With the technological advancements that we have achieved in this day and age, there has never been greater competition. In addition, there is no shortage of platforms where you could be investing your time, however, it all comes back to your audience. Are you giving your audience what they want or need, at the right time and what matters to them? Here are some social media trends that will matter most to marketers, brands, and businesses:
Community + Experience
People are looking for connections on a personal level with businesses and brands that feel like part of their community. Businesses will need to put more effort than ever into being more of a helpful, understanding organisation in a community than simply providing service to consumers. Businesses should aim to make their social media social as it is crucial to listen to your audience and provide value to them as opposed to solely using your social media channels to promote your products/services. With more competition on social media, connecting with your audience will help humanize your brand and gain their trust. People want to feel like they know who they’re spending money with, as a result, brands / businesses will have to step up their games and provide such an environment for their consumers. You have the power to build a strong community around your business and create such movements that aim an impact beyond increasing sales. Although, group and like-minded community spaces dominating means a much heavier workload for marketers and businesses.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer Marketing is maturing and becoming more known in this digital age. The clear strategy by using influencer marketing is to integrate with your overall marketing strategy, thus, establishing a thorough process that outlines your brand’s goals and content guidelines while still allowing micro-influencers to direct the narrative in a way that feels authentic to their audience. However, smaller organizations or those in the B2B industry may be struggling to see how influencer marketing can be implemented to reach their goals. Perhaps look internally at how employees can step into thought leadership roles and become the voice of an organization through engagement and amplification of messaging.
Diversification
Diversification tends to be a primary trend in social media, especially on the advertising side. It is beneficial for risk mitigation by reducing dependency on main platforms such as Facebook and so on. It is known that younger demographics favour the sister platform of Instagram, such as TikTok and Snapchat. Any advertiser who embraces smaller networks (e.g., Twitter, Reddit, Snapchat) will also enjoy an environment of relatively low cost due to lower levels of competition. By exploring smaller networks like TikTok for example, marketers should start exploring ways to take advantage of TikTok’s advertising platform to reach engaged Gen Z consumers. In addition, the younger demographic is highly engaged and trusting of the opinions of their peers. It has never been a better time for businesses to establish themselves on a platform that is largely responsible for creating much of the internet culture we have come to enjoy today.
Stories 2.0
Businesses should do well to ensure that they have a solid strategy with daily images, micro-videos, and content that audiences value. Bite-sized content seems to be very popular nowadays as it is easy to digest for consumers. They are a perfect way to get the attention, for a few valuable seconds, of an audience that loves authentic creative content. Stories are also a great way to add a touch of your personal taste to your social media using emojis, videos, gifs and stickers.
In conclusion, given that social media trends are constantly evolving, you’ll want to make sure you’re up-to-date on the latest social media marketing trends so that you stay one step ahead of the competition! Authenticity matters in social media marketing. Nearly three out of every ten consumers use social media to communicate with a company. The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have also brought us various mitigation efforts, and have underlined the critical role that the internet now plays in our everyday lives. Within that, they have also exacerbated our reliance on social media apps, which are increasingly serving a range of different purposes in our day-to-day routines.