News

Social Media Marketing Trends You Need to Note This Year

People have yet to see a slowdown in the growth of social media usage the world over, with Internet connectivity becoming more and more universal. 2020 statistics present that more than 3.6 million people use social media, each for almost three hours per day. Facebook is the foremost platform choice. Social media is surely bringing us to that wired life, wherein almost all our whereabouts are shared with the rest of the world, and, on the other hand, our choices are hugely influenced by those of people we connect with online.

One excellent example is the buying decisions of consumers, which are largely determined by social media influences. Truly, social media is a rich resource for marketers, with people freely giving out part of their personal information. This gives every reason for businesses to leverage their online presence, whether through paid or organic posts and advertisements. Selling features on both Facebook and Instagram is just one of the good ways to start.

We have reached the peak of marketing with social media is hard to argue as it connects brands and consumers infinitely better than traditional marketing. Social media marketing or SMM is increasingly becoming the preferred method by which businesses segment and capture their target markets. For this reason, the workings behind SMM can only get more sophisticated.

Whether your business is still in the dormant stages or has seen the highs and lows in your SMM conversions, it’s important to keep your marketing teams abreast with the so-called pulse of the public’s changing views and dispositions, especially those about their social media behaviors. This year, we are seeing growing trends and most brought about by recent events like the pandemic, namely:

Simple and Short-form Content

Short-form videos aren’t new; we saw platforms like Vine and Snapchat come and go. TikTok took the world by storm to entertain millions stuck at home during lockdowns. Scrolling through Instagram and YouTube, where funny and impactful clips, influencer content, and even news in their most easily digestible forms are proliferated, remain to be popular pastimes. We don’t see the preference for these cocktail-like contents dwindling any time soon.

People have been busy, or at least pretend to be, lately. But, one thing for sure is we innately crave mental stimulation, and we still fear missing out. We scroll fast through our feeds to save time, and, as a result, we developed a low tolerance for long videos or complicated infographics.

With this, brands can focus on releasing industry-relevant content in their most concise forms. Videos need not have the grandest production. Even those filmed in a home office, as long as it is value-adding, could give off a more approachable persona which is a guaranteed way to ramp up engagement. Likewise, infographics should be easy on the eyes and impart useful information at the same time. Signing with a creative agency could help you achieve just that.

Augmented Reality

The pandemic surely brought out the best in marketers as it left them scrambling for ways to showcase new products while doing away with in-person showrooms. So virtual showrooms have risen in popularity. A VR version of participants can also attend the event live. Also, virtual try-on’s, you could try on different apparel or makeup like applying a filter on your selfie app, is becoming a thing. Giving your audience an augmented reality (AR) experience steadily replaces traditional engagement activities like annual expos with its photo booths and other recreational activities.

Social Media Shopping

Facebook and Instagram have integrated shopping features in their capabilities, while more recently, TikTok and Snapchat are following suit. Features such as stickers enable a page’s visitors to see the prices of items displayed in pictures and even add them to a cart for a seamless shopping experience. Social media apps are more effective in attracting your target audience, who lurk on these sites most of the time than your website.

Genuine Approach

With shopping preference shifting to online means and its lack of human dimension, consumers could only demand more genuine customer service rather than a quick but unreliable chatbot or automatic email replies. Because buyers would only want to make sure they get what they paid for and dispel any fear of being ripped off, especially because the transaction is done entirely online, businesses are urged to create a trustworthy and approachable persona. While chatbots are efficient, keeping an optimal balance between this and live customer service chat agents responds to more complicated issues.

Another way businesses can connect more genuinely with their audience is by acknowledging individuality and even the vulnerable sides of every human being. Especially during this time of mental struggle for many of us, brands need to step up their communication to glorify the glorious days and show that they’re a companion when we are not in our best. So much for living a filtered life on social media.

Social media is a mine for brands with vast amounts of market information they can freely access. But information is gold only when action is taken upon it. There is, therefore, a constant challenge to detect heart-tugging points in our audience.

Related Articles