Key Social Media trends for businesses identified by the best SEO Agencies in Dubai
Social Media Marketing Agencies are keeping an eye on these growing trends that will not only have a major impact on your brand but also help grow your audience exponentially when followed the right way.
Table Of Contents
- What is tailored content and why is it important?
- How to create engaging personalized content?
- What is Social Media Platform Overlap?
- How to decide which Social Media platforms to use?
- Why is social listening important?
- How can brands benefit from social listening?
- Why is video content important for brands?
- What is mobile responsive social media content?
- Why is influencer marketing important for businesses?
- How does the Instagram story feature work?
- Why are Instagram stories more effective?
- Why is Live Streaming important for brands?
- Is social media becoming a publishing tool?
2020 has been a dramatic year for everyone. Not only was it full of chaos but was also unpredictable in so many ways and the social media industry was no exception. Trends that were more likely to thrive in 2020 were a major flop.
On the other hand, newer trends and existing partial popular trends like e-commerce sales, video conferencing, and many others took the lead. Now that 2020 is behind us, it is the need of the hour that we review the social media trends to see which trends from the previous year still work and what needs to be reviewed and renewed.
It is actually important, now more than ever, that we make sure our social media presence is not only up to the mark but we are also ahead of the trends that attract the audience.
We cannot afford to keep following the same old trends as the needs and interests of people change with the passage of time and it should be your top priority to make sure that our target audiences are well fed in terms of newer content revolving around famous trends.
When it comes to social media, there are a billion different ways through which you can reach a bigger audience and distribute your content effectively. These social media platforms have built-in analytics to provide you with a more concise and clearer picture of your initiatives. Because of this and many other reasons, social media platforms are becoming the first choice of advertisers for marketing purposes.
To make it easier for you, here are some of the top trends to keep an eye on, that will not only have a major impact on your brand but also help grow your audience exponentially when followed the right way.
1. Tailored Content
With the modern-day chaos and busyness, nobody has time for irrelevant content and with increasing competition everyday emerges the need for more personalized content online.
With every passing day, people are becoming more and more peculiar about the kind of content they want to see and consume, and it makes sense because why would you consume anything and everything when you are given a chance to choose.
Uniqueness has always intrigued people. Any piece of content having interesting news and knowledge is known to strike a chord with the people. People crave unique and personalized content and are ultimately attracted to it.
Therefore, it has become a challenge to come up with original and creative content for your social media audience. According to a survey study, nearly 3 out of 4 visitors disengage permanently when a website or social channel is not delivering valuable and personalized content.
How can one create more relevant and engaging personalized content?
There are many ways to create more pinpoint and relevant content that is suited to the audience's needs. One of the best ways you can figure it out is using analytics data.
It provides you with important information like what section of your content did the users find more engaging and what parts and places do you need to work on. With the help of this data, you can craft excellent personalized content for the audience.
2. Social Media Platform Overlap
Suppose you want to promote your brand and you know that your brand has a better reach on Instagram. What would you do? Of course, you will opt for Instagram as your primary platform to promote your upcoming event or launch.
But what about your audience on Snapchat and Facebook? Even though you don't have a greater reach on these platforms, however, wouldn’t you want to inform them of the upcoming event and its details? Of course, you would. This is where platform overlap comes in!
Read here The Most Influential Social Media Trends to Follow in 2021
What exactly is platform overlap?
It is when you use multiple social media platforms to showcase your event. The content might be the same or with some alterations as per the need of the platform but the main difference with platform switch comes in terms of reach and audience interaction.
It is one of the most trending marketing tactics used by the agencies especially the social media marketing agencies in Dubai in order to showcase your brand with better viewership and targeted audience reach.
You should use multiple social media platforms by slightly tailoring your content to suit those specific channels but don’t stop after sharing something valuable on one platform thinking that it is enough.
How to decide which platforms to use?
Instagram stories have about 10% more live viewership than other platforms. Similarly, Snapchat is known to engage the younger generation quickly and with more efficiency than other platforms. Most platforms offer similar features, marketers have to be more selective about the platforms they are going to use.
Therefore, the best way to identify the best yielding platform for your content is to use the analytics and reporting features to figure out the platforms that can offer the best returns so that you can plan your social media campaigns accordingly.
3. Social Listening
In today’s busy world and chaotic times like these, everybody longs for a listening ear. What people need more than anything else right now is a good listener to open up in front of and that is exactly what social listening is all about.
With the relevant data, you can hunt down the users who are willing to interact with your brand regularly and you can have consistent communication with them on a daily basis. This will not only improve your social presence but is also a more effective strategy to retain your audience.
How does this social listening tactic benefit your brand?
The social listening approach portrays a very positive image of your brand. Not only that, but it also shows to the audience how easily approachable you are and how considerate you are when it comes to their suggestions and recommendations. It helps you build your brand identity
In addition to the direct benefits, a significant rise in your analytics comes with it. It shows a significant growth in the sign-ups, conversions, and cart fulfillments. Not only this, but it also helps to figure out your weaker points.
The conversations help you understand what people don't like about your brand and what you need to change. You can use this data in order to carve out the best-suited social media strategy for your brand without the expenditure of excessive monetary resources.
4. Videos – Number One Social Media Hack
Video content is a strong medium for the delivery of your brand content. It is one of the most influential mediums as it allows you to be concise about your content and capture the interest of your target audience in the first few seconds if the video is made right.
