Digital
Marketing
Trends

We live in a time when technology marketing moves fast
and consumer interests and behaviors are hard to
predict. Marketers can no longer stick their heads in the
sand and hope that educated guesses and the same old
methods will work forever.

1) AI-Powered Optimization
“Artificial intelligence is the biggest
commercial opportunity for companies,
industries, and nations over the next few
decades,” which means that “AI
latecomers will find themselves at a
serious competitive disadvantage within
the next several years.”

AI can analyze consumer behavior and search patterns,
and use data from social media platforms and blog posts
to help businesses understand how customers find their
products and services.

2) Programmatic Advertising
Programmatic advertising means using AI to automate ad
buying so you can target more specific audiences. Real-
time bidding, for example, is a type of programmatic ad
buying. This automation is much more efficient and fast,
which means higher conversions and lower customer
acquisition costs.
It’s changing the face of digital advertising so swiftly that,
according to e-Marketer, 86.2% of digital display ads in the
U.S. will be programmatic by 2020.

Most search-driven manual advertising campaigns (even
those performed with professional tools) take into account
three or four targets: the keyword, time of day, and
location. Such tools like programmatic demand-side
platforms can use hundreds of targeting signals to
individualize the advertisement and even target according
to lifestyle or behavior habits when integrated with
customer data platforms.”

3)
Chatbots
Chatbots will continue to be an important part of digital
marketing in 2021. This AI-based technology uses instant
messaging to chat in real-time, day or night, with your
customers or site visitors.
Surveys show that:
Chatbots will power 85% of customer service by 2020
Top benefits of chatbots are 24-hour service (64%), instant
responses to inquiries (55%), and answers to simple
questions (55%)

Many customers prefer interacting with chatbots as they
are responsive 24/7, give answers promptly, accurately
recall your entire buying history, and never lose patience.
These virtual assistants offer outstanding customer service
by meeting customers’ expectations and automating
repetitive tasks – which means that you can focus on more
important work.
Many brands already use chatbot technology, including
rideshare brand Lyft. You can request a ride from Lyft via
chat (Facebook Messenger and Slack) or voice (Amazon
Echo), and their chatbot will let you know the current
location of your driver:

Passengers can use the app to choose the type of ride,
make a request, track the location of the car, send friends a
time estimate of their arrival, and make payment.
Other brands that are successfully using chatbot
technology include Whole Foods Market, Fandango,
Sephora, Staples, The Wall Street Journal and Pizza Hut.

4) Conversational Marketing
With all that talk about chatbots, the reality of modern
marketing becomes clear: it’s more conversational.
People want it that way, and so brands are reacting.
When consumers have a question, 82% want an
“immediate” response.
Conversational marketing facilitates a one-to-one, real-
time connection between marketers and customers:

“Today’s buyers expect to find what they’re looking for now,
not later. As we prepare for the future, it will be more
important than ever for businesses to be available across a
broad spectrum of channels, and to make sure you’re
communicating the way people prefer to communicate.”
Ultimately, the primary goal of conversational marketing is
to enhance the user experience through a feedback-driven
model that fosters higher engagement and greater loyalty.

5) Personalization
If you want to stand out in 2021, you need to personalize
your marketing – and that means personalized content,
products, emails and more.
Consider these personalization stats:
 63% of consumers are highly annoyed with generic
advertising blasts
 80% say they are more likely to do business with a
company if it offers personalized experiences
 90% claim they find personalization appealing

When you want to study examples of the power of
personalization, it’s hard to overlook Netflix and Amazon,
with their tailored recommended products or movie titles.
Here are a few other companies that are successfully using
personalization today:
 EasyJet launched a data-driven email campaign that
uses customers’ travel history with the airline to build
personalized stories, which then suggest where they
might like to travel next. About 12.5 million unique
emails have been sent, which had a 25% higher click-
through rate than non-personalized emails.

 Cadbury’s created a personalized video campaign that
matches a Dairy Milk flavor with users based on data
from their Facebook profile, including age, interest and
location. The campaign generated a 65% click-through
rate and a 33.6% conversion rate, proving that the
personal touch works.
 Starbucks uses a gamified mobile app that draws on
data like purchase history and location to get as
personal as possible, allows customers to customize
their drinks, and encourages further use with
its rewards system – which skyrocketed their revenue to
$2.56 billion:

6) Video Marketing
Video marketing is one of, if not the, most important marketing
trend today and likely for the next 5-10 years. These numbers
show the importance of incorporating video into your digital
marketing strategy in 2021:
70% of consumers say that they have shared a brand’s video
72% of businesses say that video has improved their
conversion rate
52% of consumers say that watching product videos makes
them more confident in online purchase decisions
65% of executives visit the marketer’s website and 39% call a
vendor after viewing a video

One of the best things about video marketing is that it makes it
easy to reformat your content. Imagine that you’ve recorded a
video for your.

7) Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is a type of word-of-mouth marketing that
focuses on using key leaders to amplify your brand message to a
larger market. Influencers can be well-known celebrities, but
more often they are Instagram or YouTube personalities with a
huge niche following who can help spread the word about your
business or product through their social channels

Because influencer marketing is generally more authentic than
corporate advertising:
 63% of consumers trust influencers’ opinions of products
much more than what brands say about themselves
 58% of people have bought a new product in the past six
months because of an influencer’s recommendation
For this reason, Iceland, a popular British supermarket chain,
switched from ads with celebrities to a campaign that features
real-life moms. Teaming up with YouTube community Channel
Mum, it now works with a number of vloggers to promote its
products in a more “authentic” fashion.

Influencer marketing is also going to be affected by artificial
intelligence. With each year, AI is making the process of finding
the right influencers to partner with easier and faster. It’s
helping identify those with better engagement, fewer fake
followers, and a higher chance of generating a positive return
on investment (ROI).

In addition, artificial intelligence is transforming influencer
marketing in the following ways:
 Image recognition with ANN (Artificial Neural Networks)
 Determining influencer performance with NLP (Natural
Language Processing)
 Predicting incentives with ANN
 Determining an influencer's influence
 Flagging posts that don’t follow disclosure guidelines
 Elimination of fake engagements and spam bots

8) Social Messaging Apps
If you think social messaging apps are just for sending emojis to
your friends, take a look at these numbers:

 1.3 billion monthly users are active on Facebook
Messenger:
 10 billion messages are sent between people and businesses
on Facebook Messenger every month
 WhatsApp has 1.6 billion active users and 55 billion
messages are sent via every day
 The top three social messaging apps – WhatsApp, Facebook
Messenger and WeChat – have more combined users than
Facebook or YouTube

These statistics show the popularity of social messaging apps,
and since people are spending more time messaging each other,
it makes sense to market your company’s products and services
where your potential customers are hanging out.
Social messaging apps can be very useful in sending messages
to customers directly, as they allow personalization and add
value to the user experience.
In addition, people expect businesses to have a presence on
messaging apps because it’s a direct and easy way to interact
with them.

Reasons for your brand to use messaging apps include:-
 Cultivate contact
 Deliver information
 Boost sales
 Involve people in events
 Regain potential customers
 Provide support and assistance

9) Visual Search
Visual search can take the user experience to a totally new level:
People can upload an image to conduct a search and get more
specific results.
As per Social Media Today:
 62% of Millennials are more interested in visual search
capabilities than any other new technology
 Images are returned for 19% of search queries on Google
 There are over 600 million visual searches on Pinterest each
month
 Marketers can get the edge on competitors by jumping on the
visual search trend in 2021 to draw customers and serve them
the perfect product.

10) Micro-Moments
A micro-moment is “An intent-rich moment when a person
turns to a device to act on a need – to know, go, do or buy.”
To take advantage of micro-moments in 2021, you need to be
where consumers are searching for information in the moment –
or, as Google puts it, marketers have to “be there, be useful, be
quick.”
The growing popularity of micro-moments means that
marketers must rethink the linear marketing funnel that follows
a set path: awareness, consideration and decision.

People generally make instant decisions within these four Micro-
Moments:

To get the most out of micro-moments in 2021, you should:
 Identify your consumers’“I want to buy” moments
 Be there in these moments of need
 Deliver relevant content
 Make it easy for them to make a purchase
 Measure every moment that matters

11) Voice Search & Smart Speakers
The increasing use of voice search has made it important for
companies to rethink their digital marketing strategies in
2021. Consider these numbers:
 50% of all searches will be via voice by 2020
 55% of all American homes will own a smart speaker by
2022
 72% of people who own voice-activated speakers say that
their devices are used as part of their daily routines
 Voice shopping is set to jump to $40 billion in 2022, up
from $2 billion today

Overall, people expect to be using voice search far more in the
future:
Voice search plays an important role in providing all the
relevant information that people are searching for through
audio content. AI is getting smarter and the number of errors
made by voice assistants like Alexa, Siri and Google has
reduced greatly.

