“Thank God it’s Kerrrissssmaaaas” sang Freddie Mercury, and ho-ho-so say all of us! Yes, we can barely see our keyboards for the tinsel and we’re sweating like there’s no tomorrow in our festive jumpers but hey, after the wringer of a year that was 2020, we’re celebrating. HARD. 

But before the figgy pudding gets cold and Emma leads us all in a rendition of All I Want for Christmas (shove OVER Mariah), let’s take a moment to look back at the past 12 months and the changes for social media in 2020.

LinkedIn, often seen as the Scrooge of the social media world because it refuses to kick up its legs and show its undies, finally embraced the concept of polls. It clearly had to go and lie down for a bit, because it took months for the platform to unveil its next new feature, LinkedIn Stories.

A bit like your granddad trying to bust a move to Eminem after a really heavy Sunday dinner, LinkedIn’s version of everyone else’s here-today-gone-tomorrow videos aims to prove business owners are Real People too. We’ll have to wait and see if it goes all a bit TikTok… 

Facebook was the Bob Cratchit of 2020 (albeit a staggeringly wealthy and well-fed version) working its little socks off. First came Facebook Shops, which allows customised stores to be created on the platform, then it generously rolled out a feature enabling biz owners to create Instagram ads WITHOUT requiring a Facebook page. Why you wouldn’t want the latter is beyond us, but there you go. 

Facebook closed out 2020 by unveiling Vanish Mode, hopping on what must be a creaking bandwagon for video content that automatically deletes itself (also known as ephemeral, which is quite hard to say after four egg nogs). Talk about nicking LinkedIn’s thunder… 

But Facebook was also hard at work (in its fingerless gloves and luxuriously heated data centres) adding new features to the ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Future, better known as Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp. 

Instagram gained a new follower feature , a keyword search AND livestreaming capability while Facebook increasingly played matchmaker by pushing it and Messenger ever closer together… 

Not one to be left out, WhatsApp went from a place to chat, swap images and parents to become madly competitive, to another way for users to buy stuff, with an additional shopping function

TikTok, arguably the Mr Fezziwig of social media (also known as Fozzy Bear in the Muppet Christmas Carol, the BEST version of Dickens’ classic), also made a splash this year. Not only did the Chinese-owned platform survive the attention of US President Donald Trump by the skin of its teeth, it also proved to be fairly nifty for businesses

While TikTok could be a candidate for Tiny Tim, we bestow that honour on Twitter, which not only began slapping warnings all over Trump’s increasingly deranged posts after he lost to Joe Biden, it also introduced the world to Fleets. They’re another way to post short-form video content, and may well come in handy for venting over Christmas as they last just 24 hours. 

So that’s it – our review of 2020 in social media. All that remains is for all of us at 24 fingers to raise a VDC and wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Gor’ bless us every one!

We’re 24 fingers, a digital marketing agency and a proud member of the Brentwood Chamber of Commerce, Excel Business Networking Group, the Trusted Business Community and the Organisation for Responsible Businesses. If you’re feeling all fingers and thumbs with your online marketing, use our hands (and hearts and minds) to get extra digits on your bottom line. Book your free strategy call here.