Are You Keeping Up With These Social Media Trends?
In the old days, we sat around sewing circles to chat. These days, it’s all about social media.
Social media continues to reign supreme in the world of digital marketing. Your success depends on adopting an appropriate social media marketing strategy for your business.
Thanks to social media marketing, it has never been easier to promote your brand. However, social media trends change all the time, and it’s important to keep up with them. Read on to see some of the most important social media trends in 2021.
What Is Social Media Marketing?
Let’s start with the basics first.
Social media marketing is defined as the use of social media platforms with the main purpose of building the brand, connect with the audience, drive website traffic, and increase sales.
As the integral component of a well-structured digital marketing strategy, social media marketing involves publishing content across social media profiles in order to reach target demographics and build a strong, ever-growing base of followers. These followers are current or potential customers or clients.
Besides publishing, social media marketing incorporates engaging with followers, tracking performance, analyzing results, and modifying marketing strategies to achieve better results. Like other marketing strategies, this one also helps a brand identify strengths and weaknesses.
Different Strategies For Using Social Media
It’s just a plain fact. Your social media presence contributes to branding efforts and sets your business apart from others in the same niche.
The goal is to create a positive image, and various strategies could help you achieve it. Some of the most important social media marketing strategies include:
- Have a plan and stick to it – your social media strategy shouldn’t just be about posting random things. To achieve the best results, you need to have a specific plan that you review and revise every 6 months. Then, stick to your plan with everything you do- down to a single post.
- A specific plan for each platform – a common mistake that brands repeat is that they use the same strategy for every social media platform. You need to approach each platform differently. Why? Because every social media channel has a different audience or prefers a certain type of content. You need to adapt your marketing strategy to all those preferences while staying consistent with your brand.
- Don’t ignore anyone – many brands never reply to comments, messages, and mentions. Huge mistake! The more you engage with people, the better stats you’re going to get. Plus, this also improves branding and drives traffic to your site. So, make sure to engage with followers online, even if they write something negative. Respond to negative comments in a positive and reliable manner
- Acknowledge your mistakes – the fast-paced world of social media often creates a fertile ground for mistakes. These mistakes may range from simple things like typos to much bigger ones. The logical source of action for many brands here is to simply delete the post and start over. That’s not always the best policy. A far better option is to acknowledge your mistake and apologize when necessary.
- Diversify on Facebook – So many businesses post “every so often” on Facebook and call that a social media marketing strategy. Um…no. When you simply post, Facebook now shows that to somewhere around 2% of your followers. This means you’re preaching to a small section of your own choir. Experiment with boosting a little and more importantly, try Facebook advertising. It can be very effective for many types of businesses.
- Track your metrics – strive to analyze insights and statistics across social media platforms regularly. That way, you can identify strengths and weaknesses to adapt the marketing strategy appropriately. So many business owners never look at the numbers.
Trends in 2021
Now that we covered social media marketing and different strategies to bear in mind, it’s time to talk about trends.
Social media marketing is something like fashion. What’s IN today may be OUT tomorrow. Keeping up with trends allows you to offer content your audience wants to see. Let’s take a look at the most important social media marketing trends in 2021.
Less is more
Not long ago, a successful social media marketing strategy involved frequent posting. The more you post, the better it got. But today, less is more. Everything changed with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Brands stopped posting stuff just to post something. Instead, they wanted their social media posts to be thoughtful, considerate, and in touch with the world around them. In 2021, you should still go by these same rules. Don’t post too much and when you do, make it count.
Live streams are still popular
As mentioned above, the pandemic changed a lot of things in 2020. As we needed to avoid personal contact, both big and small businesses needed to find a way to be close to their customers. Live video streams turned out to be the solution.
While the health-related situation may or may not be relatively easier in 2021 across the globe, the popularity of live streams hasn’t decreased. People have gotten used to such an easy way of interacting with brands and businesses without leaving the comfort of their homes. Live streaming should be a part of your marketing strategy too.