12) Social Media Stories
First, Snapchat came out with the concept of “My Story,”
then Instagram and Facebook stories were introduced, and
then YouTube unveiled their own story format: Reels.
To keep it all straight, here’s a social media stories timeline:

The benefits of using social media stories include:
 Increased brand awareness
 Constant engagement with followers
 Cost-effectiveness
 Increased traffic to your web page
 Opportunity to reach younger audiences

Get inspired by some of these ways to use social media stories:
 Use polls within Instagram Stories
 Add links to your social media Stories
 Take advantage of Snapchat geofilters
 Add location tags
 Add mentions for other brands and your fans
 Give live video a try when creating Stories
 Invite followers to explore more with clear call-to-actions

13) Browser Push Notifications
Push notifications are on the rise, with 85% of online stores
using them last year. Consider these other stats:
 At least twice as many people sign up for web push
notifications compared to a newsletter.
 Only 10% of the best email marketers can achieve a
newsletter sign-up rate that matches the performance of web
push.
 6.4 hours is the average time that passes before the recipient
opens a newsletter. In the case of web push, the recipient will
see the message immediately.

14) Content Marketing Continues
to Dominate SEO
The advice from Google’s John Mueller is that “rather than
chase the latest SEO trends, it’s more important to ensure a site
has fast speeds, useful links, and well-written content.”
In fact, content marketing is so important that 88% of B2B
content marketers agree that creating content makes their
audience view their organization as a credible and trusted
resource:

Stats from Content Marketing Institute:
 Content marketing costs 62% less than outbound marketing
and generates 3x as many leads.
 Content marketing has lower up-front costs and deeper
long-term benefits than paid search.
 615 million devices now use ad blockers, which means your
ads are not being seen by as many people.
 Small businesses with blogs generate 126% more leads than
those without blogs.
 Content marketing rakes in conversion rates 6x higher than
other methods.

15) SEO A/B Split Testing
Modern marketing is all about testing and analysis. By
using SEO A/B split-testing, you can isolate the variables in
your campaign and easily identify which versions are driving
the results you need. This form of testing offers marketers a
methodical approach to making effective changes to their
content.
Platforms like ClickFlow suggest pages with untapped SEO
potential — a high-impression count but a low click-through
rate (CTR) — which you can then improve to increase traffic,
leads and, of course, conversions:

16) Social Commerce & Shoppable
Posts
With e-commerce and social media both growing at alarming
rates, it’s no wonder brands are using the two together to
maximize opportunities for sales.
In March of last year, Instagram unveiled Instagram Checkout,
which lets users complete their purchase from within Instagram:

E-commerce brands hope this will reduce the risk that
customers will abandon their purchase because they have to
switch apps or sign in to an unknown store.
By now you've heard that Instagram is hiding likes, and with
all the fuss, you'd think that the photo-sharing app was on the
decline. Think again.
Social media is integral to digital marketing, and visual
platforms like Instagram are gold for marketers. Better yet,
visual commerce is taking off as more consumers are willing to
buy products through ads they see in their feeds.

17) Interactive Content
Speaking of instant access, that brings us to one of the fastest-
growing digital marketing trends in recent times: interactive
content.
In 2021, we’re destined to see a shift from traditional text-
based content toward dynamic, engaging content that offers
users an immersive experience. For example, think about:
 Quizzes and polls
 Embedded calculators
 Augmented reality ads
 360-degree videos

18) Omnichannel Marketing
Omnichannel marketing was one of the buzzwords of 2020.
While the phrase may now seem a little worn out, the strategy is
as ripe and relevant as ever in 2021.
Omnichannel marketing is the process of marketing
across multiple platforms (such as social media, apps, email
and blog) so you can connect with prospects on more
touchpoints. When you do omnichannel marketing right, you
can offer an enhanced user experience and cohesive brand
message that drives people to action.

19) Augmented Reality (AR) &
Immersive Technologies
Gartner predicts that by 2022, 70% of enterprises will be
experimenting with immersive technologies, and 25% will have
deployed to production.
While virtual reality (VR) makes a lot of noise and gets everyone
excited with grand sci-fi ideas, AR is much more implementable
from a marketing standpoint.

