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5 Social Media Trends for Small Business in 2021

11/9/2020

25 Comments

 
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By: Johana M. Caba, M.A.

Social Media Trends are continuously changing with new algorithms, new social platforms, new features on existing platforms, and new audience psychographics. I've discussed previously the demographics and psychographics of audiences in my post on creating your own Social Media Marketing Plan. In this post, we will touch upon some psychographics that will be causing social media trends to change in 2021. These changes have already been seen with various audiences throughout this year with the COVID-19 Pandemic. Throughout this post, we will discuss various social media trends that small business owners should be aware of for 2021.

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Social Media Trends 
  1. Social Awareness/Conscious Audience: This year, audiences have become more socially aware and more conscious consumers. Millennials and generation Z tend to engage on social media and actively participate on conversations relating to social issues, mental health, global climate change, etc. This makes for a socially aware audience that tends to think, research, and gather reviews on products and services before they purchase. Furthermore, more consciously aware audiences search for brands and companies that give back to their communities and have active corporate social responsibility programs within their organizations. As a small business, you should be aware of your audience and the things that they value. For these reasons, it is important that you take into consideration your socially aware audience before planning your next marketing campaign.
  2. Conversational Marketing: This form of marketing is all about engaging with your audience in a conversational style where you create personalized content for your different customer personas. There is now a need for a two-way communication channel between brands and their consumers where the brand is actively engaging, answering questions, asking for feedback, etc. As Marketing Tech News discussed in a recent post, customers are no longer looking to just purchase products, they are looking to build genuine relationships which are a key factor in creating a good customer experience strategy. 
  3. Authentic Relationships: Building authentic relationships is crucial for any business. Aside from being present on social media, brands and businesses need to engage with their audience and respond when they have issues or concerns. It is important for both the brand and the conscious consumers to build these strong and authentic relationships. Keep in mind that you should not just post content and hope for the best. It is very important that you post content to actively communicate and engage with your audience. Respond to customer comments or posts that tag you, answer their questions through Direct Messages, and do everything you can to ensure that the customer journey is not a pain.
  4. Disinformation: Social networks have been doing everything in their power over the last few years to tackle the huge disinformation crisis within their platforms. Recently, Facebook and Twitter launched new changes to their platforms to tackle disinformation including warning signs of false information on user posts. This is also something that you should keep in mind for you small business. Although it might not affect you directly, you should be aware of such changes in order to stay on top of engagement. 
  5. Old-School Marketing: This is a big one! Old-School Marketing is making a come back. People are once again attracted to audio marketing including radio and podcasts. The big one here is the podcast. Already, 55% of Americans listen to podcasts which means that a part of your target audience is listening to podcasts. It is important to keep this in mind for your marketing strategy in order to take advantage of this "new" avenue of advertising to your business. 
A COVID Content Focus
We just discussed 5 of the social media trends that you will be seeing in 2021. Now, let's take a moment to discuss something new. If you take a look at some of the social trends for next year on Google, you will come across articles from Social Media Today and Talkwalker that discuss COVID content as a trend.  They discuss the 4 C's of COVID content which focus on communication, contactless, cleanliness, and compassion. This is becoming a big topic in marketing because according to Talkwalker, 78% of consumers want brands to help them in their daily lives. What does this mean for small business? Well, this means that consumers are looking for brands, big and small, that can provide a way to help in relation to one of the 4 C's. For example, some businesses offer contactless shopping and deliveries, and others openly communicate about their policies and what they are doing to help. This open communication and the efforts businesses are taking to keep everyone safe through contactless shopping and cleanliness demonstrate the compassion that they have towards their consumers and employees. Additionally, this is very important to keep in mind considering that more members of a business's ideal customers are more socially aware than before. 

These are all trends that you need to keep in mind for your small business, brand, and content. It will be beneficial to keep them in mind when working on your marketing strategy for 2021. And, if you need any help, visit my services page and fill out the contact form to reach out to me. 
25 Comments
Tiffany McCullough - Metaphysicalmama link
11/16/2020 07:31:40 am

Great post! There is so much good information here. Thank you for sharing!

