Social Media Strategies That Work in 2021

Social Media Strategies That Work in 2021

Social media marketing strategies are constantly changing to adapt to user trends and behaviors. What worked last year may not be as effective today. When attempting to stay relevant in today’s social media-driven landscape, it is important to keep up-to-date with the social media marketing tactics that will generate exposure for your brand and produce interaction and leads.

It is no longer enough to post a status on your favorite social media platform and expect to have an inflow of potential customers. Your competitors are reaching out into the marketplace and spreading the word on their business. You need to employ the most effective, up-to-date strategies that will attract members of your target audience and place you at the forefront of your space as an authority.

Whether you are navigating the online marketing space on your own or you have a digital media agency doing it for you, it will benefit you to understand the social media marketing trends that drive traffic and create engagement. Let’s look at 7 social media strategies that work in 2021.

1. Ramp up engagement

Engagement on social media is as important as ever. As the algorithms that govern these platforms evolve, the amount of interaction your accounts produce is becoming a greater factor in your success. It’s not enough to merely get a few likes and comments. What constitutes quality engagement is changing to include quality conversations. And while we cannot know exactly what these artificial intelligence algorithms are looking for, we can make a pretty good educated guess as to what is deemed as quality engagement.

In the past, the system could be gamed by purchasing traffic and likes. Bots and buying cheap likes were the norm for those that wanted to boost their social media presence without putting in the time and effort to do it organically. You would often see accounts with thousands of followers but only a few likes and comments on each post. The effectiveness of such techniques, however, are a thing of the past. In 2020, Facebook made it clear that meaningful interaction will be kept at the highest regard. All other social media platforms also echo this sentiment. Cutting corners in 2021 will only serve to keep your social media accounts invisible to the masses, having your accounts penalized and possibly closed.

No need to despair, as engagement is easily achievable by providing your followers with valuable content and offering opportunities for them to interact with you and other users. Asking questions that elicit a response and discourse is the easiest way to achieve this goal. Think about the issues that concern your target audience and post content that is relevant to them. Offer solutions and promote conversation that hinges on your visitors’ passions and needs.

A call to action is always useful when promoting engagement. If you ask your users to click through to your website or share your content on their own social media accounts, you will find that your engagement will go up. Do not underestimate the importance of asking your audience to like, subscribe, comment, and share. It has been shown that the simple addition of a call to action can boost results.

2. Jump on the influencer marketing train

There are two types of people online; those that lead and those that follow. Most of us are followers in some capacity as we tend to subscribe to content that is centered around our hobbies and interests. Opinion leaders post content on the topics that interest them and evoke a response in the digital space. Some build massive followings by posting their engaging content and sharing their opinions.

Influencers are people that have achieved loyal followings on their social media accounts and are considered opinion leaders. The views of influencers are respected by their followers and they are able to set trends. Influencers are able to achieve high levels of engagement on their accounts, with loyal subscribers eager to participate in a discussion regarding the topics presented.

If you are looking to strengthen your social media presence, partnering with a social media influencer can be a good way to get the word out about your brand. A partnership with an influencer can range from a paid post you ask them to do on your business, to guest posts or other types of content that is indirectly linked to you.

There are influencers in the space that may not necessarily have huge followings but have audiences that are centered around a specific topic. These niche-specific account holders are called micro-influencers and can be very useful in targeting particular audiences. Microinfluencers usually offer a good return on investment since their users are already interested in a subject and do not need to be sold. Look for micro-influencers in your industry and geographic location and reach out to them. Most of them will be eager to listen to what you have to say.

There are a variety of ways in which you can search for micro-influencers. One is to flat out ask your followers to suggest someone they would like to see on your channel. Another is to scan through hashtags related to your field. Sift through some of the accounts that tend to use these hashtags and see if you can find a micro-influencer worth contacting. Searching for local bloggers that focus on your topic of interest can also yield results. Bloggers often double as micro-influencers, with social media accounts that augment their blogging efforts.

3. Augmented reality ads

The way we define customer experience is being changed by augmented reality in the online landscape. Augmented reality is a technology that superimposes a digital image on the user’s view of the real world, thus creating a composite view. It is being used in apps that help customers try on clothes, or imagine what an appliance might look like in their kitchen. Facebook is testing augmented reality advertising, which will allow users to tap a product ad and try products out without ever leaving their newsfeed.

