2021 Social Media Trends To Capitalize On

Social media has revolutionized the way companies do business, advertise, and manage the expectations of their clients. This is not expected to change in 2021 and in fact, social media will play a greater role in client engagement. New apps such as TikTok have demonstrated that there is still space for new entrants in the social media sphere. This means that companies who may have gotten used to dealing with the ‘traditional’ platforms such as Facebook and YouTube have to constantly keep an eye out for new entrants. This is to ensure that they are getting the maximum possible value from their advertising spend.

One thing that is for certain is that social media platforms cannot be ignored. Collectively, social media platforms have about 100 million new users every day. It is estimated that there are about 3.2 billion active social media users across the planet. Understanding social media trends in 2021 is highly beneficial as it helps you to anticipate and plan properly. Here are some of the social media trends that you can expect in 2021.

Social Media Video

The explosion of TikTok, Instagram, and other video platforms makes it clear that visual content continues to rise in popularity. Engaging, easy to consume and increasingly easy to shoot, social media videos have proven to be a hit with users across the globe. Unlike their traditional counterparts, social media videos are punchy and short.

Social Commerce

In the past, e-commerce was conducted on formal websites with social media playing a supporting role. Increasingly, the action is moving into the social media platforms themselves with greater engagement between customers and businesses on the social media platforms themselves. A good example is Facebook that has enhanced their adverts with a call button. This allows clients to call advertisers directly from the social media platform thus eliminating the need to go to the client’s website. In 2021, expect this trend to continue with the emphasis being on eliminating the need for potential clients to have to leave social media platforms to shop. Orders can be made and paid for directly from the advert.

Augmented Reality

Augmented reality is the technology that allows us to experience the world in a completely different way. Unlike virtual reality where a computer-generated world is built from scratch, augmented reality takes elements of the real world and augments them with cyber elements in order to enhance our experience. Many social media platforms are already creating augmented reality filters and this trend is expected to continue in 2021. For example, Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat are among the market leaders when it comes to social media use of augmented reality.

Personalized Marketing

In the past, companies have sold products without bothering to personalize them. Personalization, when present, attracted a big premium that made it impossible for companies to do this on the mass market. Social media has changed all that. Given the wealth of information available on social media, companies can not only personalize products and services but can target better. Companies such as Cadburys and Lexus have all run social media campaigns using data that is drawn from potential client’s accounts thus personalizing the experience.

Altruistic Content

Social media was one of the primary drivers of the Arab Spring Revolution and has since continued to be at the fore of social change. Causes such as Black Lives Matter, climate change and more have found a natural home on social media. In alignment with these trends, many brands are also using social media in order to make it clear about their stand on such issues. This is unlikely to change in 2021 and the future will see social media play an even greater role in driving social change. The opportunity for corporates here is to not only realign their values with these trends but to make use of social media in order to effect change.

Self-Aware Marketing

Given that social media content is increasingly driven by content that is fun and punchy, self-aware marketing is the trend where companies poke fun at themselves, the concept of advertising, or even at other brands. For example, a well-known fast-food chain restaurant ran a campaign offering clients ‘premium burgers’ served on a literal silver platter. The idea was to make fun of the perception that they serve cheap food for the masses. Such adverts connect with people and work particularly well on social media. This is because social media allows people to share information and funny ads are often some of the most shared content.

As you may have realized, social media is set to continue growing in 2021. New users are expected to come on board and new platforms will reshape the social media landscape. To take advantage of these trends, it is important for organizations to keep an open mind as to how they can take advantage of some of these trends.