Smart marketers know they must always be one or two steps ahead, so knowing future trends is essential. Here’s what to expect in 2021 and how to use these predictions.
We’ll be looking at the top five social media trends that you must add to your marketing strategy. Additionally, we’ll discuss how you can make the most of the trends to give your marketing efforts the best chance of succeeding.
Repurposing Content
After 2020 taught the world how to work virtually, marketers will learn how to use existing content again in the future.
Many brands will reuse content from social media posts, blogs, podcasts, webinars, and conferences that will still be relevant in 2021. Instead of creating new content, you should try and find creative ways to incorporate what you already have.
By repurposing your content, you can reinforce your brand’s message and goals.
How to implement this trend
There are many ways that you can add new life to your old content and share it with your audience.
If you have blog posts about a specific topic, you can reuse them in a comprehensive guide. Previous webinars can become great training videos to share, and your visual content, like infographics, can be posted on social media.
Evergreen content will continue to be useful and valuable, so make sure everything you create has the potential to be shared again in the future.
Leveraging memes
GIFs were used as a primary tool in social media marketing because people felt more connected with GIFs and emojis than just ordinary text.
Memes are the funny images that kids send their friends and adults shared to get a giggle. Now, they’re a growing part of a social media marketing trend, and if it aligns with your branding, don’t be afraid to incorporate them.
It’s inexpensive and easily made using a premade template that allows you to add in your own text.
How to implement this trend
Incorporating memes in your social media marketing is fairly straightforward. Double-check to ensure that your meme is relevant and that it makes sense.
Your memes should match your brand voice and give your audience a sense of consistency in your content. Use the information that you have about your audience and create memes that they can relate to.
The boom of user-generated content
User-generated content is and likely always will be an essential part of marketing. People tend to trust the praise of others like them over the promises of brands (think: social proof).
According to a 2019 survey, Instagram users preferred user-generated images in posts from Starbucks and Aerie, the clothing brand. The survey determined that 61% of Starbucks users loved UGC from the brand and 60% of Aerie’s followers enjoyed UGC over branded posts.
How to implement this trend
You can look at your followers’ social media accounts and find posts dedicated to your brand. Hashtags are also useful because you can search for any posts using your unique hashtag or those related to your company.
As long as you give proper credit and obtain permission, you can share content created by your followers to show your audience that you are respected and trusted. You can even have contests where you ask your audience to share photos of your products and how they use them.
Alternatively, if you offer a service, you can ask satisfied customers to take videos or create other posts that show how happy they are with your performance.
Studies have shown that Instagram is a more effective platform to drive purchases through user-generated content if used correctly.
There are many brilliant tools you can use to grow your Instagram account and get a hold of even more content.
Use assessment software with interesting quizzes to get to know your audience and their needs even better. Then, use that information to provide them with more relatable memes.
Social gaming
This may seem like a strange thing to add to a list of social media trends, but after many Covid-19 lockdowns, the popularity of video games increased amazingly. More people started to enjoy the thrill of playing games while they tried to forget about the world’s problems for a little while.
This popularity will not disappear in 2021, and it would be a mistake not to use gaming in your marketing strategy. In the US, more than 200 million people play video games every day – adjust your thinking to include them in your marketing.
How to implement this trend
To use gaming to your marketing advantage, you can consider going straight to the source. In this case, it means you could advertise in the games themselves. This can be done by placing ads on load screens or asking the game to put your products in-game. That way, players can interact with it and get to know your brand.
Interactive games themselves are an up-and-coming social media platform, where users can engage and connect with each other through forums and more. Combining gaming with social media brings about the concept of ‘social gaming’, something that brands can begin to embrace as part of their marketing strategy in 2021.
Traditional marketing returns
Old-school marketing will make a return, and brands will have to find less disruptive ways of engaging with their audiences. While the audiences remain modern, social media marketers will have to incorporate old and proven methods of marketing in their digital campaigns.
How to implement this trend
Take inspiration from how marketers used to reach audiences before there were DMs and email marketing strategies.
Use old and proven methods, tweak them to suit modern consumers, and you will have a winning combination.
Traditional marketing was more personal with face-to-face interactions. You don’t have to physically engage with your audience, but make them feel that you are through awesome sales pitches and personalized engagements.
A study by TalkWalker has predicted a comeback of voice-based engagements like phone calls. Furthermore, it shows that 55% of Americans listen to podcasts.
You can use this information to your advantage by developing more ‘voice-based’ strategies, for example, voice-notes and voice Tweets. You can even consider creating your own podcast.
Hence, incorporating these insights into your digital strategy will prove invaluable in keeping your marketing efforts a well-oiled machine.
Conclusion
The social media trends discussed here are expected to dominate marketing in 2021, and now you’re ‘in the know.’ You can plan accordingly and develop an exciting and engaging marketing strategy that will reap impressive rewards. And remember: your audience wants to be entertained.
Mark Quadros is a SaaS content marketer that helps brands create and distribute rad content. On a similar note, Mark loves content and contributes to several authoritative blogs like HubSpot, CoSchedule, Foundr, etc. Connect with him via LinkedIN or twitter.