These days, social media has been a rage with people of every age. Everyone is using Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and other forms of social media. And that has led to a term called social media marketing. Social media marketing is a form of marketing products and services in a way that it reaches a wider section of the audience.
This audience essentially consists of people who like the brand and are actively using social media. Since millions of people have active social media accounts, the brands have started marketing their products and services using social media. There are various social media marketing strategies that can be used to promote a brand.
Recently, every country around the world was hit by a pandemic. Since every country faced a lockdown at some point in time, the world went virtual. Every event was conducted using social media. Virtual inaugurations, product launches, and pretty much everything happened using live video features offered by social media platforms.
This has become a trend recently and may stay here for the years to come. As the pandemic is on the verge of getting over with the vaccination, certain social media marketing trends are going to stay for upcoming years. Pandemic has changed how the world operates, and with so many events happening virtually, social media platforms have gained a lot of traction.
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Let us analyze and see which trends are here to stay in the year 2021. Dive in!
- Businesses consider a digital-first marketing strategy:
Digital-first marketing strategies have replaced traditional marketing strategies. Long gone are the days when brands used to shout from the rooftops about their upcoming products and endorsing their old products.
Since the advent of social media, brands have discovered the power of the platforms. Platforms like Instagram and Facebook have given new meaning to marketing trends and strategies. Many brands have launched their products virtually without making a lot of hullabaloo about the products.
Various digital brands who have launched handsets, music players and other forms of technology have used social media creatively. They launched their products by conducting a virtual event on Instagram, Facebook or YouTube. This has led them to conduct successful marketing events keeping in mind the kind of audience they received through traditional marketing methods.
Also, by using various social media platforms, the businesses have realised that they have access to a larger and wider sections of the audience. Additionally, people on social media are interested in new products. Thus, marketing on social media is the right way to promote everything, be it content, startup or an existing business. And if you’re still confused how to get it started, you can hire dedicated experts to manage your social media campaigns.
- Purchases may happen through social media:
Initially, the brands used to have websites to enable e-Commerce stores and online shopping. Gradually, the same brands came up with mobile apps to offer easy access to shopping. Thus, the apps were welcomed by the users.
With the advent of social media, the brands started advertising on the platforms. This included a call-to-action button’s introduction in the ads so that the user would land up on the brand’s website when clicked on the button. With the passage of time, it became clear that a lot of people preferred buying stuff through social media.
This meant that more call to action buttons were clicked through the ads on social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook. It made brands leverage the power of social media. Moreover, the ads represented a product in a way that the user would be able to understand everything about the product.
This made them make a purchase and convert them into a buyer. With such a growing trend, it became clear that the purchases may happen through social media in the future as well.
- Buyers may buy from informed brands:
The user never buys anything from a brand he/she knows nothing about. We all strive to know about the brand to see if they can offer products we need. Moreover, if the brand is popular enough, it is easy for the customer to form trust with it.
This led to a new trend where the buyers would buy only from the brands they know. Thus, to use this in a positive way, brands invest in repetitive advertisements which is known as Retargeting. It means that the brands analyze a user’s behavior using various metrics and analytical tools.
This can help the companies understand which product the user is interested in the most. Through this, they can show the same advertisement repeatedly to influence the user’s behavior towards the brand and its products. Essentially, this tactic would provide familiarity to the user if the brand is new and upcoming.
It encourages a notion that if the same advertisement is targeted to a specific group of users, they will get accustomed to the brand. Eventually, this leads the user to convert into a buyer from just being a visitor.
This kind of advertising tactics has led the users to buy only from the known brand.
- Virtual events will be the new normal:
As the pandemic set in, the governments around the world restricted the movement of humans completely. People were locked into their own houses to prevent them from getting infected.
People stayed at home without any activity on hand. Hence, they started using social media for an increased period of time. Binge-watching various programs on the OTT platforms became a common pass time.
Looking at such a scenario, brands and organizations conducted virtual events. It was surprising to see that professionals from the field of Information Technology conducted meetings online. Work from home became the new trend, and companies normalized it quickly to keep the organizations running.
The idea of sitting at home in pajamas and attending an event without stepping out of the houses has become a norm with the changing times. Moreover, this trend is here to stay where the professionals appeared in the meetings from the comfort of their houses.
