20 Social Marketing Growth Strategies for 2021

In 2021, social marketing occupies a very critical position in the marketing map of advertisers. Activating brand private traffic, operating user assets, and achieving sales conversion through social platforms has become the common choice of almost all brands. In the foreseeable future, social platforms will play an increasingly important role in marketing, fully tapping the marketing power of super individuals and circle effects.

In order to respond to the needs of advertisers, mainstream social platforms including WeChat, Weibo, Douyin, Kuaishou, Xiaohongshu, and Taobao Live have recently introduced various commercial policies and value-added service tools to seize this wave of growth dividends. So, what will be the focus of social platforms in 2021? How has the behavior of social media users changed? How can brands better communicate with users on social platforms and achieve exponential growth?

The key points of this article are:

1. Ubiquitous videoization, brands focus on original video content

2. Live streaming has become an important standard feature of social platforms, driving the integration of product and sales

3. Audience segmentation favors vertical content, and marketing strategies need to be more personalized

4. “Dark social” private interactions are more frequent, and the community economy has great potential

5. Reduce “vanity metrics” and create a more realistic performance measurement system

6. From social media to social business, business growth has become a "rigid need"

7. The power of “micro-influencers” should not be underestimated. True personality is the key to conversion

8. Diversify the business model of social platforms and build an "AI+BI" intelligent system

9. Enterprise accounts compete to upgrade, encouraging brands to operate private domain traffic in the long term

10. New social platforms are still emerging, and marketing opportunities can be identified more agilely

1. Ubiquitous video

In 2020, video accounted for 82% of all internet traffic and is one of the most important trends in the world of social media. Kantar Media data shows that watching and sharing videos ranks second among the uses of social media platforms, second only to staying connected with friends and family.

Leading social platforms such as WeChat and Weibo that "missed" the short video wave are still "making up for lost time." WeChat vigorously supports and promotes "Video Account", which shoulders Tencent's short video and live broadcast strategic mission. Weibo has launched a product for short videos - short video collection stream. The video content is presented in the form of a collection, and each blogger can create multiple different collections.

2. Brands focus on original video content

Brands also need to follow the trend of video on social platforms. More and more marketers are beginning to reshape their social marketing strategies, placing video content and stories at a strategic level.

From static text and image modes to more visual and interactive video modes, brands create a more immersive experience for users. In order to make the brand stand out from the massive amount of information, brand videos will place more emphasis on originality, using fresh, interesting and fascinating stories to capture users' attention within a few seconds.

3. Live streaming has become an important standard feature of social platforms

Live video has become an important feature that major social media platforms are competing to configure. Super anchors such as Li Jiaqi, Viya, and Simba have completely ignited e-commerce live streaming. As of 00:00 on May 25, 2021, the first day of the 618 pre-sale, Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room currently has sales of 2.565 billion yuan, sales of 8.4986 million pieces, and 106 million viewers. The current sales volume of Wei Ya’s live broadcast room is 2.379 billion, the sales volume is 6.1742 million pieces, and the number of viewers is 104 million.

WeChat has launched the live streaming capability of mini-programs, dedicated to helping more businesses build an online business closed loop, complete rapid transformation, and promote brand business growth. The transaction volume (GMV) of Mini Programs in 2020 increased by 100% year-on-year. The transaction volume in 2020 may reach 1.6 trillion. This figure is comparable to that of mainstream e-commerce platforms.

4. Brands use live streaming to drive product and sales integration

For brands, live streaming is a new traffic dividend and an opportunity to achieve product and sales integration. Not only that, foresighted companies have already used live streaming as a tool for new business upgrades to achieve digital transformation of the enterprise.

Live streaming can play a stronger role in promoting sales because it can create a space for real-time dialogue with consumers. Viewers feel as if they are personally experiencing the scene, as if they are having a face-to-face conversation. The authenticity of live streaming also makes it superior to video. Moreover, the crowded atmosphere of buyers in the live broadcast room has accelerated the confidence and speed of placing orders. Different anchors are selling goods, giving users a feeling of visiting a temple fair.

5. Audience segmentation favors vertical content

On social platforms, users are increasingly inclined to consume content that is closely related to their interests, and the audience is becoming increasingly segmented. This segmentation is not just a simple division based on age, region, or interest circle, but may involve hundreds of more granular labels.

With the rapid growth in the number of influencers and increasingly diverse and segmented content styles, the Julebao Star Map matchmaking product can help brands select the most matching influencers among large-scale influencers based on promotion goals and plans, fan portraits, etc. Currently, there are 26 vertical categories of experts and 166 secondary categories in JueLiang Star Map, and each expert has up to 299 labels.

6. Marketing strategies need to be more personalized

Audience segmentation is closely related to the growing personalization of social media marketing. Brands’ activities on social media cannot just adopt the “broadcast” model, but must accurately grasp the interests and passions of segmented groups and carry out more targeted communication.

