What lies ahead in 2020? Predictions from 20 industry experts

It’s the end of the decade—and what a decade it’s been. As we in communications and marketing look ahead to 2020, what can we expect?

Twenty influencers shared their thoughts about this question: “What lies ahead for communicators in 2020?” Here’s what they predict.

1. “I think brands will need to become story makers as much as storytellers. We often hear about how brands must create great stories, and this is true, but due to the changing nature of social media, they need to be able to support their audience to tell the stories they want told. A couple of years ago, you could post an update to your Facebook page, and you could easily get a lot of engagement and traffic to your website. But Mark Zuckerberg decided to change all this and recently said that Facebook will focus on meaningful connections. A person can have a meaningful connection with another person, but they don’t do this with brands. The conversation is happening amongst your audience through personal profiles, messaging and groups. The brand may not be invited to these conversations, but you need to give people something to talk about. Hence, the importance of a brand creating great experiences that will generate conversations they may never be involved in is more important than ever before. Where this conversation happens on social media doesn’t matter. It’s the audience that engages with this conversation that’s the issue.”—Ian Cleary, founder, RazorSocial