As we’ve now entered a brand new year (and we’re all still locked down) I thought now was a good time to detail some social media tips for 2021, to help you make sure your brand is in the best possible position to make the most of a year that promises to be better than the last.
Keep marketing in lockdown
My first tip is a simple one, make sure you’re still marketing throughout the lockdown. That doesn’t mean spending lots of budget, obviously be sensible, just don’t completely stop your social media marketing.
While users may not necessarily be in the mood to make big purchases right now, like booking a holiday for example, they will still be on social media and will still consume content. A lot of users are likely researching purchases they intend to make once lockdown is over. If you aren’t doing anything at the moment, you may have trouble selling once lockdown is over, because users may have already made purchasing decisions. With bigger advertisers cutting budgets, your organic social posts and paid ads may actually reach more users at the moment, due to a less crowded newsfeed. Basically, keep your social media marketing going during this period, you will likely see the benefits once lockdown is over.
Get on Canva
I’ve been using Canva a lot lately and it’s brilliant! I’m no graphic designer but I’ve used it to create lots of really professional designs that have worked well in my paid Facebook campaigns. You can also easily animate these designs and turn them into light weight animations, a form of video that does really well on Facebook & Instagram.
If you haven’t checked out Canva yet, I suggest you take a look now!
User Generated Content is more important than ever
Trust in a brand is going to be even more important for users as we come out of lockdown. We will still be in a recession, a lot of users may not want to spend huge sums of money so everything they buy will be from a trusted brand. This is where user generated content comes in. Re-posting content that’s been created by your audience, and showcases your products and brand, will tell potential customers that you’re a brand to be trusted, that your products are good quality and that it is ok for them to buy from you.
If you don’t have any UGC at the moment, plan to do a social media competition in the near future, where users submit their content to enter (use Woobox to create a professional looking competition). You should build up a bank of content in no time!
And don’t forget about testimonials…
While we’re on the subject of trust, make sure to build a bank of testimonials and post them onto your Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn etc feeds this year. You can use reviews taken from the likes of Trustpilot or Google. Like your UGC content, these posts will push a trust message that will help persuade users you’re a brand they can purchase from.
Keep on utilising Stories
I know I’ve said this before, but Stories really are incredibly important to your social media strategy. Whereas a Facebook post from a brand can struggle to reach more than 6% of a pages’ audience, on Instagram, one third of the most viewed Stories are from businesses. This shows that producing lots of Stories content is a bit of a no brainer.
Make sure your stories’ content is fun, eye catching and digestible, and use stickers like polls and questions where possible. On Instagram try posting roughly 3 times a week, that’ll mean your stories are getting in front of your audience regularly. This will lead to your brand shooting up users’ stories feed and being the first thing they see when they come onto the app.
Don’t be afraid to experiment with Stories on apps other than Instagram and Facebook as well. Don’t forget, LinkedIn launched their Stories feature last year, YouTube Stories are available for creators with over 10k subscribers and we may even be seeing Stories on Spotify soon.
Basically, if you aren’t on the Stories train yet, what on earth are you waiting for?!
And finally… video, video, video
Yes, I know you’ve read about the importance of video in every tips blog for the past 5 years (the same thing with Stories tbh) but it is so important your brand produces and posts video content on your social media channels. There’s now tons of apps you can use to create good quality videos for social media (I mentioned Canva above, you can also try Quik) and plenty of brilliant freelance videographers so there isn’t much excuse for your brand not to be posting at least one video every week and using a video in all of your paid campaigns.
Producing video also means you’ll get more out of Instagram, as IGTV and Reels continue to grow, while Tik Tok also becomes a channel that you could tap into. The app really took off last year and its growth is likely to continue in 2021.
And there you have it, some social media tips for you to keep in mind for 2021. If you need any help with your social media strategy this year, please feel free to get in touch.