Social media is an essential part of people’s lives and everyday habits. Some use it so much it’s the first thing they do when opening their eyes in the morning.
The influence social media platforms have in a users’ lives means marketers and businesses rally to social platforms in the hope of interacting with customers. However, there is a content overload on social media, and the competition is immense.
It is challenging to stand out unless you maintain a distinct social media marketing strategy. Staying updated with the freshest social trends can help your feed, making it stand out from the crowd. Here are trends we think you need to know to make your social media surge in 2021.
Limited Time Content Will Continue To Grow In Popularity
Also known as ephemeral content, it means it’s only viewable for a brief duration and vanishes later – Instagram Stories are a perfect example of this.
Human attention spans are quick, which is why the way content is absorbed has radically changed. This is why ephemeral content has grown to be so successful and will proceed to grow. Producing short, engaging, and somewhat addictive content makes customers feel like they can scroll through for hours.
Marketers have taken notice of this trend and will proceed to use it to their benefit.
According to this statement by Hootsuite, 64% of marketers either already produce Instagram Stories into their approaches or at least plan to.
Traditional Social Platforms Will Continue to Perform Well
Facebook and Instagram have ruled social media as the most successful platforms. In recent years, more modern social media platforms have appeared and significantly increased to fame.
Still, newcomers have faced problems in their growth. TikTok started in 2016 and quickly increased in popularity with younger audiences. It grew to be one of the most successful apps in both Android and Apple app stores.
Facebook and Instagram have had their own problems in 2020 and are currently facing numerous court trials globally. The Australian government is trying to charge the platforms for any news they share from Australian news organizations. However, Facebook and Instagram remain to be celebrated by their users in 2020.
Hootsuite also surveyed companies about where they planned to expand their social budgets in 2021. 60% said they aim to increase their Instagram budget in 2021, and 46% plan to boost their Facebook budget. YouTube (45%) and LinkedIn are also common. Only 14% of firms intended to increase their TikTok marketing.
The same poll asked respondents which platforms they marked as being the most effective for their aims. Again the usual social networks stayed popular: Facebook 78%, Instagram 70%, LinkedIn 42%, and Twitter 33% led the pack.
Social Commerce Will Continue to Expand
Brands continue to use social media platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook to market their products. Social commerce has become a retail haven for brands, and this is only going to get bigger.
Social commerce is well on its way to becoming a mainstream retail channel on par with websites and storefronts. This trend will increase with more and more social networks introducing features like shoppable posts.
From purchasable posts to Instagram Storefronts, social networks are continuously developing to become retail platforms. Brands and marketers will leverage these and include social commerce in their sales strategies.
Video Content Will Dominate
Video content is the most appealing form of content and will soon take over social media. Whether it’s a short-form videos on TikTok or Stories and long-form content on YouTube, videos are the future of social media!
According to Cisco research, by 2022, 82% of online content will be video. This shows how important it is to start using videos to stay connected in the social media domain.
If you’re not creating videos, it is time that you incorporate them in your content strategy. Shortly, videos will control social media and anyone who doesn’t realise that will have a hard time.
You can start by using features like Stories both for your social media content and for advertisements. You can also add videos to your social media posts, even on platforms traditionally dominated by image or text content.
Using Social Media Trends for Customer Service
Social media has traditionally been a place for people to connect with their social networks and share photos and videos. However, those days are long gone, and social media is now so much more than just that.
It has become a retail platform, a product discovery platform, and now, even a customer service channel. A lot of brands have started recognizing social media trends across networks as platforms for delivering customer service.
This shift happened progressively as brands started seeing that many customers reach out to them on social media. This may be because of the lack of response on other channels or just because it was a direct way to reach the brands. Brands started to respond to such messages and direct those customers to the right channels.
Fast-forward and imagine the number of such interactions growing multifold. It’s not just some one-off cases where customers post their questions or complaints on social media and brands respond. Now, it has become a significant enough customer service channel for brands to recognize it as one.
And, it is one of the most important customer service channels, owing to the massive repercussions of not handling a customer well in front of other users. So, it becomes all the more important for brands to handle these customers well.