20) Predictive & Augmented
Analytics
Predictive analytics is the practice of using data mining,
predictive modeling and machine learning to identify patterns
and attempt to predict the future. It is becoming more and more
sophisticated and widespread in many industries.
In terms of digital marketing trends, we will see a lot more of
this, as it is being used in advanced lead scoring, as well as for
segmentation and individual personalization, which helps
marketers reduce churn and improve customer loyalty.

21) Growth of Geo-Fencing
While the idea of marketing to people based on their location is
nothing new, we do expect an increase in the use of geo-fencing
– this market is set to grow to $2.4 billion by 2023 – along with
the rise of mobile use:
Geo-fencing allows real-time targeting based on a user’s
location. A target area is defined as, say, within a mile of a
restaurant, and when a user enters or leaves this area, they
receive a push notification, text message or another form of
marketing communication.

22) Progressive Web Apps
(PWAs)
Progressive Web Apps are essentially websites that work like
mobile apps. They offer the functionality of a native mobile app
– fast load times, push notifications, working offline, utilizing
device hardware, etc. – without being limited to one platform
(which in reality means Android or iOS).
This allows development teams to create web apps for any
device that works just like a mobile app.
PWAs are going to become ever-more prevalent as the mobile
revolution continues at pace.

23) User-Generated Content
(UGC)
User-generated content (UGC) is a potent resource for
marketers who want to tap into the Millennial and Gen Z
markets. You can encourage your audience to share unique
content by offering them an incentive, such as a discount, or
even partnering with them for a good cause.
Aerie, a women's clothing company, “made a pledge to stop
retouching photos of models in its bathing suits. And for every
Instagram user that posted an unedited photo of themselves in a
bathing suit (using the hashtag

24) Blockchain Technology
As defined by Blockgeeks:
“A blockchain is, in the simplest of terms, a time-stamped
series of immutable data records that is managed by a cluster
of computers not owned by any single entity. Each of these
blocks of data (i.e. block) is secured and bound to each other
using cryptographic principles (i.e. chain).”

25) Quantum Computing
Quantum computing is a new technology based on a quantum
physics theory, which asserts that subatomic particles exist in
more than one state simultaneously.
“Traditional computers store data in bits, which can exist in
one of two states: one or zero. Quantum computers, however,
use a new unit of measurement, a single atom known as a qubit
(literally ‘quantum bit’), which greatly increases the
computational power of a system.”

26) Big Data and Deep
Learning
In 2021, the world’s big data industry will continue to grow
exponentially, which is great news for marketers – if you know
how to harness the power of big data. A huge part of this task
comes down to the tools you use, which is something that a lot
of companies find challenging.

27) Automation (& AI)
Gartner projects that 30% of businesses will incorporate
artificial intelligence (AI) in their sales processes in 2021. In
fairness, we should expect more, especially when you
consider the amazing benefits of AI and automation for sales
and marketing:

For example, you can use artificial
intelligence and automation to:
 Improve Customer Retention and Loyalty
 Predict the Behavior of Your Customer with Propensity
Modeling and Predictive Analytics
 Use AI-Powered Chatbots to Improve User Experience
 Leverage the Power of Audience Insights to Boost Search
Ads
 Scale Up Your Content Marketing with AI-Generated
Content
 Deliver a Highly Personalized Website Experience to Every
User
 Optimize for Voice Search Queries

 Identify “Hot Leads”
 Reduce Cart Abandonment
 Target Customers Across Different Channels
 Boost Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
 Upsell and Cross Sell to Customers
 Improve Blogger Outreach
 Generate Leads from Thank You Pages
 Automatically Suggest Content to Visitors
 Identify Bottlenecks in Your Sales Pipeline
 Measure the Performance of Your Marketing Campaigns
 Maintain a Central Hub for all Your Marketing Activities
 Cut Costs and Save Time

28) Google Ads Smart Bidding
With intense competition on social media slowly suffocating
organic reach, paid advertising will become a more trusted
force in 2021. And when you consider the Smart Bidding feature
on Google Ads, you’d be a fool not to give it a try.
In other words, advertisers can hand the reins of their pay-per-
click (PPC) campaigns to Google’s AI system, which will then
optimize their budget to maximize their ROI.

