accelerator Method, which she implements with her clients helping them achieve increasing business, creating an evergreen LinkedIn profile that sells while you sleep, and becoming the go to expert in your niche. Judi Fox super power is positioning clients online as an authority, building highly engaged audiences, and getting more inbound opportunities. Judi believes that what we focus on expands, enjoys solving problems, and loves taking massive intuitive action in business and life. She enjoys hiking in the mountains, DIY projects, and lives in Richmond, VA with her son and shepard collie dog that sheds a ton.
Follow here on Twitter and LinkedIn.
What social media channel, technique, or tactic do you feel must be focused on in order to be #Craveable? In other words, what keeps audiences coming back for more?
The social media tactic and technique to be more #craveable is truly making sure the audience feels seen and heard.
Finally, add some heart and humor with a few more smiling faces into your marketing so your audience begins to expect and starts to crave how you give them a more positive vibe when they come across your content online.
Building a Craveable brand in 2020 means that:
You will always have opportunities!Chad Illa-Petersen
Chad is The Story Catcher. He's spent his entire live making others smile through his unique way of telling stories. Today he works with brands to help them catch the stories they've missed and craft them into emotionally connecting pieces of craveable content.
Follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
What social media channel, technique, or tactic do you feel must be focused on in order to be #Craveable? In other words, what keeps audiences coming back for more?
Stories (not the platforms, actual stories) Stop telling us about your product and start sharing stories your clients can relate to and place themselves into. My best friend had a cool fireplace in his home that we turned into a stage. From there we made up stories and performed them for family and friends. That willingness to put myself out there to create smiles for others followed me to this day.
Today, my friends and clients (I call them friends as well) ask me to help them find similar stories in their lives and business that put smiles on faces and connect on an emotional level. Relationships are emotional.
Building a Craveable brand in 2020 means that:
You become a content dealer of craveable stories that stir up emotions in others that they want to feel again and again.%20copy%20-%20Ross%20Brand.jpg?width=300&name=Ross%20RE50%20(1)%20copy%20-%20Ross%20Brand.jpg)
Ross Brand
Ross Brand is the founder of Livestream Universe, a brand ambassador for Wirecast and one of “5 Live Video Experts to Follow,” according to Switcher Studio. Ross hosts several live shows and podcasts, including StreamYard Connect, sponsored by StreamYard, an official LinkedIn Live video production and streaming partner. He is a guest lecturer at New York University and co-founder of the New York City Video Mastermind Meetup.
Follow him on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.
What social media channel, technique, or tactic do you feel must be focused on in order to be #Craveable? In other words, what keeps audiences coming back for more?
Focus on creating episodic video content that can be distributed to a wide array of channels in various formats, providing different audiences with the types of experiences they crave on the social platforms where they spend their time.
For example, develop a regularly scheduled live show multistreamed to Facebook Live and LinkedIn Live that becomes a #craveable choice for information, education and/or entertainment in your niche, regardless of whether it’s consumed live, on replay, or in one of the many possible repurposed audio, video or text formats.
Taking even a few of the available steps will free you from being a prisoner to the whims of a single platform’s algorithm and the audience’s changing preferences for content consumption. In addition, refocus attention on building (and communicating with) your email list and making your website the hub of your online experience.
Building a Craveable brand in 2020 means that:
Access is the name of the game, especially with live video content. Are you providing your customers with access to you and your brand that goes beyond what is expected from someone visiting a typical website or storefront? Are you taking them behind the scenes, introducing them to team members and, if appropriate, customers, sharing your plans and thoughts on issues related to your business or industry, providing forums for asking questions and interacting with you, and facilitating a community for audience members to engage with and support one another?
Jessika Phillips
Jessika Phillips is on a mission to make relationships the forefront of business marketing. She’s known for this outspoken dedication to Relationship Marketing. She lives by her statement that “Relationships will always be more powerful than marketing,” and she believes in being a magnet vs a Bullhorn to truly connect with your tribe.
As a social media strategist, Jessika founded NOW Marketing Group in 2010. The company works with more than 100 clients across the United States and beyond, choosing to serve – not sell. NOW is also a Forbes recognized Agency Partner and a certified inbound partner with Hubspot.
Follow her on Instagram and Twitter.
What social media channel, technique, or tactic do you feel must be focused on in order to be #Craveable? In other words, what keeps audiences coming back for more?
I believe in 2020, brands are going to see a shift with online marketing and it will start with the dramatic rise of “Dark Social” conversations. Meaning more people are moving into private conversation channels which are not easily tracked.
Channels like messenger, groups, select group stories and niche communities will cause brands that haven't been focusing on Relationship Marketing techniques (to build/host their community conversations and create brand advocates) to either spend more on their pay-to-play model, which will only increasing get more expensive or dive into earned attention through what is working—relationship marketing.
Building a Craveable Brand in 2020 means that:
You will collaborate with others!
Overall, their story will need to be authentic and truly felt and the process must be easy to do business with them in order to win, keep, and activate their audience to want to be an advocate for them. I see brands focusing on building a brand story with a foundation rooted by the heart and personality of their culture.
In short, I feel we will be taking a lot of online business marketing back to the basics of business - being #unfiltered - simply showing up to be real, build relationships, focus on community, have a clear strategy and cut out the cheesy old school marketing tactics.
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