Last year was a real challenge for many marketers and business owners, regardless of the niches they operate in. This especially includes social media marketers.
They have had to adjust their work to the changing trends and also had to adjust to new practices. The pandemic was the main reason for all of these changes, because it sharply increased the importance of brands’ online presences.
The pandemic also caused many changes in the Social Media Marketing (SMM) effective content flow. So today, your business will hardly succeed on social media if you follow the trends of the old times.
So let’s check what social media content is sitting pretty and how you can use it to benefit your business.
Why SMM Is Important
Social media platforms continue to grow steadily with regards to the size of the user base. This continued through 2020 and remains relevant even today.
Last year, we saw a 12.3% increase in the number of people using social media websites. This translates to 14 new registrations every single second of every day.
Can you just imagine that more than 50% of the global population uses social media? This is 4.1 billion registered users.
According to a study by We Are Social and Hootsuite, the most popular social platform in the world is Facebook, with an active audience of 2.7 billion users.
Second place goes to YouTube – the most popular video hosting platform on all of the world wide web. YouTube has grown to have 2.3 billion users across the globe!
The third, fourth, and fifth places were held by services controlled by the founder of the largest social network, Mark Zuckerberg: WhatsApp (two billion), Facebook Messenger (1.3 billion), and Instagram (1.2 billion).
Taking into account such colossal numbers, brands cannot simply ignore social media as they have grown into collectively powerful promotional platforms.
What Content Works Best On Social Media
You’re probably wondering what is driving this trend. It all comes down to some invaluable advantages that social planforms offer: direction contact with your target audience and an important opportunity to form an active community around your brand messages, products, and services.
You can even use them to promote video content and market yourself properly. Naturally, all this is possible to achieve with a competent social media promotion strategy.
Let’s review what content can make your social media strategy rock in 2021.
Trend #1 – 100% Truthful Content
The amount of fake information was overwhelming in 2020. The main topic was, of course, Covid-19.
But even without it, there was so much misleading content that even the President of the USA reposted messages of dubious origin on his profiles.
Everyone is tired of the massive volume of fake news. Therefore, you need to accurately research the validity of all information you post on your social media profiles and pages. Your reputation is important, and truthfulness factors into how people view your reputation.
Trend #2 – User-Generated Content
Global self-isolation has prevented users from creating unique new user-generated content.
In 2021, it seems that lockdowns will continue in many countries. Therefore, the winners are those brands that offer new tools and templates for working with content in a new environment.
An example is TikTok, which initially gained popularity thanks to its lip-service tools. Thus, users can create such content anywhere with just a smartphone and an app.
Even if we assume that most people will be vaccinated and the pandemic begins to wane in 2021, the trend for corona-friendly content will continue.
Therefore, brands should keep focusing on bringing people together and caring about health. Content that provides support and motivation are also great options in the near term.
Besides that, companies need to promote further social distancing, online orders, contactless services, remote work, etc.
There is a website called Canva that can be a great source of inspiration for those who lack ideas about which visually appealing and corona-friendly content to post.
Trend #4 – Gamified Content
The pandemic has increased the popularity of video games among users. Games have become an alternative to live communication between people.
This is especially true for online games, where users are forming local communities, chatting with each other, and discussing different topics. It is worth addressing this trend and focusing on creating gamified content in 2021.
Entertainment, interactivity, engaging online interaction – all or these should become the driving force in how brands communicate with their audiences.
Trend #5 – Memes
Memes have become popular communication tools.
Many brands use emoticons and GIFs when targeting their key audience.
However, Millennials and Gen Zers are more used to memes.
Therefore, it is important for you to know who your audience is and what they are interested in, and then follow their preferences.
Younger people also love video, and it can be used in a meme-like fashion as well. If you want to create a funny video about your company or brand, then Animoto online software can help you with this mission. The solution is just great for video editing and production.
Trend #6 – Vertical Video Content
The main format of 2021 will be vertical, short video content. This refers to Instagram stories and reels as well as TikTok posts.
Your main goal is to make sure that people are engaged with the content you share on social media. Without it, you will hardly win the interest of a wide audience.
Make sure that the content you create is SMM-friendly and meets the technical requirements of whatever particular platform it is created for.
You can use professional multimedia software by Movavi for producing video clips to post on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube.
The program is compatible with both Windows and Mac, so you won’t have any problems with it. There is even mobile software for those who want to work on multimedia content on the go.
Trend #7 – Content With AR/ VR Effects
This year, many brands and bloggers have been actively using AR technologies thanks to the new Instagram trends that have appeared not so long ago.
The use of masks is expected to become even more widespread in 2021. Using AR and VR, you can place images of masked employees in outrageous locations. You can even add or remove masks using advanced AI!
Trend #8 – Chatbots
Chatbots very well might be your business’s best friend.
Why? Because marketers on social networks use chatbots to further automate the stages of working with customers, to increase consumer loyalty, and to delegate some of the elementary tasks to “virtual sellers” for direct conversions.
As a result, websites and apps where people spend their time during a pandemic have the opportunities to elicit more interaction from the audience.
For example, new games, YouTube shows, and apps that make life easier in quarantine have quickly gained popularity.
Trend #9 – Real Life Content
Real-life content shows the real face of the brand. And in 2021, this trend promises to fully establish itself and be reflected in the positioning of many big brands.
Companies will show their flaws and “human” sides, which is expected to strengthen trusting loyal relationships with their target audiences.
Trend #10 – No Native Advertising
This trend is gaining traction and will lead to a shift towards tagged ads. Bloggers will finally stop being shy about advertising in 2021, and subscribers will understand that this is their job.
Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube are already working on tools that make blogging easier and denote ad integrations, which will most probably change the SMM reality very soon.
What to Wait for in 2021?
Many SMM trends and predictions are old news to social media marketers. In fact, this is a continuation of the trends that were set in this alarming 2020.
Brands need to take maximum advantage of these trends while they’re still hot. This is how to build growing returns into the future.
So make sure to follow the trends and post the types of content people want. Keep it consistent and fresh – you can even try out the Content Planner to ensure that you stick to your publication agenda without missing any deadlines.
Feature Image Credit: CC 0; Public Domain. Image sourced from pixabay.com.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions stated in this post are that of the author, and Return On Now may or may not agree with any or all of the commentary.
This guest post brought to you courtesy of Return On Now, Professional Austin SEO and PPC Services Company.
Egor Blokhin
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