Business owners can no longer ignore the power of social media marketing. During the pandemic, more people turn to social media to connect to their loved ones. They use different social media platforms to gain the necessary information they need. Marketers should use this time to boost brand awareness and engagement for their brands.
The problem is, many businesses still fail to adopt the best social media marketing practices. They fail to keep their audiences engaged by posting unnecessary, irrelevant, and non-informative content. They still try to do it all by single-handedly managing their business social media pages.
Leveraging social media can help you boost brand success. One way to do this is to keep your business up-to-date with the latest social media marketing trends. Here are four trends dominating 2021 and why you should consider incorporating this into your social media marketing strategy.
Social Media Intelligence (SMI or SOCMINT)
Social media marketers make use of different tools to help them achieve better social media marketing results. For one, social media monitoring enables them to stay up to date with the latest consumer insights about their brand and products. They are basically using different social media monitoring tools to learn about what online consumers are saying about your brand on social media.
Social media listening, on the other hand, helps interpret social media conversations. The goal is to understand online consumers better and keep up with the latest trends. They use organic and unfiltered conversations to better understand consumer needs, discover their pain points, and drive innovation.
But then, all your efforts will go down the drain if you don’t take advantage of SOCMINT solutions. This is basically using different tools to respond to social signals, analyze consumer conversations, and utilize social data points based on their target consumer needs. With the right tools and when used the right way, marketers can use social media intelligence to collect, preserve, and use social media evidence in court.
Social Media Live Streaming
During the pandemic, more consumers went on sheltering in place. The way they shop and engage with brands chanced. What businesses did to fill the void is by engaging audiences through live streaming.
Marketers made use of different strategies to offer their products and services to a live audience. They relied on events marketing to sell more of their products and keep new and old clients engaged. Businesses live stream different content to achieve many outcomes, including the following.
- Create an intimate but authentic connection with viewers
- Capture the attention of disengaged customers
- Receive real and instant feedback
- Enjoy better interactions that scheduled posts
- Demonstrate benefits and uses of their offers
- Show off their office, business processes, and efforts
- Share exciting stories, announcements, and events online
Social Commerce
Different social media platforms continue to improve their sites to better accommodate the needs of their audiences. Since more people are now shopping online, they found that enabling users to shop within the website can be a great way to keep users from wandering to other sites. Hence, social commerce was born.
Leveraging social commerce allows you to reach out to users who are now comfortable making transactions outside their preferred social media sites. You are basically giving them the chance to buy your products and services without going to your website. The easier it is for your online audiences to shop within the platform, the better your chances of boosting your sale.
Statistics show that up to 71% of consumers are more likely to buy offers recommended by referrals on social media. Users use social media sites to check reviews and find products. They also learn about different products using social media ads.
Social Media Diversification
Before, many businesses only focus on growing their following and engaging audiences on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. But during the pandemic, more social media users migrated to other social media platforms. Up to 70 million users downloaded TikTok during the first quarter of 2020.
Many businesses, big or small, started using the platform to provide their brand. Small business owners were able to create hype by showcasing their offers on TikTok. This shows just how powerful the video-sharing platform is in the business world.
This only means it is time you diversify your social media marketing efforts by exploring other platforms. This is not to say that you should ignore the major social media sites where you already garnered many followers. It only goes to show that even in business. Diversification is one way to keep up with your competitors.
New trends in social media marketing include diversification, social commerce, live streaming, and using social media intelligence. The more you embrace these new trends, the easier it will be for you to keep up with other brands. Don’t let your business suffer because you fail to adopt these social media marketing trends on time. Keep yourself updated and see which of these trends will best suit your brand.
