Social Media Advertising Trends To Watch In 2021 And Beyond For Your Business
Feb 05, 2021
Feb 05, 2021
10 min read
10 min read
Table of contents
- Social Media Trends That Can Enhance Your Social media marketing
- 1. Brands need to revisit their marketing campaigns
- 2. User-generated content can help you in building trust
- 3. Create short format high-quality video content
- 4. Companies should focus on authentic communication
- 5. Analyze trends followed by your industry leaders on social media
- 6. The Instagram story can be a powerful tool for storytelling
- 7. Use social media to boost purchase intent among your customers
- Conclusion
Social media marketing demands a lot of time and attention because you need to constantly review your existing strategies and publish new types of content on the platform. To stay in a sink with the updates one needs to keep a close eye on new trends because social media marketing is constantly evolving and influencing the way businesses will work in the future.
As we begin the year 2021, all social media platforms are introducing new features, updates, and are modifying their old algorithms. As the time ticks, social media trends are evolving each minute and therefore your Social media marketing tactics should also undergo a makeover.
Remember Snapchat's Snap Streak feature? It was so addictive, do you think so? Users had to maintain Snap Streaks by sending snaps or photos to your friends every day. This was a huge trend! On the contrary, Instagram has features like Reels, which can last forever on your feed, and ‘Story’, which lasts for 24 hours only, are highly popular among young adults.
Instagram Reels feature came as a quick alternative for Tik Tok, and now almost every social media platform is planning to add such features to their interface too. Instagram has over 500+ million active user profiles, which makes this platform the second largest platform after Facebook.
So, it boils down to one thing, social media evolution is all about exploring, adapting, and innovating new trends. But that’s not the end, presenting new trends before the audience is not sufficient, it's all about how quickly one can introduce these features. These instant changes pose new challenges for brands and businesses. Remoulded algorithms and updates keep social media marketers on their toes.
If you are a business leader, marketer, or entrepreneur and you use social media sites for your online business then we have tried to list down some of the top social media trends of 2021 that can help your brand to grow more so that you can ace your sales target. But why Social media platforms important for an online business.
Social media is one of the most powerful tools when it comes to social media advertising. It helps in creating brand awareness, boosts audience engagement, and helps you in driving large traffic to your eCommerce website or shop. It can bring huge conversions for your business. Having a great social media presence can help you to induce loyalty and trust in your customers towards your business.
Social Media Trends That Can Enhance Your Social media marketing
- Brands need to revisit their marketing campaigns
- User-generated content can help you in building trust
- Create short format high-quality audio-visual content
- Companies should focus on authentic communication
- Analyze trends followed by your industry leaders on social media
- The Instagram story can be a powerful tool for storytellingCreate buzz using social media platforms
1. Brands need to revisit their marketing campaigns
You need to be spontaneous and creative at the same time. Earlier brands and businesses use to plan their social media posts, releases, and promotions way before the date of actual action. But the year 2020 left everyone bewildered and introduced a twist to these tactics.
We saw advertising companies withdrawing their ad strategies, campaigns, and way of delivering their messages to the crowd. Due to the risks associated with the spread of Covid-19, we saw brands scrapping out product catalog posts and spreading awareness about safety measures like social distancing and the importance of sanitizing.
Popular brands that used to hire professional actors for shooting brand endorsements were sharing photos of their employees with their families who were working from home. So one should stop planning their social media releases? Should you drop your annual social media plans?
No, not completely! You can plan certain special days but you should be open to developing new ideas. You need a mix of both. Be flexible with your campaigns, messaging, and product launches. Follow the recent campaign trends, take advantage of viral hashtags, and engage with your audience on a personal level.
2. User-generated content can help you in building trust
Social media advertising is not just about selling products and services, it is much more than that. Crafting user-generated content is a way to make your brand look more authentic, fresh, and reliable.
As per the statistics provided by Stackla, 78% of users said that user-generated content influences their purchasing choices. We also saw that paid or promoted ads left various customers skeptical about the authenticity of their products. Therefore brands should use user-generated content to induce trust among their customers.
