The year 2020 has been extremely tough for all businesses.
While some businesses tried to stay afloat amidst the global shutdown, many of the small and medium businesses had to bring their shutters down. Even for the large enterprises, the ride was a bumpy one. Most of the businesses suffered losses. People were not moving out of their houses due to the pandemic. This led to a major decline in business at physical stores. The scenario, however, has not been the same for digital businesses. Amidst this crisis, the prime social platforms have evolved substantially, shifting focus to meet the rising needs and demands of users.
During the time of the pandemic, most of the businesses have resorted to social media for marketing. Social media marketing is going to be of utmost importance in the days to come as well. Therefore, it’s extremely important to keep a tab on how social media marketing is going to evolve in the coming year.
Here’s a quick look at some of the social media marketing predictions for 2021.
- Conversational marketing
- Socially conscious marketing
- In-house paid media
- e-commerce in social media
- Use of Fleet on Twitter
Conversational Marketing
Social media in 2021 is going to be about forming connections and conversations. With your customers and other stakeholders.
The brands must have conversation with customers, building relationships and creating sales.
According to experts, conversational marketing will be used to its full potential in 2021.
This is where the question arises: what is Conversational Marketing?
As the name suggests, Conversational Marketing is a method where the customers are engaged through conversations. This can be done using:
- Phone calls
- Chatbots
- SMS
- WhatsApp messages
So, this marketing ploy is chiefly about building a relation using personalised content.
Although Conversational Marketing is new, it is adaptable. Brands can customise their messages depending on situation and customer need. This ensures that this form of social media marketing has maximum impact.
Socially Conscious Marketing
The rise of the socially conscious customers is one of the most significant trends to acquire prominence in the coming year. This trend has already been around in 2020 and has been impacting various fields, including politics, brands, and society.
What is the prime mode of communication of Gen Z?
Of course, it’s social media. And the most important topics for them include lots of things, such as education, equality, finance, mental health, and so on.
Therefore, to remain relevant, brands must engage their potential customers from Gen Zin discussing such topics on social media in 2021.
Socially conscious marketing is also going to drive brands to reposition themselves, shifting from marketing methodologies to cause-driven messaging.
However, this form of marketing is far from being a quick trick and any superficial act may incur huge losses for businesses. Therefore, the businesses, which are planning to embrace socially conscious marketing, are likely to take it slow to create an impact among their customers.
In-House Paid Media
The sudden advent of the Coronavirus pandemic ushered in uncertain times for businesses. Profits fell sharply and several businesses had to struggle hard to survive. Several companies brought down their marketing costs to save money.
Paid media budgets were cut down and influencer marketing strategies were rolled back to cut down the costs. Though a lot of advertising budgets have been returned to the place they were in, brands are still on the lookout for ways to cut down costs.
Do you know what the most obvious ways to cut down cost are?
Bringing media planning as well as strategy in-house.
The other one is to work with the small boutique agency partners.
In the last few years, a number of brands have started experimenting with building paid media both in-house as well as in hybrid models. With a number of companies going remote, brands can find the best talents across the globe, offer a nice pay, have a team to work in-house and work with the smaller specialised agency partners.
This will allow the brands increased transparency in performance and administer better control in expenditures.
eCommerce in Social Media
What are the websites where you go to purchase stuff online?
Those must be some great ecommerce platforms.
What if you can do the same thing on social media platforms?
Various social media platforms have started adding difference ecommerce tools. And Facebook and Instagram are the leaders in integrating ecommerce on social media platforms.
Here’s a quick look at the ecommerce tools that Facebook and Instagram have incorporated.
eCommerce for social media is going to expand in 2021. It is likely to be one of the major trends of social media in 2021.
Use of Fleet on Twitter
What are the most used features of various social media platforms for marketing?
While posts are quite common for different kinds of uses, businesses prefer to use the Stories feature on both Facebook as well as Instagram.
Although Twitter, which is a social media platform businesses have been quite fond of, had Fleet – a tool similar to Stories – it wasn’t as great as Stories. However, Twitter is improving Fleet by adding various features to it. It should come in as a great addition in social media in 2021 and businesses are likely to use it to market their products and services.
Conclusion
Covid 19 has impacted the life of a diverse group of audience, belonging to different age groups. Users of today are spending more time online, specifically, social media. There are not many ways to reach out to the users in real world, and to catch up, all channels must be utilised. Therefore, businesses will have a sharp eye on social media in 2021, so that they can use it to the fullest to take their business forward.