Social Media Marketing Post-COVID: Marketers Predict the Future
Home-bound with little to do — we are all scrolling our feeds and surprising ourselves with fresh content every day. Today, more than any other time in recent history, social media has become our main source of information.
Surprisingly, the COVID-19 situation has acted as a catalyst to the ever-increasing rise of social media adoption. However, it is challenging for us as marketers or content creators to stand out unless we have a clear social media marketing strategy.
“COVID-19 will continue to govern what we do and how we do it. Innovation will not be a nice-to-have; it’ll be necessary.”
– Michelle Park Lazette, senior writer, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
The main concern is how to survive and thrive again?
The good news is that it’s not all doom and gloom. In 2021, Marketers must be quick and nimble in adopting new strategies.
What will the future look like for people working in social media or digital marketing? Let’s have a look at the predictions:
Video content will be the king & will continue to rise in production and demand
2021 has been a full-on video revolution year for marketers. According to WYZOwl, an animated explainer video company, 94 percent of marketers say using video has helped increase user understanding of a product or service.
Video sharing apps like Youtube and TikTok have experienced massive spikes in downloads since the start of the pandemic. TikTok alone was downloaded 115 million times in March.
“I think we are going to see the online video continue to explode,” predicts Tabitha Jean Naylor, Owner of TabithaNaylor.com.
What’s the best part? Google Loves Videos! Videos allow you to increase the time spent by visitors on your site. Thus, longer exposure builds trust and signals search engines that your site has good content.
Social media jobs and creativity skills will be valued more than ever
Out of all marketing strategies, social media will be the main one to thrive in the post-COVID world.
According to GlobalWebIndex Research, 53.6% of the world’s population uses social media. The average daily usage is 2 hours and 25 minutes.
There is a 1.4% increase from 142 minutes the previous year, and up 38% in the past 5 years.
A special report by Datareportal in July 2020, examines changes in social media usage during the beginning of the COVID-19 lockdown period. Notably, a monumental increase in online and digital activities can be seen below:
It is easier and cheaper for brands to leverage this opportunity. Hence, social media jobs and content creation jobs will be valued more than ever.
“I feel social media content and digital marketing post-COVID might be taken more seriously. Brands that had an engaging online presence were able to still pull their audience and create traffic, sales, and new opportunities. Many brands used social media to communicate and keep their audiences updated.” — Dhariana Lozano, President, Block & Ave.
Embracing honesty, empathy, and social consciousness will win on social
Social Media Marketing will be more sensitive to the needs and values of the audience. Socially conscious content, whether it is a pledge to save the world from the global pandemic by social distancing or a statement during a political moment, goes a long way in humanizing a company and setting it apart from its competitors.
However, as a marketer, remember that to make your campaign a success, you need to be genuine. Consider a unique cause and content that resonate with your audience.
Social listening and community engagement will be at the forefront of marketing strategies
Focused social listening will help business owners and marketers to figure out which social networks work well for them by constantly tracking their audience’s likes and dislikes.
“ Social media will become what it has always meant to be: social. Brands will ask consumers for their feedback on how they are doing and what they can offer that has the ability to make the consumer’s life easier.”- Deborah Sweeney, CEO, My Corporation.
It will help brands to analyze sentiment about the brand, products, competitors, or industry.
Most popular social media platforms
In 2020, Facebook is the leading social network with people with 2.70 billion of the 3.96 billion social media users worldwide. YouTube and WhatsApp follow this with 2 billion, then Messenger, WeChat, and Instagram, all having 1 billion or more users.
The Takeaway
The world will forever be changing around us, but as marketers, we seem to be well-prepared in advance to handle any obstacles thrown in our direction. Emotionally charged, creative content can be spread on the Internet in a matter of days, getting millions of views. And this is the whole point of social media marketing: the only creative survive!