In addition to this, various events started being conducted virtually using the social media reels, story and live features. Influencers started going live or posted reels and stories on social media to increase their reach. They realised that they could do much more from home using social media marketing instead of visiting the office.
- Cleaning up the social media channels:
Since marketing on social media began, companies have been endorsing their products and services on every possible social media platform. This led to companies actively marketing their products on every social media channel.
Additionally, this created a lot of clutter because it gets difficult to monitor all the marketing strategies applied on every social media channel. So, 2021 will bring about the process of decluttering the strategies on social media spaces. Brands think that it offers them more relevance when they appear on selected social media channels.
Hence, the marketing tactics will be more strategic and targeted instead of being generalized towards the audience.
- Live interaction during virtual events:
Virtual events displayed more advantages than having a launch in a normal set up. When you conduct a virtual event, you don’t need to physically set up the launch venue.
The brands and the companies don’t need to reserve or decorate the space for that matter. Conducting virtual events led to people attending the event from the comfort of their homes, which users started to like. With the pandemic, brands launched their most powerful products through virtual events.
Additionally, this led to brands receiving huge exposure for their products. During the launch of a new product, the brands roped in influencers to represent the product and the event. These influencers go live during the event to help their followers see the launch of the event and have an interaction.
Also, the influencers include travel influencers, beauty influencers, tech influencers, and more. Due to this, influencer marketing has also come up as a new marketing tactic.
Such influencers have a huge fan following and when they go live, the brands expect to have a huge turnout. Hence, in 2021, the live interaction is going to be a trend. Celebrities, actors and actresses also went live at some point of time during the pandemic to make sure they are still in the business. Essentially, live interaction made these celebrities easily reachable for the common man.
The normal individual would be able to interact with a celebrity of his or her choice which would never be possible without a virtual platform. Hence, live interaction during virtual events is going to stay for good.
- Introduction of AR in digital engagement:
Augmented reality can enhance the images and graphics to resemble real-world objects. Moreover, this technology targets multiple sensory modalities like touch, viewing, hearing, and even smell and taste.
Facebook recently acquired Oculus, which has led to speculations that soon augmented reality will be a part of digital marketing and social media platforms. The digital marketing experts and social media experts are learning and analyzing to see how augmented reality can change the way social media functions.
Hence, 2021 could be the year where the experts may have cracked the key to introducing augmented reality in the social media platforms to get more out of it.
- Influencer marketing is the new trend:
Influencers are people who have a massive fan following on social media and they are the people who can change the market trend. It means that with such a following, they can endorse a brand and expect the brand to have a lot of buyers.
The brands get a lot of marketing without a lot of expenditure behind marketing campaigns and strategies. Moreover, people who follow the influencers recognize the brand through them. It is as if the influencer is almost the face of the said brand.
Influencers are present for various industries like beauty, travel, cosmetics, tech, and others. They can influence the buyer’s decision by the way they market the said product or services. In return, these influencers get recognized by the people and the brands associated with them.
The influencers also get a part of the amount the brand earns from products these influencers are endorsing. Turns out, years ago, celebrities used to represent various products from plenty of brands. But, these days, influencers have almost replaced celebrities.
These days, brands and companies are looking for influencers to endorse their products and services. Hence, in 2021, marketing strategies would involve influencers to reach a larger audience.
Wrapping it up:
Marketing on social media has become a trend in the last few years. But the pandemic made the companies understand the importance and power of social media. Anyone can become an influencer and anyone can market a brand through social media.
Social media marketing has taken the world by storm and has become a norm since the pandemic. Because people were not allowed to step out of their houses during the pandemic, they turned to social media. Brands and companies used this to their advantage and understood how powerful social media can prove to be.
In addition to this, product launches and virtual events became a trend and suddenly everyone became a celebrity on social media. Bloggers, travellers, foodies, chefs and people from other domains of industry started using social media for their benefit.
Even though, pandemic brought the world to a halt and some parts of the world are still under lockdown, social media has kept the marketing alive. This blog highlighted the exact things: the changing trends around social media marketing.
Author Name:- Harikrishna Kundariya
Biography:- Harikrishna Kundariya, a marketer, developer, IoT, ChatBot & Blockchain savvy, designer, co-founder, Director of eSparkBiz Technologies. His 8+ experience enables him to provide digital solutions to new start-ups based on IoT and ChatBot.
