5 Key Social Media Trends for 2021
Earlier this month, I was fortunate enough to join Hootsuite’s ‘Social Trends 2021’ webinar. The session was an incredibly insightful one - so much so that I’ve had to split my summary into two blog posts!
This first instalment will run through Hootsuite’s 5 key trends for social media in 2021, as determined by their fifth annual survey of over 11,000 marketers and industry experts.
Keep reading for a handy summary of the social media management platform’s detailed report.
The Race to ROI: Bridging the gap to new customer experience
The first of Hootsite’s trends positions social as a bridge for the gap between ROI and new customer experience. In other words, it suggests that social media can connect a businesses short-term need to make money with the long-term need to make meaningful connections with customers.
This year, for the first time since the HootSuite survey began, the majority of marketers said that their focus for social media was customer acquisition instead of brand awareness.
For many businesses in this pandemic-fuelled world, it is still about keeping the lights on and maintaining ROI. So how do we make sure we’re making the most of our social media marketing efforts?
Determine the data sources you have available - these could be customer lists; leads; website visitors; lookalike audiences; or any other potential customer list.
If you are low on leads, gain more - soft leads can be easily exchanged for something valuable (i.e. a newsletter, a report, a freebie or discount code)
Decide which platform is most effective for you - Facebook is generally far more effective than LinkedIn at retargeting, but if you have a list of work emails, you may need to use LinkedIn to retarget, as people generally use their personal emails for their personal social media profiles.
Silence is Golden
Did you know 68% of people don’t think brands share interesting content? It is a brutal statistic for us marketers, but one we must remind ourselves of if we are to be familiar with, and realistic about, our audience and our impact on them.
A huge uptake in social media use in 2020 has presented a number of new opportunities for brands, but (according to Hoostuite) far too many missed the mark by jumping in too soon. The brands that really “won” social media were those that sat back and listened, then came up with unique ways of fitting into the conversation rather than trying to start their own.
The other harsh truth?
The reality is, people want to connect with each other online, not brands.
Way more than OK
According to Hootsuite, “stereotypes, ageism, and a habit of chasing newness over effectiveness” have left marketers underestimating an increasingly digitally savvy and lucrative demographic: the notorious baby boomers.
Marketers that include baby boomers in their digital strategies, using intelligent segmentation and audience targeting to find their potential customers within the demographic, can leapfrog those still stuck in stereotypes.
Do I know you?
Social media managers have, for a long time, struggled to link social media engagement to customer identity. But with an increase in the attention on social media’s ability to establish and maintain connections with customers, now is the time to start bridging the gap between engagement and customer identity.
But how can it be done?
Without pushing social data into another database, it is really hard to prove ROI. But, by combining CRM data and website visitors with social engagement data, both paid and organic can be optimised to create new customers, retarget existing ones, and push those at the ‘awareness’ or ‘consideration’ stage further down the funnel.
That’s why smart marketers will make data integration an absolute priority in 2021.
The perils (and promise) of purpose
In a year marked by social upheaval, the importance of having and maintaining brand purpose has never been more important.
Instead of using their social channels to partake in trending conversations and make false promises, successful brands will gather data from their audience and wider social media trends, and use them to help their brands adapt to their audience’s behaviour. They will determine their purpose, then live and breathe it in everything they do. And they will win.