This works for any number of PPC goals, including:-
 Target CPA – Generate new leads and customers for a
maximum cost per acquisition that you set.
 Target ROAS – Set your sights on getting the best return on
your advertising spend.
 Maximize Conversions – Rack up your advertising
conversion rates, whether your aim is to get more email
subscribers, downloads, or product sales.

Smart bidding allows you to use many different signals for your
bid optimization, including:-
 Device
 Physical location
 Location intent
 Weekday and time of day
 Remarketing list
 Ad characteristics
 Interface language
 Browser
 Operating system

Some of these signals are available as manual bid adjustments,
but other signals (and combinations of signals) are only
available via Smart Bidding:
The bottom line is that with Smart Bidding running the show,
marketers will have more free time to focus on strategy,
copywriting, and analytics.

29) SERP Position Zero
For the past couple of years, voice search has been causing
waves, changing the way search engine optimization works.
Most notable is the rise of the featured snippet, which appears
in the highly coveted “position zero” in Google’s search engine
results pages.
In 2021, at least 30% of all Internet searches will be conducted
without a screen, and since 40.7% of all voice search answers
come from a featured snippet, if your marketing is strong
enough, you could be the one hitting that coveted spot.

This trend is growing, with 62.5% of mobile searches and 34.4%
of desktop searches now resulting in “zero-click search” results.
Because of this, more marketers will invest their resources in On-
SERP SEO, which is the practice of optimizing web pages with
the goal of claiming as much space in Google SERPs as
possible. This boosts your click-through rate (CTR), driving
more organic traffic to your site and increases the likelihood of
claiming the top spot.

30) Branding
We live in a time when consumers are spoiled for choice. It
doesn’t matter what niche you’re in – it’s unlikely that you
operate in a vacuum. 66% of consumers say that they feel
connected to a brand whenever they trust it, and to earn
their trust, you have to establish a solid brand.
The reason branding is so important now is because of Google’s
E.A.T. ranking factor, which stands for:
 Expertise: the page needs to have quality content written by
an expert writer
 Authority: the site itself needs to have some authority on the
subject
 Trustworthiness: the site needs to have other authoritative
links pointing to it from trusted sites

In essence, Google wants to do more than rank good content;
they are catering to the user experience by demanding the most
accurate, up-to-date, well-researched (i.e. authoritative)
content on any given topic, preferably created by true experts in
the field.
If Jimmy’s Medical Blog (not a real site) gives some bad advice
that leads to a mom poisoning her child with some amateur
advice on home remedies, that’s not good for Jimmy’s brand –
or Google’s reputation of delivering quality results. So as the
new year progresses and SEO evolves, Google may crack down
on major industries, particularly in health and finance where
accurate information is critical.

31) Better Analytics
Modern marketing and metrics go hand-in-hand, so if you’re
not investing in better analytics, you’ll struggle to drive the
results you want to see. The problem, however, is that the
customer journey is more complex now. We live in an
omnichannel age where the average consumer engages a brand
on up to six touchpoints before making a purchase.
With multiple channels to manage and a myriad of ways to
market your products and services, the job of analytics tracking
is fast becoming a gargantuan mission. As a result, many
companies are looking beyond the basics of Google
Analytics for a comprehensive business intelligence solution or
analytics dashboard like Amplitude:

32) 5G Technology
In a world gone mad for mobile, arguably one of the most
significant digital marketing trends of 2021 is the dawn of 5G
technology, or fifth generation of mobile technology. This update
heralds a new era of digital communications and its impact will
be felt across virtually every industry.
“5G will enable a fully-mobile and connected
society — unleashing human and technological
possibility, and fuelling business and financial
opportunity.”

“The arrival of 5G may also finally bring millions of rural
consumers into the high-speed data lanes where marketers
increasingly sell their products. It might even disrupt the digital
duopoly of Google and Facebook by arming telecom companies
with unprecedented data for ad services.”

33) Privacy Marketing
It’s clear that the people (but not the companies) of the world
are getting serious about privacy, and marketers – who rely on
those people – have no choice but to play by the new rules or
miss out. One of the new rules is that marketers and brands will
have to “‘earn' the contact information of their targets” rather
than engage in mass marketing. As Forbes points out:

Some of the ways brands can earn consumers' trust is by:
 Researching and understanding our audience(s)
 Developing a relevant message to get an audience to
engage
 Finding the right channel to engage with that specific
audience
 Developing an “intimate” relationship through thoughtful
engagement

34) Website Security
In the same breath as privacy, we need to mention website
security.
When a visitor lands on your site for the first time, they’ll make
up their mind about your security within seconds. If they don’t
feel safe, they won’t hang around, which leads to increased
bounce rates. Over time, a high bounce rate is bad news for
your business, as you’ll slide down in the SERPs when Google
realizes that people don’t want to stay long on your site.

