Social Media Marketing Trends Marketers Should Watch in 2021
Many companies have been caught off guard by the COVID-19 Pandemic, only the agile and adaptable have the best chance of surviving in the midst of instability and uncertainty. In the present COVID context, social media plays a vital part in providing effective marketing solutions to businesses.
Now is the time to crank up your social media presence to assist and engage clients who are stranded at home. According to Datareportal, in July 2021, there were 4.48 billion social media users worldwide, accounting for about 57% of the entire global population.
Brands are not only wondering how they’ll engage massive social media audiences but also they are concerned about “What social media trends can be expected in this continuously shifting landscape?” These questions remain to be the apex for digital marketers who are trying to increase their performance through social media marketing. Furthermore, it is more critical than ever to get it correct.
The popularity of fleeting content will continue to grow
Companies have assimilated story postings into their social media marketing strategy as this trend is becoming more popular. Fleeting content is growing in demand as the span of attention is declining, so even brief encounters are essential. To make out the most of these short-spanned engagements you can use compelling content to entice readers and eye-catchy graphics to evoke emotions. Each piece of content should have one main objective to early hook or story arch the audience.
Live videos becoming the mode of higher engagement
Surprisingly, the demand for live streaming has seen an increase in users and brands for better engagement.
Nearly 82% of consumers prefer live videos on social media. Live videos are now being broadcast on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Tumblr.
Brands are even experimenting with Live Video content to engage with their consumers. Live chats are being chosen as one of the sublime ways to gain the attention of the audience or users. These days brands are increasingly introducing celebrities or influencers on live chat, allowing fans to connect with their favorite stars.
**Data from motioncue.com
Video Content Will Dominate
Outperforming all types of content, video content is found to be the most informative and engaging. May it be a short-form video that is popular nowadays or a long-form video that is available on Youtube.
Research done by Cisco shows that video content will account for 82% of all internet content by 2022. This highlights how critical it is to begin leveraging video content to remain relevant in the social media realm.
For better results, you can reach out to a social media marketing agency that has been actively producing high-quality content. Start with features like Stories, which can be used for both social media content and ads. The time is now, to push the video content in a planned marketing strategy as it is predicted to be one of the conceding factors for any brand to stand out.
The Soar in Social Media Communities
Social media communities are the groups created by the brand to serve its consumer in a uniform manner. These communities are generally exclusive forums where like-minded people can meet and discuss their common interests.
Brands can find these groups an effective way to closely interact, spread information about any launch or update, gathering feedback, resolving complaints, and gain valuable consumer insights.
However this is not a new concept, it is gaining in popularity at a faster rate than ever before.
Localized marketing will become more prominent
To drive the audience efficiently and effectively many brands emphasize location-based targeting. It helps in attracting consumers in a certain geographical area to reach its local audience. If the region is included in social media it will easily bring in the home crowd. Geotagging in the posts and stories is a current trend that helps in increasing the traffic.
** Data from influencermarketinghub.com
Social networking sites have the potential to be used as shopping channels
A few social media platforms have provided brands with an opportunity to scale their businesses by allowing them to sell their products online. Brands are turning to social commerce as a new retail outlet, and this trend is only going to grow. Social commerce is on its way to becoming a ubiquitous retail channel equivalent to websites and traditional businesses.
This tendency will continue to grow as more social networks include pre-selling features such as shoppable posts. The most common motivation for enterprises to use social media is to increase new acquisitions (73%). Following that, there has been an increase in brand recognition (64% ). With 45%, driving conversions (leads, purchases, and product inquiries) came in third.
The parameters that are important to brands will be re-evaluated
Businesses are moving forward to adopt multiple social media marketing services through various platforms, but they fail against the important criteria of defining their objective. When it comes to judging the effectiveness of the efforts, many companies rely on vanity metrics like the number of followers.
However, social media marketing is developing, and businesses will likely utilize metrics more intelligently in the future. You should concentrate on statistics that show your social media marketing is having a beneficial influence on your company’s bottom line. In a rational world, you’d incorporate a range of KPIs to cover all four stages of the social funnel: awareness, engagement, conversion, and consumer.
Conclusion
In this time of social distancing, marketers should focus not only on connecting but also on building relationships. Marketers should use social platforms as a community space where users are looking for information, entertainment as well as human connection. A larger proportion of your desired target audience will see and engage with your posts and those interactions might yield better results to stay ahead of your competitors.
