Social Media trends to look out for in 2021

This time last year, Air Social’s Managing Director Alex Vinall gave a talk called 2020 Vision: An eye on future trends in digital marketing. In this talk, she spoke about the importance of building an authentic rapport with your clients and earning their trust. She went on to focus on the importance of clarity, and then on to say how video and Chatbots were about to become an essential component of digital marketing strategies. She failed to mention that the world would be shut down by a global pandemic, but we think we can forgive her for that oversight! However, over the past year, the importance of video has become self-evident, and Chatbots are commonplace in their use with the AI behind them developing at a rapid pace.

So what trends should we be expecting to shape our social media experience over 2021? What areas should digital marketers be keeping a close eye on?

Influencer Marketing

Influencers, are not a new phenomenon, but the way that AI will connect you with relevant ones is! In 2021 we see AI becoming better at determining an Influencer’s actual influence, and this will be an invaluable tool for your marketing efforts. Micro-influencers who appeal to niche audiences will start to get their time in the spotlight. You can read more about using Influencers in our past blog here.

New Ways of Searching

Imagine being able to take a photo of something and see immediate search results; this will become a mainstream approach to online searching very soon. You will need to get your marketing caps on as we might see a return to some more mainstream forms of public advertising. Pinterest’s Lens is the most popular visual search tool of 2020 and “turns your phone’s camera into a search bar”. Definitely watch this space.

Shoppable posts

With more businesses shifting their products online than ever before, shoppable posts and e-commerce features are the ones to watch in 2021. This year, Instagram became a digital storefront for many brands and creators, and with their new e-commerce tools such as Instagram Shop, it created a more streamlined way for customers to discover shoppable products. Instagram Shop isn’t the only feature in Instagram’s, toolbox, Instagram also has e-commerce tools including Story stickers, Shopping from Creators, Instagram Checkout and Live Shopping, and the most recently added, shopping to Instagram Reels! We definitely predict more e-commerce tools to roll out in 2021, so be ready.

Advancements in Established Technology

Chatbots have gone down with the public incredibly well and have led to the development of a more conversational strain of marketing. People want an immediate response and chatbots can provide this, keeping customer service conversational while creating real-time connections between marketers and their customers. Chatbots will be powering the majority of customer service in 2021, and it will be essential for your business to jump on this development.

VR and AR adoption are still slow in their adoption, but they’re an upwardly growing trend and very popular with Gen Z. We predict that with the advanced technology that the majority of people now have access to, that 2021 will see Augmented Reality grow to new strengths and be applied more often.

Ultimately, whatever happens in 2021, 2020 taught us that we always have to be ready and prepared for the unexpected as much as feasibly possible. Our biggest takeaway from 2020 would be the importance of listening to your customers, learning to adapt to new challenges whilst maintaining conversations during the downtime.

If you think Air Social could help you take your digital marketing to new heights in 2021, then get in touch with us today.

Social Media trends to look out for in 2021