10 Great Social Media Trends to focus on in 2021

What Can We Predict For Social Media In The Following Year?

The digital space is ever-changing, and as marketers, we want to keep ourselves up to date with what’s going on in the digital world.

2020 Brought on some unexpected changes in that space, eCommerce and Social Media gained a lot more traction than previous years. Due to the global pandemic, video conferences became the new, most favoured way of communication.

Based on all this, Below are some of the key trends we can predict for the near future.

1 – Live streaming will continue to be popular on social media.

Livestreaming gained enormous momentum in 2020. With the lockdowns across the world, people opened up to Live stream their events, classes and workshops.

Livestreaming increased by the astonishing:

50% on Facebook
70% on Instagram

A relatively new platform TikTok also grew in popularity and became a globally known social platform amongst the others.

Since live-streaming has proven to be very successful in terms of engagement, we predict this trend to continue through the following years.

2 – Video content on social media will continue to be successful.

Video is and will be the king for content – at least for the foreseeable future.

In terms of engagement, video beats all other types of content by far.

It has been predicted that most likely by 2022, over 80% of the content will be video-based. It is difficult for static image or carousel posts to compete with video, so it is about time to update your social strategy to include video.

If video is something that seems overwhelming to you, perhaps begin with taking small snippets with your mobile and install a simple video editing app. Creating videos is becoming more easy and accessible to everyone. Short video stories on Facebook or Instagram is a great way to get started with video content and slowly get yourself used to it.

3 – Don’t forget your brand’s mission when it comes to social media in 2021

In recent years, brands with purpose have gained popularity in consumers eyes. People want to do the right thing; they want to feel like their decisions in supporting the right brands will help make a difference in the world.

Transparency and communication is the key here. Companies will need to take some time to rethink their brand’s real mission, what they are about, what problems they solve, and how they benefit the world by doing so.

With the world in a state of crises in many areas, doing something good for the planet, people or wildlife as a brand will matter. Brands with purpose have been appreciated by consumers recently and will most likely be valued more and more.

4 – User-Generated content is on the rise.

Customer-generated content has shaped the way marketers build their strategies.

Great user-generated content can make a difference for a brand, especially when it is still a small brand, and the user is an influencer!

Think about it this way, before you purchase a product, especially when it is on a higher end of the price range, you would like some sort of reassurance that this is the right product for you.

Here is where UGC content comes in.

Someone who already has this product is telling you how it is, consumer to a consumer. This reference point also builds stronger relationships between the brand and its audience and builds overall trust for the products.

5 – eCommerce will continue to grow on social platforms.

In the past years, online shops have moved their shops directly to social platforms like Facebook, Instagram and even Pinterest.

As a relatively new retail avenue, social commerce is still young and on the rise.

More and more social platforms incorporate shoppable posts into their list of features, gradually becoming retail platforms.

More and more brands are now incorporating this into their marketing strategies as it is an excellent way to capture their social audience and convert their campaigns into sales right there and then in the social post.

6 – Sustainability becomes more and more critical.

With pollution and climate change being a genuine issue globally, brands who support sustainability will continue to appear more and more.

Over 80% of consumers prefer a brand that helps us move towards a greener and healthier planet by doing their part in improving the environment in some way.

This topic is strongly related to point three – “your brand’s mission”. If your company is currently not doing much for the environment, perhaps it is time to re-visit your brand’s strategy and go for a “greener” approach?

A great example is a brand called “Who Gives a Crap“, they produce toilet paper from 100% recycled paper or bamboo. Their products are entirely plastic-free, and they give a big part of their profits to help build toilets in poorer countries.

They have exploded as people love the idea of doing something right by only buying toilet paper from an environmentally conscious brand. Their fun way of marketing by including some potty humour into their tone of voice didn’t hurt either!

7 – Instagram and Facebook stories will keep gaining popularity.

Stories are ephemeral content, which means that they are only visible for a specific timeframe. For example, Facebook and Instagram stories only display for 24 hours; after that, they will disappear.

Stories have a restricted time limit, pushing the content to be short and punchy.

The way viewers swipe from one story to the next, created a stream of engaging short videos that can be almost addictive in a way.

Along with the organic stories, came the story ads. Since the organic stories are so popular, the story ads often tend to outperform the ads placed in the feed. This is again indicating the rising popularity of stories, and why you should incorporate them into your marketing strategy.

8 – The use of Voice and Visual Search will Increase.

Statistics show that about one in four households in the US has a smart speaker in their homes. Whether it be Alexa, Google Assistant or Siri, or something else, since this technology is so available and popular, it has bumped up the volume of voice searches performed online over the past years.

The voice search will not be the only “new and creative” way of finding information online anymore; soon, it will have a new companion – the visual search.

New tools like Google Lens now appear on the market, enabling users to search what they can see. This means that visuals and image optimisation will become increasingly important for SEO.

9 – Easy-to-Consume content is more successful on social media.

In the nowadays busy world, people are always on the go and multitasking. No-one has the time or the attention span to read a long article.

Last year Newsletters gained popularity, as well as Podcasts.

We see this trend continuing throughout this year as well. Advertisers spend more and more on Podcasts which is suggesting ongoing growth soon.

10 – New exciting Technology to transform social media.

Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are becoming more and more popular, and the demand for them is increasing across platforms.

One example of this is the new Facebook Horizon that will be introduced soon. Horizon will be a social virtual reality world for people to explore. The virtual platform will allow users to communicate and play games, with the list of possible activities growing.

Even though this concept is still very young, we see this as a possible future for all social media and digital interaction in the long run.

Meanwhile, Augmented Reality has taken off on high speeds as they get more and more popular. By now, it is incorporated into Facebook messenger, Instagram and Snapchat for a more fun chat experience.

Augmented reality is the effect in your messenger that allows you to add effects to your webcam image; they can be light effects, flowers, glasses, moustaches, etc. People started having a lot of fun with these immediately, which is why social media platforms have started using it more in the near past.

AR does not need to be limited to funny video effects. We already see some brands that allow you to try on their products via AR visual effects virtually. For example; Sephora is one of the brands that enable the customer to try on makeup virtually, before purchasing online.

As you can imagine, this is just the beginning, as there are countless more ways that this technology could be applied and used for marketing.

Get yourself ready for 2021!

To sum this up, we will see a continuing move towards digital in many aspects of life, whether it be simple communication, shopping, or advertising for your company.

We will see more live streams and video content and more connecting via video conference apps. More and more brands will find a purposeful cause to help the planet while connecting to their audience more and more personalised ways, selling their products directly from social platforms.

We will see exciting new technology develop, taking steps closer towards a more fulfilling virtual reality experience.

Who Are We?

MMR is a Melbourne based Creative Agency, focusing on problem-solving in different areas. We specialise in graphic design, digital, e-brochures, marketing, SEO, and Data Cleaning.

In early 2020 we launched a new product called Livebook, which is an excellent product for publishing large-scale online documents.

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