Nowadays people are looking for a more convenient form of content that delivers detailed information in a short amount of time. The whole success of social media lies in one's ability to merge down the information into easily understandable content snippets which serves the purpose of "less time – more information".
Videos are becoming the most trending aspect of social media content in 2021. Therefore, you must add video content to your social media strategy. It will help your brand gain more engagement and help build a huge following.
Facebook has the highest ranking when it comes to video content engagement. According to a survey, an average user spends 88% more time on the website watching a video. An increase of 80% is observed in the conversion rate of the landing page with videos in it.
Not only this, but we also know that the highest consumers of the video content belong to the age group of 18-34. With this information, you can brainstorm ideas to come up with more engaging content for this age group.
Keeping in mind the above statistics, analytics, and the general benefits of video content, it is important that you create good video content to boost your sales. It is one of the most promising social media tactics to gain an exponential increase in your audience engagement in 2021.
5. Mobile-friendly Content
Having responsive content is really important, especially now that almost everybody has switched to mobile devices as their medium for social media usage.
What does it mean to have mobile responsive social media content?
It basically means to have a mobile-friendly content form. Irrespective of the model and type of mobile device being used, it delivers the same experience to all the users. With the increasing use of mobile phones, all the social media platforms are converting to a more convenient and adapting responsive version of them.
It has been predicted that about half of the current Facebook users will all completely turn to the mobile or app features by the end of 2021 as almost 80% of the company's revenue already comes from mobile ads.
Not only Facebook, other social media platforms like Instagram, WhatsApp and YouTube are also gradually adapting to the mobile feature and it is just a matter of time when all this will get limited to mobile phones only.
6. Influencers Backing
Ever since social media and marketing harmonized, a lot of new approaches are emerging and so is the competition in the market. As social influencers use their social media platforms more frequently, they not only have a wider reach but also have created their target groups.
If you collaborate with these influencers, their accounts can be used for commercial purposes and to direct the target communities to your brand accounts or social media platforms. It has been observed that collaborating with an influencer yields better results than driving a marketing campaign.
Be it the bloggers, content creators, or digital brands, working in collaboration with them is surely going to drive awareness about your brand and if the influencers are chosen wisely, it also helps to increase the ROI.
7. Leveraging Instagram Stories
Before starting with the discussion of Instagram stories as a marketing tactic, let’s look at the statistics. According to the most recent studies, over 200 million people use Instagram stories each month and according to the analysis, at the same rate if not more, almost half of all Instagram users will be using stories before the mid of 2021.
Do you think, with this much engagement, you can afford to skip Instagram stories for your brand awareness? Of course, not
How does the Instagram story feature work?
It basically allows the users to post their content, whether a picture or a video, and this content stays available as a story to all the users for 24 hours, and then it disappears. With the increasing use of this platform, its creators are constantly modifying their features in order to provide the best experience to its users.
The Instagram story creator offers features like filters, location tags, stickers, and other funky options mimicking the options originally coined by Snapchat.
How is posting your content on Instagram stories more effective?
From the business point of view, the main difference lies in the audience. When you are posting on Instagram stories, you are showing your content to the target audience that you’ve built through your content overtime. So, when you are posting stories on Instagram, you are actually engaging a pool of potential customers.
One technicality with Instagram is that you have to impress your viewers enough to make them follow you. Only then can they see your stories and posts on daily basis. To do so, it is important to deliver a good first impression making them instantly follow you.
8. Live Streaming
It is one of the most effective and convenient ways to increase your organic reach, increase your brand recognition, and drive social media audience engagement. Due to its ease of use and greater reach, it is destined to gain popularity in 2021. Almost all social media platforms offer the live streaming feature.
All the social media platforms have the same live streaming function with slight modifications in their functionality. For example, Facebook live streaming function notifies your followers when you are live. Instagram has developed a recent feature where you can collaborate with another account to start a joint live.
With the increasing engagement on daily basis, it is predicted to become the most popular social media feature by the end of 2021.
9. Social Media – A Publishing Tool
With its increasing reach among different platforms, it has become one of the most highlighted publishing tools for brands. It has been recognized as a popular publishing outlet where many companies are using it to boost their B2B reach.
Even the platforms like Instagram and Snapchat are introducing the linking feature where you can swipe up to open the concerned link. In short, it is one of the most important publishing tools when it comes to gaining B2B reach.
Nowadays content marketing is not only about creating good content but also presenting that quality content to potential customers using only relevant social media platforms. It is one of the most highlighted factors in this region and especially social media marketing in Dubai. Hopefully, these tactics will prove fruitfully order to drive greater social media engagement.
This is it for today. I hope you enjoyed reading this blog and that you’ve learned what to focus on in terms of marketing your business online. Do share your feedback with me and if you have any questions about social media marketing, do write to me and I will be happy to assist you. Thank you and Goodbye.
About The Author: Lovetto Nazareth
Lovetto Nazareth is a digital marketing consultant and agency owner of Prism Digital. He has been in the advertising and digital marketing business for the last 2 decades and has managed thousands of campaigns and generated millions of dollars of new leads. He is an avid adventure sports enthusiast and a singer-songwriter. Follow him on social media on @Lovetto Nazareth