Let’s face it, 2020 was an adjustment for all of us. And with having to adjust to a new reality, this brought a lot of change to social media. New social media trends evolved and major social media platforms shifted their focus in order to meet consumers demands during this pandemic. That being said, here are our predictions for social media trends and features for 2021:
Focus on eCommerce
More and more shopping is being done on social especially due to the fact that more people are staying at home now. Therefore, you can most likely expect to see a rise in social commerce in 2021. This is already evident with Facebook’s introduction of Shops on Instagram and Facebook, and you can expect to see more development to the Facebook eCommerce shopping experience in 2021. Such as a more simplified checkout experience and new advertisement opportunities. Snapchat and TikTok also plan to focus on eCommerce in 2021 in order to make it easier for their users to sell their products.
More Ways to Connect
There has been a rising demand for consumers to be able to connect with their community due to stay at home orders as well. That being said, in 2021 you can expect to see more and more people connecting through social, and more ways to connect through social. For example, there has been an increase in Live videos this past year as this is a fun, engaging way for people to connect while not being able to meet in person. You can also expect to see more video tools from social media platforms in 2021. LinkedIn merged its Live Streaming and Events features this year, and plans to add more video options for users in 2021.
More Precautions
The spread of fraud and misinformation has become a major issue on social. That being said, you can expect to see more action taken in 2021 to stop the spread of fake news. Facebook has already taken action to address this issue, and you may see new verification categories on Twitter in 2021. This will allow you to differentiate whether an account is a bot or not in hopes to stop the spread of misinformation and manipulation.
More for Stories
Stories have become a huge social media trend. This is because stories allow you to be more personal with your content and better connect with your followers. Therefore, you can expect to see more with stories in 2021. With the rising popularity of stories, Instagram may try out a new approach in 2021, and create a Stories home feed. So when you open Instagram, a feed of just stories will pop-up, similar to TikTok’s home feed. We also expect to see live streaming available on LinkedIn stories in 2021.
AR Development
You can also expect to see more AR development in 2021. Facebook plans to come out with its ‘Project Aria’ AR wearable glasses sometime in 2021. You can expect to see more AR features added to Snapchat in 2021 as well. Snapchat started rolling out the ability to scan barcodes, and plans to further develop this feature by connecting those scans to product promotions and offers and adding more scannable items to their database.
We hope these predictions help with your social media marketing plan for 2021 & Happy New Year!
Source:
Hutchinson, Andrew. “25 Predictions for Social Media Marketing in 2021” SocialMediaToday, 30 November 2020, www.socialmediatoday.com/news/25-predictions-for-social-media-marketing-in-2021.