Snapchat, however, has long led the way in offering brands the opportunity to target consumers with branded selfie filters or stickers. If you choose to dabble in augmented reality marketing, you will be one of the pioneers of this new type of advertising. It is expected that 2021 will see greater adoption of this new technology.

4. Building rapport with story-telling

Story-telling is a trend that has been relevant since the start of social media. Not everyone uses it properly, however. This mode of communication has been a part of the human experience from the dawn of time and it is now known that people communicated via story-telling since prehistoric times. A brand that can tell a good story can build a strong bond with its audience.

From customer testimonials to advertising, to the origin of your company or brand, there is a story waiting to be told. Stories not only rivet your audience to your message but also cause engagement. A story your audience can relate to will cause higher conversion numbers and sales. Think of the big brands you see advertising on television or social media. What stories do they tell?

5. Customer service and artificial intelligence

One of the metrics that consumers rate as important to their experience when interacting with a company is customer service. Being able to respond quickly to customer issues and questions can make a big difference in how your brand is viewed online. Though automated messaging has been a little clunky until now, expect to see vast improvements in 2021 as more and more large companies are jumping in and using artificial intelligence for their customer service needs.

Bots and automated messaging can help you reduce the response time for customer service, while also reducing the resources required to fulfill the customer service demands placed upon your business. Chatbots are being used on Facebook, while automation in messaging is moving into other social media platforms.

6. Messaging as a means of communicating with your audience

You don’t have to wait for your customer to have a question in order to use messaging to communicate with them. Messaging apps have already surpassed social media apps in usage and this trend will only continue to strengthen during the rest of 2021. Thus, understanding that people have already become accustomed to receiving communication via direct messages rather than public posts can be useful for your business.

This doesn’t mean spamming your audience members with direct messages that become obtrusive or annoying. By understanding how people use messaging apps, you can offer people value that they will appreciate. It is common knowledge among successful marketers that offering value to your audience before having any expectation of closing sales will lead to building a bond. People will trust you and be more willing to buy from you later on. Messaging gives you the opportunity to provide value to your target audience directly to their inbox.

7. Videos, live streaming, and podcasts

One of the metrics that search engines take into account when ranking your website is the average time spent on your site by visitors. It is an indication that people find your content engaging and are putting in the effort to learn more about your products and services. What better way to increase the average time spent on your site than including video. And since we are talking about social media strategies, why not use the second-largest search engine in the world, YouTube, to accomplish this. You can create engaging videos which you then upload to the YouTube platform and embed on your website.

Video content captivates visitors and offers the additional benefit of disseminating useful content about your business in an easily digestible way. You don’t need to have expensive equipment or possess advanced video editing skills to create effective video content. There are plenty of open source software solutions that allow you to create quality visual content. Furthermore, mobile phones are becoming all the more capable of producing impressive videos with the help of applications you can find on both Android and iOS.

You can achieve social media synergy by combining podcasting and influencers. Podcasting is one of the social media marketing trends that has been on the rise and is the epitome of engagement. If your niche is one with passionate followers, a weekly podcast can increase exposure for your brand while building authority. By providing helpful content, you will be building goodwill that will follow your marketing and sales efforts all the way to the bottom line.

The use of influencers brings all of your social media marketing efforts together

Whether you are creating video content, building a story for your brand, or increasing engagement so as to obtain better results, influencers can play a vital role in taking some of the workload off your shoulders. If you can create a mutually beneficial relationship, social media influencers will gladly contribute to your online efforts.

Setting your priorities

Applying the necessary social media marketing tactics to your business and managing all your accounts can be a time-consuming affair. The learning curve involved with reaching an adequate level of mastery in these tasks requires ample dedication. You will need to learn the nuances of each social media platform. Learning to better leverage social media influencers is also a big piece of the puzzle.

If you want to learn how to build your social media presence, you may want to consider a course that can shed time from the learning curve. A dedicated course can teach you how to set up your influencer relationships so as to achieve optimal results. Check out this influencer leveraging course which takes you through the process and help you set up result-driven strategies.

If, on the other hand, you would rather focus on other aspects of your business, you can choose to entrust your social media marketing strategy and implementation to an experienced professional. An agency can help you reach the proper influencers that will propel your brand and sales. Take the first step in growing your social media influence today and watch your bottom line improve as a result.