Social media now hosts an astounding 4.48 billion users worldwide. With this many profiles posting and scrolling, it can be incredibly difficult to stand out on these important platforms.
At the end of the day, your social presence relies on capturing attention, engaging audiences, and outperforming competitors. Luckily, the easiest way to tick all three of these boxes is quite simple. Stay up to date with social media marketing trends.
From the kinds of content users like to see to the format they like it delivered in, working your social media marketing strategy around the latest trends is a sure-fire way to keep your users interested and engaged. So, where do you start?
Follow along to discover the 11 most popular trends sweeping socials right now and the social media marketing ideas you can use to leverage their impact.
1. Livestreamnig
If you’re still a bit nervous to go live online, it’s time to get past your fear.
Livestreaming is perhaps one of the most popular ways to reach an engaged audience and build personal relationships. This is because live video doesn’t allow for that pretty and polished look the rest of social media is so good at. Instead, your audience gets a real and unfiltered look at who you really are.
Beyond the relationship-building perks, livestreaming also sends an instant update to your interested followers, prompting greater brand awareness. After they’ve clicked onto your live video, the social algorithms will receive the interaction message and push your content through to their feed more consistently. Win-win!
2. User-Generated Content
Branded content is great, but its impact may not be quite as sturdy as you think. Believe it or not, consumers actually love seeing content generated by other users on your pages.
This is because of a little thing we call social proof.
Human psychology tells us that people like to be where other people are. This is why busy restaurants always seem so appealing. When it comes to your social media marketing strategy, you can leverage this social proof by sharing what other consumers have to say about your brand (rather than just your own words).
These reviews and genuine opinions from your loyal customers go a long way to impressing and engaging new ones.
3. Stories as Content
Stories first popped up in response to Snapchat’s disappearing content platform. While this platform was originally designed to share images and videos with friends in a direct-message style, the idea quickly evolved to become short-lived feature snippets on multiple platforms.
While these videos and images may disappear quickly, there’s no question that they are loved by audiences and algorithms alike.
At the end of the day, this means that you’ll need to invest some serious time and energy into your stories, even though they don’t stick around for long.
Keep your best ones in feature positions using highlights and don’t skimp on quality – trust us, it matters!
4. Virtual and Augmented Reality
Tech is a trend all in itself. With every new tech advance, social media is working hard to keep up. Virtual reality is no exception.
While producing virtual and augmented reality content is a bit trickier than conventional content creation, the advantages are unparalleled. This is because users are continually looking for new and interesting things to entertain them online. This is especially true after a year of lockdowns and a need to feel more involved and interactive online.
5. Social Commerce
eCommerce has grown in leaps and strides in the past year. With so many people stuck with no choice but to embrace online shopping, social media made the purchasing process even simpler.
Now, businesses can post, convert, and sell right on the platform, making getting buyers to your site a problem of the past. This simplified shopping experience boosts visibility and prompts impulse buying with incredibly easing checkout. Both of which are beneficial to your brand.
At the end of the day, your website isn’t the only way to skyrocket sales. Time to take advantage – and fast!
6. Influencer Content
Influencer marketing or affiliate marketing is one of the most popular digital marketing trends for brands and influencers alike. This mutually beneficial platform utilizes the audience of popular social stars to drive traffic and boost sales.
The reason this is so effective is because of the weight consumers place on influencer’s opinions. Just like reviews and recommendations, they take the words of these popular accounts to heart. We can see the effect clearly when we zone in on those followers’ buying behaviors.
Whether you are a brand or an influencer yourself, jumping on this trend can be incredibly lucrative. What’s more, is that influencer content has the chance to add value to your audience and boost your online image.
7. Purpose-Driven Missions
Another big change we’ve noticed in the business marketing landscape recently is buy-in on purpose-driven missions. More and more brands are investing in change and gearing their campaigns towards goodwill efforts.
This is not only great for our community but also great for positive brand building.
Consumers love to see brands working to make a difference and the charities you choose to support say a lot about your brand’s values. By sharing these values on social media, you can build more personal relationships with your audience and work towards a better future for all!
8. Search for Sustainability
Charity isn’t the only purpose consumers are loving right now. With so much turmoil going on in the world, sustainability and earth-friendly initiatives are becoming all the rage.
More and more consumers are searching for brands that are working towards a greener approach. This doesn’t mean you have to be perfectly sustainable, but taking steps towards sustainability is definitely a plus.
Having an online platform instantly opens you up to influence others. Why not take advantage of this by sharing your green initiatives and encouraging consumers and peers to take the eco-mission with you!
9. Inclusivity
The ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement was just the start of a massive change on social channels. These days, brands that aren’t fully inclusive are anything but successful online.
Again, this trend reflects back to your brand’s values and what message those values send to your audience. Let’s face it, we all feel more inclined to support brands that believe in the same things that we do. Recently, that widespread belief is equality and inclusivity.
By incorporating these popular initiatives into your social media marketing strategy, you’ll have a better chance of making a positive impression with that audience. What’s more, is that by giving your two cents on these highly controversial matters puts you right in the center of the action.
10. Voice Search
Voice search is on the rise. In fact, 65 percent of millennial users use their voice-activated devices to search at least once per day.
Of course, these searches aren’t only taking place on Google. More and more social users are taking to voice commands to find what they are looking for without having to type a thing.
How does this affect your social media marketing strategy, you ask? Well, the phrases people use to launch a search with their voices are quite different than the ones they type in. These searches look a lot more like questions or casual conversations than search results.
This means you’ll need to adjust your keyword approach to target these voice-activated questions in order to show up and perform well.
11. Video is King
Finally, video is booming and it’s not going anywhere, anytime soon.
What’s more, is that social media video is actually getting shorter and shorter. In fact, most platforms won’t even allow you to post a video longer than 60 seconds anymore. This trend has become especially evident with platforms like Tiktok and Instagram reels.
Of course, when it comes to the Tiktok vs. Instagram reels debate, the outcome is simple. The shorter and more engaging your videos are, the more likely they are to make an impact on these social platforms. This may include following sound trends, making up dances, and even mimicking popular influencers.
These short videos may be intimidating to businesses because of the limited room to fit in a solid message. Fortunately, it doesn’t take much to engage an audience with this format, and not every video has to ‘sell’ or ‘convert’ to make an impact!
Social Media Marketing Trends for 2021
Now that you know these 11 top social media marketing trends, it’s time to put your knowledge to good use. From adjusting your social media marketing strategy to incorporating more value-driven content, we’re confident you’ll see great results with your trend-chasing in the year ahead.