Ephemeral content continues taking over the world
The term ephemeral content refers to any video or image posted online and lasts 24 hours before disappearing. Facebook or Instagram stories are the perfect examples of ephemeral content.
A fast-paced lifestyle and short attention changed the way people consume content online. Stories and other similar content formats are incredibly popular, and you can expect them to remain trendy. They’re short, addictive, and engaging.
Socially conscious audience
Long gone are the days when staying mum on some subjects was the best policy. Rules have changed with the arrival of the socially conscious audience – Generation Z.
Today, social media marketing campaigns also need to focus on mental health, social justice, and inclusivity. Of course, this trend applies to you if your target demographic is socially conscious too.
Content is shorter but helpful
Shorter social media content goes hand in hand with stories. While long posts allow for strategic placement of keywords for SEO purposes, short posts are a bigger trend today on social media.
People don’t want to read posts with captions that look like large blocks of text. Instead, they want short but helpful content. Focus on quick and actionable tips, useful info, and concise language.
Value beats production quality
Video is king in social media marketing. To create a high-quality video, most people think you need a videographer or someone else who’s trained to create and produce videos. Not everyone’s got enough budget to cover these expenses.
In 2021 that doesn’t matter! Value of the content is far more important (and effective) than production quality. For that reason, you should always focus on providing value to your followers.
Also, it’s important to understand that there have been full-length movies shot with smartphones. So, most of us carry everything we need to create great real-time video content that our customers will find useful.
Authenticity is crucial
Last year had a lot of challenges ranging from health crisis to crash of the economy, political disturbances, protests, and many other unfortunate events. In the time of crisis, people hold on to their identity, their sense of self.
They also expect the same from businesses, both big and small. This year, authenticity is crucial to your social media presence. When you’re authentic, followers find it easier to connect and relate to you and the values you represent.
Social media turns to e-commerce
People love to shop online. What’s there not to like? It’s fast, convenient, and easy. But they don’t have to go to websites to find and buy something. It’s easy to make a purchase directly on a social media platform. In fact, more and more people are making purchasing decisions on social media.
For that reason, your business needs to consider selling its products or services on social media as well. Keep in mind social commerce generated over $22 billion in 2019 in the US. Use social commerce features on Instagram or Facebook, for example, to make more sales and do it directly on the social media platform.
Nostalgia marketing
Nostalgia marketing is a concept wherein a brand relies on old, familiar concepts to promote happy connotations and induce fond memories. This is how brands build trust with customers.
Positive emotions connected with the nostalgia-related post can boost current emotions. The whole purpose of nostalgia marketing is to connect strong and positive emotions to a specific brand or business.
Why does this work? In these challenging times, people are looking for something that takes them back to happier times. This serves as a distraction from the current situation.
Influencer marketing is still a hit
To reach a larger group of people, you need an excellent marketing strategy. But in some cases, the strategy alone isn’t enough. That’s where influencers step in to help brands gain popularity.
Through collaboration with influencers, you can reach more people than before. While influencer marketing is still popular, you need to be careful when choosing the right person. You need to find an influencer from the same or similar niche. Additionally, the influencer should stand for values that define your brand.
Other social media trends in 2021
· Increased use of social media platforms as a customer service.
· Virtual reality becomes more popular on social media
· Social commerce continues to expand
· Facebook ads, just like Google ads, will still continue to drive a larger group of people to your website.
Conclusion
Social media marketing is a powerful tool, but many businesses fail to use it adequately.
Whether your brand is big or small, social media marketing helps stand out and cost-effectively promote your products and services. As trends change, it’s vital to keep up and follow these trends.
You may want to have a specific plan regarding posts on different platforms. In 2021, the most important trend in social media marketing is to provide valuable and helpful content. Strive not to post too much; less is more.
If you’d like help with your social media marketing, contact the digital marketing ninjas at Make It Loud. We provide educational consulting as well as full social media marketing for your business.