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Johana
12/2/2020 07:22:09 am

Thanks!

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Lisa | Mind and Body Intertwined link
11/16/2020 02:25:49 pm

I never thought of podcasts as a way of old school marketing but you’re totally right, it’s just like radio marketing!

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Johana
12/2/2020 07:22:28 am

It is! Thanks for reading!

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Jeanine Byers link
11/20/2020 01:52:37 pm

You know, I have been thinking about starting a podcast. This post is encouraging - I think I will consider it more seriously, and start figuring out how I will do it. I like that 78% of consumers want help with their daily lives. That's good news for those of us who are lifestyle bloggers!

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Johana
12/2/2020 07:22:57 am

You should go for it! Start a podcast and get working on promoting it!

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Sue Berk Koch link
11/22/2020 05:09:53 am

Thanks for the tips. I do include an audio link for most of my posts. (I don't think I'm getting much traffic on sound cloud, however...

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Johana
12/2/2020 07:23:23 am

You could try a different podcast service and promote a lot on social media!

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Kelly Diane link
11/22/2020 10:00:26 am

This is such an interesting post to read. Social media is always evolving so you definitely need to keep up with any trends. You've included some helpful tips.

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Johana
12/2/2020 07:23:52 am

Thanks for reading and the feedback!

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Charity
11/22/2020 12:15:08 pm

So important to know what trends are going on right now for small businesses! Thanks so much for sharing them!

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Johana
12/2/2020 07:24:15 am

Small businesses really do need to stay on top of trends to get the most benefits from social media!

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Angela Barros link
11/22/2020 07:24:10 pm

It makes me happy and hopeful to see social awareness growing as a consumer trend. As a socially aware consumer myself I hope it puts greater accountability on companies to meet their sustainability standards and not just greenwash. Surprised so many Americans listen to podcasts.

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Johana
12/2/2020 07:24:45 am

I think it is very important for social awareness to grow and to keep brands transparent too. Thanks for reading!

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ellie link
11/24/2020 02:15:41 pm

It's definitely important to keep up with trends these days! Some great tips here :)

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Johana
12/2/2020 07:24:58 am

Thank You!

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Clarissa Cabbage link
11/24/2020 09:25:44 pm

Thank you for this, I definitely feel social media has changed a ton this year. I can already see some of the trends that you have mentioned happening. I agree that there tends to be a movement towards more 2-way engagement, and a want for authenticity. Thank you, I will keep these things in my mind going forward!

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Johana
12/2/2020 07:25:24 am

I agree with you, this year social media has changed more than in previous years, most likely due to the Pandemic.

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Natasha Evans
11/26/2020 01:13:21 pm

Such an interesting post! I've never thought of a podcast as old school marketing so thank you for sharing.

Tash - A Girl with a View

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Merry Sari link
11/27/2020 08:04:46 pm

Such an insight post! This is very helpful for me to know about social media trends. Thank you x

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Nicola link
11/30/2020 05:21:40 am

Really useful post and good things to take into account when creating marketing content. Thanks for sharing!

Nicola | nicoladaletraining.com

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Unwanted Life link
11/30/2020 05:56:29 am

Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc have been doing next to nothing about disinformation, and are now feeling the pressure to do more, but even then they're still doing the bare minimum. I remember about 10 years ago when Facebook use to give you a fact check article for every article posted. It was a really handy feature, it sucks that they scrapped it

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Johana
12/2/2020 07:26:05 am

They do, they are mainly focusing on political misinformation but there is a lot out there that they need to tackle.

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Retirestyle Travel link
11/30/2020 09:05:08 am

I like the old school marketing, but I am not sure I ever want to get into the Covid-19 stuff.

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Simon link
12/5/2020 03:11:04 am

Great Post Johana. Disinformation is a big issue in social media, I doubt it can be fixed any time soon. We as individuals should try our best to minimise it.

Reply



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