- Feature Raw Instagram stories - Post raw videos and images that you receive from your customers. People on the internet love content that is more human to them. You don’t need to just invest all your money on creating perfect videos or images, try sharing or featuring Instagram stories that come from your fans. It makes your brand look more authentic.
- Post About Social Issues - Don’t fill your Facebook or Instagram feed with product images and videos about your company, highlight some social issues too. Your customers will value your brand even more. It will also attract other like-minded individuals to your brand.
- You Can Save Money On Advertising - Featuring user-created content like images, videos, stories, etc allows you to save money on producing costly video content. Photoshoots or video recordings are not only expensive but also time-consuming. Use UGC that’ll allow you in lowering your social media expenditure. Saving UGC files is also a great idea because they can be used for some future campaigns.
3. Create short format high-quality video content
You must be aware of the fact that videos on social media have a better reach and audience engagement as compared to any sort of content. Adding descriptions, offers, CTAs to your videos can drive audiences towards purchasing your products. As we have discussed earlier, recording videos can be expensive too. Therefore you should emphasize your Return On Investment.
You can make this affordable by using a smartphone camera to shoot a video. You can use your smartphone camera to make engaging videos because features like Reels, stories, or IGTVs provide some really helpful editing options. Short format content like Reels can be used to create remarketing ads and sponsored ads.
Another great feature from Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc is the Live feature.
You can use live streams when you are introducing or launching a new product. Live streams can be used directly to connect with your audiences because from there you would be able to see their comments or opinions in real-time.
Customers love it when they can ask questions on live streams. Remember, live streams can stay on your feed and new audiences can come and watch it later. The algorithm pushes such streams too! Your audiences will be able to see the unedited stream that will give the stream a human touch. When a large group of customers watches your live stream together, they feel as if they are a part of your family.
4. Companies should focus on authentic communication
Customers on social media platforms tend to revisit their ‘following list’ from time to time and unfollow accounts that are redundant or irrelevant to them. As a brand, you can manage to engage your audience and keep them hooked on by posting content that can boost brand loyalty. How? Make sure to go live once a month or once a week. Talk to your customers, make sure you answer their questions and thank them for being a part of your online business.
Post stories and photos of your office, working style, office activities, etc. You can also create ‘memory posts’ where you can recall a memory, for example - your first delivery order. You can also curate posts where you can thank them for their support in the journey so far. You can also post pictures or videos about your brand’s vision and mission.
5. Analyze trends followed by your industry leaders on social media
Have you heard about ‘social listening’ on social media? Social listening means analyzing what trends your industry leaders are following currently and also listening to the demands of your online customers. You need to hear what they are trying to say. In short, you need to know what’s in demand? Without social listening, you won’t be able to figure out things that are currently popular.
Pay attention to what investors and influencers are trying to convey. It’ll help you in gathering enough information about the ongoing trends. Plan your moves according to them. Use social media management tools that provide you updates about the current trends. By monitoring these trends, conversations, and actions you can figure out the best social media tactic for your brand as well.
6. The Instagram story can be a powerful tool for storytelling
We have already talked about the importance of humanizing social media posts and campaigns. Instagram’s ‘story’ feature, which keeps the story on your feed for 24 hours, has been adopted by Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube ‘Shorts’ as well.
These quick 15 second snippets can help you to introduce new products, offers, and deals. It also allows your customers to remain connected with your brand daily. On Instagram stories, you can set up question polls, QnA, GIFs, memes, and more. Such features give your fans a reason to check your profiles back again.
7. Use social media to boost purchase intent among your customers
Instagram provides various types of user interfaces such as ‘Private account’, ‘Public account’, ‘Creator’, and ‘Business account’. It depends on your needs. Each of them provides a different set of features. For instance, a business account on Instagram can reap the benefits of the ‘Shops’ feature where they can display their product catalog.
Customers can learn more about the products and services. A feature like this enhances the consumer experience and provides a user to do window shopping on the go. This feature can also allow a buyer to simply click on the link to place an order without leaving the app. Similar features are available on Facebook as well. These features are really helpful, especially for small and medium businesses.