Even in the process of social marketing, brands need to make real-time adjustments based on user feedback, and continuously optimize and revise creative materials. For the same user, the advertising dynamics can also be changed quickly to make the advertisement more in line with the immediate context and mood, providing users with better personalized services.

7. “Dark social” private interactions are more frequent

As users' friend lists on social media continue to grow and concerns about the privacy of their information grow, more and more users are turning to private groups and messaging apps to connect with friends.

This is the “dark social” trend, as opposed to publicly posting or sharing content. Platforms including Weibo, Kuaishou, and Douyin are increasingly allowing users to create intimate groups where users can safely share private and detailed information with others. There are even users who use Kuaishou as a daily communication tool.

8. Brands have great potential in social economy

As people become more cautious about speaking out in the public social media sphere and interactions move away from the public eye, marketing needs to change as well. Brands must find ways to connect with their audiences on a more personal, intimate level.

In this context, community economy has begun to become popular, which not only ensures privacy but also has the effect of social fission. Brands began to encourage users to attract people to the brands through methods such as team sharing, mutual sharing, and flash sales of popular products on WeChat groups. The incentive mechanism is cash or shopping rebates.

9. Reduce vanity metrics

In the past, brands and ordinary users often focused on the number of likes, comments and followers on social media to measure popularity and brand awareness. Although these indicators can measure influence to a certain extent, they are also considered "vanity indicators" on social media.

Regarding the phenomenon of "certain big V accounts having explosive numbers of reposts and comments", Weibo believes that this actually reflects the growth and spread of data-only and traffic-only views. In response to this, Weibo has also made adjustments. The upper limit for the number of reposts and comments is 1 million, and those exceeding 1 million will be displayed as 1 million+.

10. Create a more realistic effect measurement system

For brand marketing, this should mean that it is time to establish a more realistic effect measurement system and not waste budget on a bunch of illusory data to crack down on fake likes and fans.

Some brands, such as Unilever, have taken a clear stance and announced that they will no longer cooperate with KOLs who falsify data. While these fake likes and engagement numbers can make a brand appear to have more influence than it actually does, they do nothing for business.

11. From social media to social business

In fact, social shopping is now an important part of social media, and major platforms are launching various initiatives to try to make this platform a shopping platform so that users do not have to leave the social media website to buy products.

For example, WeChat has successfully integrated into e-commerce by building mini-programs and embedding payment systems, allowing consumers to call taxis, make O2O payments, and check out for shopping. Douyin, Kuaishou, etc. are all accelerating their e-commerce layout, and even using recommendation rules to tilt traffic to short video products, incentivizing the top players on the platform to access e-commerce functions.

12. Business growth has become a “must have” for brand social marketing

For most brands, this special period is also an opportunity to re-examine the value of social marketing. On social media platforms, many brands are no longer just releasing information about product promotions; they are also upgrading their own products and solutions, directly driving visible growth.

In the future, this kind of action may become normalized. Social media is not only an information channel for brand promotion and introduction of product features, but also a channel for selling goods, which can more closely combine the delivery of brand stories with driving actual results.

13. The power of “micro-influencers” should not be underestimated

Although the concept of KOL marketing has been around for a long time, this field is still showing new vitality. Initially, brands focused on top KOLs, then mid-level KOLs, but now they realize that small KOLs or even ordinary consumers hidden in the crowd may become an important strategic asset.

The sudden popularity of KOC reflects this trend. User evaluation of brands and UGC content are more important than ever. Users want to hear real insights from real people before completing a transaction. A study by ComScore found that users who are willing to contribute UGC content will be nearly 30% more loyal to the brand. And for users, the more real these UGCs look, the more credible the brand looks.

14. Brand personality is the key to sales conversion

When it comes to influencer marketing, brands should not underestimate the influence of "micro-influencers". Although their audience size is smaller, it is also more specific, so they can provide greater personalization and stronger audience engagement.

Moreover, the inspiration that “micro-influencers” give to brands is to establish a real personality and treat users as friends. For example, when micro-influencers respond to consumer comments on social media, they tend to be more proactive, natural and emotional, and do not make people feel that they are reading from a script or that they are forced to promote for the sake of promotion.

15. Diversification of social platform business models

16. Brands build “AI+BI” intelligent systems

17. Social media platforms and enterprise accounts are competing to upgrade

18. Brand long-term management of private domain traffic

19. New social platforms are still emerging

20. Brands are more agile in identifying marketing opportunities

Conclusion: No matter how the social market changes, brands must return to people. Brands should remember that social media is not just a platform for marketing and advertising, but also a great place to cultivate trust and build relationships with your audience. Social marketing requires more brands to truly use their own innovation, unique value and sincerity to communicate with users and win their hearts. This is the most important asset of a brand.

Author: Media 360

Source: Media 360