Social networks have long moved from the category of resources used primarily for communication to a very effective working tool based on user interaction. Today they are the most powerful marketing channels that are operated to attract traffic and promote products or services.
It is on the social network that people go in search of information about a particular brand – there they look for customer reviews and more detailed information about the product.
The topic of our conversation today will be the key social media advertising trends that need to be considered in the process of developing a marketing plan this year.
1. Videos will become the basis of content
If you face the truth, then the video is already coming to the forefront. According to statistics, at least 92 percent of people who watch a video on a social network will share it with friends. Videos are shared 1200 percent more often than text and images combined.
As of today, video is the main advertising tool for 85 percent of companies. According to the results of calculations, by the beginning of 2022, videos will occupy at least 82 percent of traffic on the Internet.
2. Stories will come to the fore by pushing text messages
Stories on a social network are something akin to a news feed, where the main semantic load is carried by visual elements, not text. The popularity of concise vertical videos is growing day by day, and practice shows that 62% of users show interest in a brand after watching its stories.
3. Influencer marketing will become the leading advertising tool
The vast majority of people, when making a decision to buy something, rely on the recommendations of friends or acquaintances, even if this acquaintance is carried out exclusively on the social network.
Experts believe that influencers have huge potential: ROI here is more than $5 for every $1 spent. More than 63 percent of marketers have already stated that they are ready to increase the costs allocated to this advertising tool.
4. Free access to augmented reality technologies
According to expectations, by the beginning of next year, the volume of the market for virtual and augmented reality should be at least $209 billion. (As of the end of 2017, it was at a level of just over 14 billion).
There are a lot of ideas about how AR technologies can be used in advertising. These are AR stores for creating a unique customer experience, and offline events for attending an event, no matter where the user is in the world, and interactive videos that clearly show how to use the company’s product.
Augmented reality technologies will help in increasing brand awareness, besides, for many they are still new, so users will be happy to share such content on social networks.
5. Social commerce will become a public leading trend
The fact that sales through social networks will sooner or later take a leading position in the market has been known for a long time, and by 2020 this has finally happened. It has been proven that members of the so-called Generation Z are shopping on social media three times more often than the average buyer.
The most popular platform in this regard is Instagram. According to surveys, it turned out that in 2019, at least 42 percent of users of this resource aged 18 to 34 regularly made online purchases on social networks. Experts rightly believe that thanks to the growth of social commerce, marketers will be able to provide a continuous customer journey to purchase and thereby contribute to a better shopping experience.
Summing up
Given the fact that both Millennials and Generation Z prefer online shopping and, in particular, buying goods on social networks, are interested in virtual and augmented reality applications, and also prefer the latter among text and video, it is not surprising that social platforms have become the leading marketing tool.
This should definitely be taken into account by specialists developing strategies for promoting goods and services. It is already clear that 2021 will be rich in technical innovations and in new, hitherto unseen advertising tools.