Conclusion
Social media platforms have grown exponentially. The growth in their audience base says it all. Social media is one of the most powerful tools that can be used to empower your marketing efforts.
From creating brand awareness, boosting audience engagement, to helping you in driving large traffic, Social media can help you to boost your revenues and bring large conversions. It can help you to induce loyalty and trust in your customers towards your business. Follow these top social media trends of 2021 to build a user base of dedicated fans and smash your sales targets.
How To Get Your New Website Indexed By Google
Before you start formulating strategies to rank your new website or blog on Google’s SERP, you need to get it indexed first to begin your ranking quest. Google automatically picks up new websites and blogs to rank every single day but your website may have easily got bogged down in the crowd if Google has still not cared enough to index your new website or blog. So how do you get it indexed? To get a better understanding of how to get quickly indexed by Google, you need to know first about Google Crawler and Google Indexer. Google Crawler is a web robot that consists of multiple computers that fetch web pages from the world wide web and adds them to the Google Indexer. When google bot fetches a web page it culls all the links appearing on that page and adds them to a queue for subsequent crawling and indexing. And when a web page gets indexed, it becomes eligible for ranking on Google's search engine result pages. Proven methods to get your website indexed So, to get your website indexed quickly, it goes without saying that you need to inform Google about your new website or blog and invite Google Crawlers to crawl and index it as soon as possible. Here are some proven methods to do so: Submit your website Probably the most straightforward and easy way to get your website indexed by Google is to submit it to Google itself for inclusion in its index. You can submit your website to google search console here. Submit XML Sitemap To help search engines like Google know what pages are on your website, you need to create an XML sitemap of your website and submit it to Google. To easily create an XML sitemap of your website without getting into the technical stuff, you can use this free tool. Once you have registered and submitted your website on Google’s search console, it’s quite easy to submit an XML sitemap of your website. After you’ve created an XML sitemap of your website, you can easily submit it to Google’s search console here. Create Social Media Profiles Generating social signals is a great way to attract the attention of Google’s crawlers. And in order to do that, you need to be active on social media. Creating profiles on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and especially Google+ and mentioning your new website in the ‘basic information’ tab there is a great way to let Google know about your website. Create Backlinks Creating social media profiles to get your new website or blog indexed works because you can always get a link back to your website through them. Likewise, you can submit your website to high authority business directories or social bookmarking websites which gets crawled often to get your site indexed as well. Website Speed Google crawlers avoid slow websites. So, make sure that your website is optimized for speed to enable google’s crawlers to crawl your website without any hiccups. If you have no idea about how to speed-up your website, we can help optimize your website for speed and performance. Frequently Publish Fresh Content Google loves fresh content. If you want crawlers to index your website quickly, start publishing relevant content on your website on a regular basis so that Google knows that you have a knack of frequently adding fresh content and crawlers would automatically start crawling your website more often. So, there you go! Use the above-mentioned methods to quickly get indexed by Google and start generating some free traffic. ...
