Top Social Media Trends
Let’s look at the major trends impacting the social networks for Canadian businesses!
The whole world of social media is dynamic, rapidly bringing new ideas, trends, and technologies into this highly competitive arena. In many cases, changes are not sudden or unexpected but evolve gradually and predictably.
This year, more than ever, it is vital for business to stay up to date on the latest digital marketing trends – especially in social media. You need to adapt and make essential monthly modifications and tweaks to your marketing execution. This will enable you to keep your company’s online presence highly visible and engaged. Important transitions are underway!
Check out the top five social media trends emerging today.
1. Stories Will Gain More Popularity
Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram Stories are the most obvious examples on the major platforms. Stories are a form of ephemeral content. This means it is only available for a short time, then disappears. It taps into FOMO and motivates immediate response.
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As social media users’ attention spans have shrunk, the way they like to consume content has changed as well. This is why content formats such as Stories have become so popular recently. They are short, engaging, and in some ways, addictive – people often spend hours scrolling through one Story after another.
Business owners need to organize and plan for Stories. Even though they were already dominant last year. Stories will continue to remain popular this year too. In fact, according to this recent report, 64% of marketers have already incorporated Instagram Stories into their strategy – or plan to (Source).
The use of videos in the Stories is also set to increase. As compared to videos, images in Stories tend to have a higher tap-forward rate and drop-offs. It comes as no surprise that brand stories have an 86% completion rate (source). These stats are sure to go up this year.
2. Continued Growth of Video
“Over the next few years, the much bigger driver of the business and determinant of how we do is going to be video, not Messenger.” – Mark Zuckerberg
Video has been growing for some time now, and it’s easy to see its potential. Looking at the most recent data on social video adoption, it’s obvious there’s no slowing video’s growth:
- 56% of internet users watch videos on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Snapchat every month.
- 81% of 55 to 64-year-olds are watching videos on social every month.
- 1 in 3 social video viewers watch videos produced by brands every month.(Source)
These statistics are set to continue to grow as more mobile-first customers in emerging markets come online. One reasons for this may be that video can be a much easier medium than text to learn about something new. This is especially true in countries with low literacy rates.
Also, the pandemic has had an impact on viewer’s video appetite. Consumers will continue to watch videos to learn more about brands and see even more video content this year.
3. Live Steaming Will Remain Popular
There has been an uptick in the use of live streams in the past year. As people have been spending more time in their homes, brands have found new ways to keep them engaged.
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As the situation has evolved, people have come to accept Live videos to interact with brands. Live streaming has gone beyond just gaming. Retailers are streaming shopping events, customer service is being carried out by live streaming, businesses are creating a series of live tutorials to stay relevant and top of mind.
4. Gen Z to Drive VR and AR Adoption
In the past few years, we saw the use of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) grow into some surprising areas of marketing. Due to the pandemic and lockdowns, people are now looking for more meaningful interactions virtually.
Many brands have adopted Augmented Reality to allow their consumers the ability to experience firsthand how their products would suit them. Brands like Sephora, IKEA, Converse have introduced AR through apps and functions on their website.
Snapchat’s Geofilters and Lens functions – both examples of AR – have been adopted by a huge number of marketing campaigns. These include creating location-specific videos to help influence nearby customers. Generation Z, of course, will continue to push these technologies further.
Facebook Horizon is leveraging the Oculus VR platform to offer a virtual world that lets users connect, explore, and play games.
5. Social Commerce Will Keep Growing
The social media industry constantly offers more features and tools to its users. Social Commerce is one such phenomenon that has made shopping on social media platforms an accessible and easy option. Facebook lets you set up a Shop, Pinterest has Catalogs, TikTok has partnered with Shopify while Instagram allows you to add product tags for easy checkouts.
With millions of people spending time on social media, this is the perfect tool to capitalize on in Canada and also in the US. 54% of social media users research products on it and so there is no denying the role these platforms play in purchase decisions (Source).
Social Commerce has made customer journeys shorter. With products available on social media platforms themselves, all a user must do is checkout and complete his purchase instead of going to a website and looking for that product.
Social Media Marketing Strategies For Your Business
These are just some of the major trends that are set to dominate the social media strategy landscape. Leverage these trends to your business’s advantage to stay ahead of your competition in the new year!
Social media marketing has become a central part of marketing your products or services in today’s economy. Without question, today’s consumer is searching online as the first step in almost everything they buy. Therefore, small businesses, as well as medium-sized business marketing, must embrace these social media trends – as part of an omnibus marketing strategy. Your next customer is as likely to find you online as to hear about you through word of mouth.
Marketers realize that social media is playing a key role in keeping us all plugged in while holed up in our homes and apartments. Everyone is on social more, and your business should be too, but in a way that makes sense given the pandemic climate and real challenges people are facing.
- Display your corporate values across social media, showing empathy for the real challenges facing your target audience.
- Make modifications to your communications strategy: it is not business as usual and not making changes to your content strategy can risk making you appear insensitive and uncaring as a brand.
- Companies who are able to continue operating, with their staff working from home, should take measures to understand the challenges of these workers and put communications outreach strategies in place.
Social media can play a valuable role in telling the stories of how your staff is coping with the challenges, and the creativity they are sparking with new methods and systems to get the work done. Collect these stories and let them be part of your social media content strategy. User generated content can be converted into stories that show how you are connecting with your larger audience. Influencer marketing is another social media trend that is affordable and can be used to achieve better ROIs.
As a leading social media agency in Toronto, we specialize in developing targeted social media campaigns designed to grow your online presence and drive new business to your website. In addition, we offer a full range of digital marketing agency services including Content Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Pay Per Click Advertising, Web Development & Design, And Email Marketing.
How might we help your business? Book your free consultation today!
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