Content Creation in 2020: The New Trends, Tactics, and Innovators

[Originally published on the Dash Hudson blog.]

Is it possible to do more with less when it comes to content creation?

• As social media managers become accustomed to new ways of working, we take a look at brands doing more with less.
• Lo-fi content is on the rise, and brands are getting creative with how they capture new ideas.
• The tactics and tools you need to predict and measure content performance.

What Top-performing Content Looks Like Today

As retailers and offices cautiously begin to open their doors, we are entering a new phase of the “now normal”. Meanwhile the social media managers and content producers of the world are long-adjusted to the norms of doing more with less. Without studio photography, location shoots, and influencer events, brands have been creating content from home, as well as utilizing their archives and sharing community created content. The result? New trends, innovative tactics, and stronger online communities.

Nike London

Moving with the times, Nike London shares at-home yoga for Muslim women during Ramadan, and a seamless loop of two sisters who are world-class netballers directing followers to content on-site.

KNC BEAUTY

Real people and real issues shot on a phone with no need for post-production. KNC BEAUTY is balancing speaking out on the issues that matter, sharing lo-fi product shots, and of course, featuring their founder Kristen Noel Crawley.

adidas

adidas’ #HOMETEAMHERO challenge is not only generating huge amounts of community content, the brand is also pledging to donate $1 for every hour collectively logged in adidas training and running apps to COVID-19 support charities up to 1 million hours. The snappy montage video fuels motivation and plays into the lo-fi nature we’ve seen work so well in the past.

Mejuri

Fine jewellery brand Mejuri’s Instagram feed is a breeze of sunset aesthetics. The tiled arrangement featuring black-owned businesses proved to be an engaging way to share information and was well-received by their audience.

Jacquemus

Jacquemus has always been ahead of the curve, and the brand’s IG feed is no exception. These shots of the designer’s grandmother perfectly embody his chic clientele with a personal touch that drives home the brand’s core spirit.

Vivienne Westwood

A new approach to dipping into the archives. Vivienne Westwood tapped Francois Boucher Corset, journalist and fashion director of Another Magazine to discuss the seminal AW’90 portrait collection, adding an educational and historical element to the brand’s feed.

BÉIS

Travel and lifestyle brand BÉIS quickly pivoted from airport content and packing overlays to content that features its community’s at-home adventures and WFH set ups. And the brand’s feed is thriving as a result. Simple layouts, florals, and great lighting make for an adorable combo for product shots and lifestyle visuals.

Jordan

If you’ve watched the Last Dance, you know Nike’s Air Jordan brand has an archive like no other. Piecing together the most iconic moments from the documentary combined with a powerful voice over makes for gripping video content.

Measure with Boards

While it’s wonderful to watch trends and gain inspiration from the wider industry, it’s also wonderful to get to know the tastes of your unique audience, and deepen the connection you have with your community by sharing visuals that will resonate with them. The way we see it, that’s the way to really nail your social strategy, by carefully and consistently gaining an ever-deepening understanding of your audience.

Seamless content segmentation and tracking is key when it comes to making creative shifts in your visual strategy. With Dash Hudson’s Boards tool you can segment your content in whichever way makes sense to you. It’s totally customizable and you can measure each of your content pillars to see how they’re performing in terms of engagement rate, reach, effectiveness rate (a great way to benchmark video), as well as total likes and total comments.

This means that you can hold each of your content pillars to its own standard. You can quickly find out what’s working and what’s not in real time. Not to mention, it makes reporting a breeze with the ability to download your boards into a pretty pdf.

Step into the Future with Vision

Dash Hudson’s visual intelligence technology, Vision, tells you how an image will perform on social media before you post it. No more guessing, no more sacrificing your engagement rate to test new pieces of content. Vision looks at all your past content, and how your audience engaged with that content to give you predictions on what will perform in the future. It sees beyond what we can see with our lowly human eyes, and analyzes images at a granular level.

Uploading all (yes all, there’s no limit) of your content into the Dash Hudson Library will give you a glimpse into the future. When content is uploaded to the Library, Vision will instantly apply a predictor to each piece of content, telling you how well it’s likely to perform. Which means you can always put your best content forward and keep that engagement rate high.

Header image: @beis

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