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Crafting An Effective ABM Framework for Your SaaS Brand
Account-based marketing (ABM), a powerful strategy redefining company dynamics, will take you into the revolutionary realm of B2B marketing. ABM goes beyond the acronym, necessitating a cross-functional approach. According to a recent study, 76% of companies have observed greater return on investment with account-based marketing (ABM) compared to other marketing approaches. Moreover, a different survey revealed that ABM has been successful in improving win rates, with 86% of respondents reporting positive outcomes. Discover the TEAM Framework in our blog, where we will analyze the complexities of this dynamic profession. Discover how to create a strong ABM strategy specific to your SaaS company while navigating the complex terrain of high-value account targeting. Additionally, gain valuable insights into effective saas marketing strategies and discover the tactics used by top SaaS marketing agencies in the industry The Quirks of ABM Acronyms: Before getting into the structure And exploring it, it's important to note the nuances of the ABM acronym. Some criticize it for oversimplifying B2B ABM. Alternatives like ABE (Account-Based Everything) and ABG (Account-Based Growth) emphasize a holistic strategy involving Marketing, Sales, and Services. Despite debates over terminology, the industry still embraces ABM. The key is recognizing that effective B2B ABM requires a cross-functional team, subtly highlighted by the Easter egg within "TEAM." Unpacking this acronym reveals the collaborative nature crucial to ABM's efficacy. Understanding ABM's intricacies is essential in terms of SaaS content marketing strategy precision. Despite potential nomenclature disagreements, the industry remains anchored to ABM. The TEAM Framework for ABM: Sangram Vajre and the Terminus team deserve credit for creating the TEAM Framework: Target, Engage, Activate, and Measure. This paradigm tackles the cross-functional character of ABM effectively, emphasizing the importance of collaboration across several teams for its implementation. Why the TEAM Framework? 1. Cross-Functional Communication: The TEAM Framework shines because it emphasizes cross-functional collaboration, which aligns perfectly with the essence of ABM. This approach goes beyond marketing-centric techniques, clearly communicating the critical need for cross-departmental collaboration to guarantee the successful implementation of Account-Based Marketing. This approach goes beyond marketing-centric techniques, clearly communicating the critical need for cross-departmental collaboration to guarantee the successful implementation of Account-Based Marketing tailored for SaaS account. 2. Comprehensive Components: The four components of the TEAM Framework – Target, Engage, Activate, and Measure – naturally connect with the organized processes of ABM interaction. This tried-and-true framework has helped countless companies run effective ABM programs. The TEAM Framework provides a dependable blueprint for firms seeking effectiveness and success in their Account-Based Marketing campaigns by painstakingly addressing each phase, from establishing objectives to monitoring achievements. Demand Gen's Modified TEAM Framework: While acknowledging the effectiveness of the original TEAM Framework, DemandGen has slightly modified the definitions based on practical experience: Strategic Activation in Operations: Increasing operational focus under Activate corresponds to the more complex concept of activation. This guarantees that account targeting is strategically integrated into the larger operational framework, optimizing efficiency and synergy. The Holistic Engagement Spectrum: Is Growing Engage extends beyond new clients to include existing customers. This sophisticated approach broadens the scope by acknowledging that engagement extends to acquisition and retention efforts, expanding the depth and breadth of connections beyond the boundaries of "ideal customers." Comprehensive Activation Scope: Activation in its entirety Broadening Activation goes beyond a single focus on sales enablement. It includes the implementation of all ABM-related systems, procedures, and divisions. This comprehensive perspective guarantees that activation pervades all aspects, enabling alignment and collaboration beyond traditional boundaries. Extended Measurement Horizon: The modified Measurement exceeds the four parts of the original specification. This change reflects the changing scenario and caters to detailed reporting requirements. Businesses acquire a more nuanced view of ABM outcomes by extending the measuring horizon, allowing for informed decision-making and strategy refinement. Steps to Crafting an Effective ABM Framework for Your SaaS Brand: Define Your Goals and Objectives: Clearly articulate marketing and business objectives, ensuring they align with company goals. Conduct SaaS keywords research to optimize content for relevant search terms. Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) and micro-goals to evaluate the success of your ABM approach. Understanding the Ecosystem: Perform an in-depth examination of market trends, growth drivers, and industry gaps. Understanding the market ecology enables you to develop compelling value propositions that resonate with your target audience. Establishing an ABM Team for Better Coordination:Align your sales and marketing teams for the best possible partnership. Establish weekly and monthly review mechanisms to improve coordination and ensure that both teams work together to achieve common goals. Finalizing Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) with SaaS Pricing Page: Combine firmographics, technographics, and behavioral traits to construct a thorough Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). Incorporate Saas pricing pages to align targeted efforts and ensure team coherence. Creating various Segments Based on Job Seniority, Industry, business Size, Geography, and financing: Create various segments based on job seniority, industry, business size, geography, and financing. This division allows for the most effective communication and feedback loops between prospects and internal departments. Understanding Each Segment: Investigate each segment's needs, pain areas, and triggers. Create a focused marketing plan for each category, ensuring that your communication effectively resonates with each group's distinct issues and preferences. Putting a Strong Content Marketing Strategy in Place: Individualise material for each segment's stakeholders. Create a content schedule that works in tandem with your strategic communication plan to provide a continuous and relevant flow of information to your target audience. Boost Your Tech Stacks Using Third-Party Tools: Consider if you need an all-in-one ABM platform or whether you can incorporate particular tools into your existing tech stack. Ensure seamless connectivity to optimize your ABM program and provide effective data management and analytics. Obtaining the Target Audience Using Digital Media: Utilize digital media elements for both aggressive and passive lead generation. Leverage databases and look-alike campaigns to efficiently identify your target audience. Implement SaaS SEO Checklist strategies to expand your reach through smart digital channels. Keeping Leads Engaged: Use newsletters, events, webinars, and personalized content to build and nurture connections. Reconnect with potential leads using various engagement techniques to keep your brand at the forefront of their minds throughout the buyer's journey. ABM Testing and Marketing Messaging: Crafting compelling ABM messaging is crucial for success. Here are key steps to enhance your messaging effectiveness: Hook them with an interesting topic or first sentence: Focus on crafting compelling subject lines that pique your audience's interest. To increase open rates, pose questions or give compelling facts. The first impression sets the tone for the entire email, so it's critical to catch attention straight away. Personalize Your Message: Create persona-specific templates to tailor your messaging to different target segments. Conduct an extensive study on prospects to integrate personalized components. By addressing consumers by name and customizing information based on their interests, establish a meaningful connection that significantly enhances the likelihood of interaction, based on the principles of saas email marketing campaign. Engage prospects by soliciting their ideas or comments. This stimulates connection and portrays you as an industry partner and thought leader. Building a relationship based on mutual exchange sets the stage for ongoing engagement and establishes credibility. SEO Benchmark Alignment: Ensure your messaging aligns with SEO benchmarks by incorporating targeted keywords and relevant terms. This optimizes your content for search engines. Aligning your messaging with seo benchmarks contributes to a holistic and effective marketing approach. Assist Them in Solving Their Issues: Prioritise customer-centric communications that focus on resolving prospects' issues. Provide helpful materials that directly address their requirements, such as insights, guidelines, or solutions. Positioning your communication as a source of support fosters confidence and establishes your business as a trustworthy partner on their path. Strategic Backlinking Integration: Seamlessly use backlinking strategies to enhance the credibility of your messages. Provide links to authoritative sources or relevant content, showcasing your commitment to valuable information and reinforcing your industry expertise. Always Test: Use A/B testing to improve your saas email marketing strategy continually. Experiment with different message aspects, including as language, graphics, and calls-to-action, to see what works best for your audience. You may improve the overall effect and relevancy of your email outreach by continually tweaking your strategy based on findings from testing. Conclusion: Creating an efficient Account Based Marketing best practices for your SaaS company requires a strategic integration of the TEAM strategy, precise planning, and continual optimization via testing. You may increase the exposure of your SaaS brand and promote meaningful interaction by embracing the cross-functional nature of ABM and personalizing your messaging to connect with your target audience. ABM goes beyond traditional marketing by requiring teamwork, creativity, and a customer-centric strategy. Accept the power of ABM and watch your SaaS brand thrive in a competitive B2B market. Are you ready to begin your ABM journey? Define your goals, align your team, and allow the TEAM Framework to lead you to long-term development and success in the fast-paced world of Account-Based Marketing. ...
