Big or small – let’s all go social

It is pivotal for brands to pace up their social media presence to grow and increase their business, irrespective of the size.

By Nandini Shah Khera

The recent Hootsuite report on the latest global trends in social media “Social Trend 2021” reflects on what would social media be like in 2021, given the changing dynamics and behavior of consumers during and post the COVID era.

As the audience behavior shifts towards online and is more digitally driven, brands in 2021 need to align themselves with the same to continue building stronger relations with their consumers. The current social media users are more than four billion, with a good increase of 9% as compared to last year’s growth. It is pivotal for brands to pace up their social media presence to grow and increase their business. Here are a few trends that may be a game-changer this year.

Video Content: Social media video content is the fastest mode to increase your outreach. People are more likely to open an engaging video over liking a static post. 74% of marketers believe that video has a better ROI than static imagery. Insta reels, are one way to ensure your audience reaches the brand page even if they don’t follow you. If your brand specifically caters to GenZ or has a young target audience, now is the right time to jump on the bandwagon. Instagram reels are the best platform to start your video content marketing. Wherein, your content is not restricted to only followers, which itself is to be taken advantage of. The content appears in the format of home screen navigation, explore page, individual profile reel tab, and scroll down search bar.

Social Media Shopping: What if we tell you that social media is the new e-commerce? Well, it is! While e-commerce takes the centre stage, social media is the new age shopping platform. Small businesses prefer to create a brand page on Instagram first before launching a professional website. That is where the consumer journey starts from and ends on your website page, which is much shorter. If you are an e-commerce business, now is the time to set up your digital store. In the present scenario, one can easily shop on social media. Brands can tag the product in its stories, reels, or static image posts. That helps the consumer to shop the look they are seeing in the creative. Which itself is a great way of creating excitement, especially for Fashion and Lifestyle brands. Using advanced technology to set up 3D stores is a new game-changer, and is a big hit among real estate and home decor. We are in a great time to optimize and leverage social media platforms.

Have a Purpose: What do you want out of social media? Where do you want to reach? Make your goals SMART and align them with your marketing objectives. If you don’t know what you want as a brand, how will you serve it to your consumer? 2020 brought in a long-overdue change in how the brand uses the social space. Brands that have a purpose and show responsibility towards social, environmental, or are ethically responsible connect more with their audience. Be more diverse, open to ideas and suggestions from your audience, seek online feedback, share social responsibility. Whatever your business or service model is, now is the time to plan your content and services around your audience behavior. Define your purpose!

Educate, engage, entertain: Educating your audience is proven to be more engaging than static posts. For example, brands that include Instagram carousel posts are a perfect hack to increase the time spend on your social media page, as well as convey the message in educational posts. Your audience should understand your message. Share tips, did you know, swipe right to know or product launch are some of the great ways to keep your engagement rate high. A newly discovered Instagram Guide is a great example to share your content with the extensive list or in-depth guide to a product. Initially, the feature was enabled as a healthcare and wellness effort to provide a resource for people during the pandemic. But now anyone can use this by curating lists, offer additional information, a step-by-step guide, and more that will help your followers or users to share it further with people as a tip. For brands that are into product services, it is a great versatile feature for your audience.

Social media video content is the fastest mode to increase your outreach. People are more likely to open an engaging video over liking a static post.

Small businesses prefer to create a brand page on Instagram first before launching a professional website. That is where the consumer journey starts from.

Stories are here to stay: 500 million people use stories every day. Let alone 150 million Instagram users are actively consuming Insta stories, every day. The interaction rate of Instagram stories increased up to 7.2%. A feature that was launched by Snapchat has been adopted by all the social media platforms, including Linked.in. Repurpose your content for stories. Brands today are re-sharing their customers’ posts, tagging them in stories to engage and build a connection with their audience. Instagram offers a highlight feature to add these stories as a highlight to your profile to save it forever on your profile as well. So share, throwback pictures, put BTS and real-time videos over stories are a great use of the feature to engage your audience.

Influencer marketing: We have all known this mode of marketing ever since social media users started influencing people with their choice, brands, and promotions. Many brands are investing heavily in their influencer marketing program. A social media influencer with a great outreach will create more awareness about your brand and product than your single page posts. Influencer marketing is estimated to have grown to reach $13.8 billion in 2021 and is a must-have for every brand from SMEs to multinational brands.

A key channel for communication that was brought in by the TikTok trend is now a growing space across social media platforms. The industry has grown into a more diverse portfolio from Micro-influencer to big celebrities to endorse your brand. Providing the various budget, direct communication with the influencer and even barter and collaboration is a great fit for brands at every level. Build up your relationship with influencers and create a win-win situation for both the influencer and the brand.

Last but not the least, go Live

Ever wondered why going live is more important than posting a post? It builds a real-time connection with your audience. It is direct communication with your consumer. Brands have successfully run live sales, QnA, contests, and various other promotional activities to leverage this feature. For example, a baker doing a live bake-off is a proven hit over him posting a recipe. Going live is not restricted to your followers. It sends a notification to people who are following and their followers as a chain of communication increasing your traffic on social media. It is a unique way to bring communities together and connect with an audience without any geographic barriers. Considering the current phase of online preference by the consumer or the lifestyle there is a lot that brands can plan and host live for their audience.

Repurpose your content for stories. Brands today are re-sharing their customers’ posts, tagging them in stories to engage and build a connection with their audience.

The icing on the cake is that one does not need to have a certain amount of followers to go live. Go with a ten or thousand, it’s a perfect bridge between the audience and the brand. It doesn’t matter if your brand is small, or a well-established business, social media is an ocean of opportunity for all.

Nandini is Director, Marketing and Brand Communications, Ikokas Digital Technologies  

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