5 Social Media Marketing Strategies to Apply in 2021

Social media platforms have become powerful marketing tools for many businesses around the globe. As much as 97% of marketers use social media and 78% of sales representatives outsell their peers using social media.

After all, social media marketing done right can help with better brand awareness, web traffic, promotions, and a lot of marketers use social media to get email subscribers.

Let’s take a look at what the future holds for social media marketing. Below you shall find some social media marketing strategies to apply in 2021.

S.M.A.R.T goals

A marketer needs to establish their goals before embarking on any social media marketing campaign. Posting on social media just for the sake of posting brings no value to a business, and tracking the efforts becomes problematic when there is no plan.

As a marketer, one has to focus on the bigger picture from the very beginning and ask themself the following questions:

• Why is your business on social media?
• What are your expectations?
• What does your company want to achieve?

These goals could range from product promotion, driving more traffic, increasing brand awareness, driving inbound top of the funnel traffic, and so on. Whatever your goals might be, you should define them because they are the pillars of your next strategy.

Make this stage more comfortable and convenient using a S.M.A.R.T methodology. This methodology will be of great help during your social media marketing campaigns in 2021.

• Specific. The goals should be focused on a tangible outcome.
• Measurable. Identify a component for success and use it to help you evaluate your progress.
• Attainable. The goal should be challenging but achievable. Define what needs to be done to accomplish the goal and identify any potential obstacles that should be taken care of.
• Relevant. Make sure that the goals are worthwhile for your business.
• Time-bound. Set a deadline and stick to it.

When each part of this methodology is defined and set, it will become easier to devise a good social media strategy.

SEO and organic social

Instagram has recently told its users that the platform will try to promote searches more than ever before through SEO. Long story short, various keywords will trigger relevant content, and that will make the need for SEO knowledge and usage very important in 2021.

So, rather than completely revamping your social media strategy for 2021 to generate the leads you want, just be aware of these platform updates and pay attention to keywords that can be implemented during your next social media marketing campaign.

If you have no SEO specialists at the office, consider seeking professional SEO services from a company or a freelancer with a proven record of success.

If you seek to only work with the best SEO companies there’s a high chance that you’ll find someone that can offer satisfying results while achieving your SEO goals.

Finally, it is worth noting that people are growing tired of paid ads everywhere. This is a sign that organic social is the new hit that will bring great results. So, instead of investing in short term success, invest your efforts in the bigger picture, meaning organic SEO.

Social media monitoring

Social media monitoring will be more important than ever in 2021. It involves keeping an eye on your brand’s mentions and discussions regarding your brand online, as well as responding to any engagement around it. 

It’s an immediately reactive strategy and pertains to all kinds of talk about your brand:

• Reviews
• Product questions
• Service repair complaints

What’s more, social media monitoring is not only about direct mentions or comments on your pages. It also extends out to posts that mention your brand without tagging you.

So, how can your business benefit from social media monitoring?

The main benefit of social media monitoring is that it makes your customers feel heard and respected. A whopping 59% of consumers reach out to brands on social platforms because they had a great experience, and 47% of consumers reach out to brands on socials because they have a product or service question. This is why addressing any concerns online should be a priority in 2021.

Additionally, social media monitoring also helps you sort through the noise and lets only the important messages through. Rather than having to scroll through your Twitter timeline in the hopes of finding a mention of your brand or repeating time-consuming manual searches that may miss variations of brand terms, you could use a monitoring strategy to alert you whenever your brand is talked about.

User-generated content

Making good use of user-generated content should be a priority in 2021. This type of content is the most authentic piece of content one company could have, and it includes Q&As, product reviews, service reviews, and so on.

Everything that your users post online (the content providing any value) should be used. User-generated content can be used for brand promotion on social media as a genuine testimonial for products and services.

People are slowly starting to make data decisions depending on reviews from other people, and the best way to judge another consumer’s satisfaction level is through feedback. When visitors come across the social proofs you have posted on social media, they entrust your brand and invariably the services you offer.

So, make sure that user-generated content is a part of your next social media marketing strategy.

Take a shot at influencer marketing

Back in the day, the only real influencers were big-time celebrities and a few dedicated bloggers.

But nowadays, however, it seems like there are more and more influencers appearing with each new day. Almost all industries have their popular influencers that have amassed huge fan bases who are willing to follow their word of advice.

2021 will be the year of even more growth for influencers, so it is your duty to make the most out of the situation as a marketer.

When implementing this marketing method, keep in mind that thorough research is the first step. Select the network you want to focus on first and keep in mind that your business should already have a presence on this network or be looking to expand into it.

Just remember to consider the industry your business is in. For instance, beauty and fashion brands do well on Instagram and YouTube. On the other hand, the video game industry works great on Twitch.

Once you do the research, reach out to your selected influencers and do your best to make an arrangement that would benefit both sides well.

That’s a wrap

Consider all of the strategies we mentioned above and make 2021 your best year so far. Keep in mind that you should be consistent with each tip and method since social media marketing is all about consistency.

Keep posting, producing good content, and engaging your followers instead of ignoring them or talking to them periodically.  Stay online for them, be there when they mention your brand’s name, and you shall be rewarded.

After all, there is no better reward than having your followers discuss and talk about your company even when you are not actively engaging them or creating content that is supposed to inspire buzz about what your business is doing.