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The Power of Storytelling to Advertise DTC Brands
With cave paintings going all the way to over 30,000 years, humans have always depended on storytelling to establish connections, impart crucial lessons, communicate deep emotions, and retain memorable memories. Although storytelling is certainly not new, online firms have only recently become aware of its potential to help them develop deeper connections with their customers. It is evident that customers are picky about spending their money, and brands and businesses that share particular views and values have gained the favor of today's buyers over companies that simply slap a logo on a product that is produced in a factory with hundreds of other products. DTC brands have the opportunity to tell their own stories, which can help create emotional connections with customers and differentiate them from competitors. If you don’t already have a marketing strategy that includes storytelling, now is the time to start developing one. Helps with thought leadership Storytelling is a great way to build reputation and trust with your target audience. It helps you position yourself as the go-to expert in your industry, which helps you connect with your audience more easily and create more emotional bonds between them. It also helps with thought leadership, which can be used to help people make better decisions about their healthcare needs or lifestyle choices. Makes your brand likeable Stories connect people to a brand on an emotional level. They make your brand likeable, human, and memorable. Stories tell you how to be successful in life. Stories help you feel good about yourself because they’re relatable and shareable! When you tell a story, it can be shared with millions of people at once—and that’s huge when it comes to building trust and customer loyalty! Distinguishes your brand from competitors Storytelling helps to differentiate your brand from competitors because it establishes a connection with the consumer. The way you tell your story will depend on what type of product or service you offer and how much time is available to do so. If you're selling digital products such as software or ebooks, then storytelling can be done through videos explaining how they work or why they're better than other options. You could also include links to social media platforms where people discuss these products with each other. This could be useful for promoting a new version. However, if you're selling physical goods like clothing or furniture—or even services like consulting—then storytelling might not work as well in this case because there's no way for the consumer to interact with those products directly through their Avatar(s) without knowing exactly where they've been before buying them again later on down the road at some point in future years' time span. But you can always advertise a creative story about the brand. Builds emotional connections with prospects Storytelling is an effective way to build emotional connections with prospects, and it can help you create a relationship with them. The power of storytelling comes from its ability to drive empathy and build trust in your brand’s message. This means that when you tell stories about how your product or service was made, who uses it, and how they experience it, you will create an emotional connection with the customer that they may not have had before. Allows you to provide value without selling Storytelling is a powerful way to build relationships with customers and prospects. It can help you to provide value without selling, educate your audience, build trust, and make emotional connections. The following are some examples of storytelling in DTC brands: A brand story about how their product was developed or the story behind why they made a change to their product that improved its performance. This story could be told through an infographic or video presentation on YouTube (or other web-based platforms). A customer testimonial from someone who has tried the new product and has seen results—or even better yet—a real-life example of how something changed their lives for the better! You can use this testimonial as part of your advertising campaign if it aligns with what you want people to think about when they see it on TV screens or billboards across town! Makes Brands Human Stories are a great way to humanize your brand. People like to hear about other people’s lives, and stories help build trust with them. They also help people connect with you and the product or service you offer. In this age of social media, brands need to make sure they have an engaging story behind them so that people can get behind their brand as well. A good story will catch the attention of consumers who are looking for new products or services in the marketplace. Gives Brands Purpose A brand's purpose is the reason for its existence, and it can be an important part of your marketing strategy. When you think about it, every brand has a purpose—the one that motivates them to be what they are. The same goes for DTC brands: they want to help people solve problems and make their lives better. Brand Purpose can help your customers identify with your brand by giving them something to connect with beyond just the product or service itself. It gives consumers a reason why they should choose DTC products over others in their market segment, makes sure people know why you exist, and helps humanize an often impersonal industry (dietitians). When we ask ourselves what our own purpose is as an advertiser, we tend not only to answer but also find many ways we're already doing so well! For example we employ storytellers who weave together compelling narratives into print ads that tell stories about our products' benefits—and then share these stories with consumers through social media channels like Facebook Live broadcasts or Instagram Stories posts." Engages Customers Storytelling is a powerful way to engage customers and build trust. This can be done through the use of stories in your ads, social media posts, and more. In fact, storytelling has been proven to help you build brand loyalty by communicating your values and beliefs about your business. It also helps establish yourself as an authority in the industry so that people will want to listen when you speak about it! You’re probably wondering what all these things have in common. They all rely on storytelling methods (the art/methodology behind creating stories) which makes them fascinating tools for marketers looking for ways to connect with their audience better than ever before! In Conclusion As we’ve seen, storytelling is a powerful tool for brands in the digital economy. It helps them build their own stories, as well as tell customers about their brand. Stories can be used to engage customers and help them connect with your company on an emotional level. This can lead to increased loyalty and better sales results for your DTC business. However, if you find yourself struggling with the many aspects of running a DTC brand, contact Saffron Edge. We are digital marketing experts offering exemplary services to resolve all of your digital needs at a cost-effective price. Reach out today! ...
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