In 2021, website security is no longer an option. As of August
2014, Google announced that HTTPS is a ranking signal and
flags every site as unsafe unless it has an HTTPS (the “S”
stands for “secure”) certification:
From now on, the bare minimum is to enable the HTTPS
protocol for your site, which will show your visitors a little
green padlock icon in the URL:

In addition, prominently displaying a security seal of trust or
trust badge on your website will reassure your site visitors that
you take their safety seriously:

35) IoT Advertising
Never mind our mobile devices and laptops – from smart cars
to household appliances to wearable tech, the Internet of
Things (IoT) is getting more and more connected:

“These days, it’s expected that connected devices
and technologies will unobtrusively, and
sometimes stealthily, collect data on our vital
functions, what we do, where we go, what we
share, what we believe, what we buy, who we know,
how we move and even what we eat.”

Which means, of course, that brands and marketers want to
use (or are already using) this data for their own business and
advertising purposes. For example:
 Johnnie Walker has a Blue Label bottle with built-in
electronic sensors that can tell if the bottle has been opened
and where it is in the supply chain.
 Malibu, another drinks company, takes it a step further,
using their “connected” bottles as digital touchpoint to
promote exclusive content.
And as 5G technology matures, more IoT devices will present
more on-demand content for consumers and more advertising
opportunities for marketers

36) Long-Form Content
In 2021, shorter posts won’t get you anywhere – with Google
or your audience. Typically, posts that are at least 3,000 words
long attract the most traffic, as they offer readers an in-depth
exploration of topics. Long-form content allows content
creators to establish themselves as an expert on a subject and
gives them more scope for targeting keywords.
According to Small Biz Trends, 56% of bloggers generate a
better ROI on their content when they spend over six hours
creating a single blog post. That may seem excessive, but when
it attracts more traffic, increases on-page time, and boosts
your organic search rankings, it’s a great business investment.

The benefits of long-form or pillar content are:
 Longer time spent on your site’s pages. The more content
available for users to consume, the more time they’ll spend
doing so.
 A decrease in bounce rate. If users find what they’re
looking for on your page, they won’t go back to Google to
find another source.
 Backlinks and a ton of social media shares. Pillar pages get
shared widely and often, especially among influencers in a
given space.
 Gets traffic throughout the lifetime of your blog or
website. Pillar content is evergreen content, so its value
doesn’t diminish over time.

37) Semantic Keyword Research
Here’s something you need to keep in mind when you’re
creating long-form content: You must write for people, not for
Google.
Banging out a 5,000-word post every other day is great, but you
won’t see the results you’re hoping for if you don’t keep user
intent in mind. Also known as search intent or keyword intent,
this is the main goal that a person has when they type or speak
a search query. It could be to find a product, information or a
store location.

Think about how Google analyzes your content. The search
engine doesn’t just evaluate keywords in a search box; it
considers the content of a query and drills down to determine
the user search intent. In this example below, if someone were
searching for a missing cat, Google would use semantic analysis
to include concepts like:
 Related concepts (i.e. “pets” not just “cats”; “lost”, not just
“missing”; “pet shelters” and “animal control centers”)
 Related areas
 Other possible ways to help you out

This analysis is called semantic search, and with AI and voice
search on a meteoric rise, it’s becoming a more central aspect
of how search works.
Content marketers can leverage this to their benefit by going
beyond their primary keyword to include related terms,
questions and phrases in their content. Together, these latent
semantic keywords will give Google a much better
understanding of the nature of your content, as well as the
solutions and benefits it offers to users.

38) Social Media
Marketing
In 2021, we'll see brands tapping more into the potential of
video and interactive content on social media to get attention,
but they must follow it up by being authentic on their social
channels, and by working hard to nurture a community of
engaged, loyal followers.
“If your business wants to survive in organic social media in
2021, I believe that this sort of humanization of your brand
will be necessary.”

From Social Media Today, here are some social media
trends to keep an eye on:
 Facebook Pay: Launched in the U.S. in November 2019,
this payment feature would “facilitate on-platform
payments, in-stream, making it easier for people to buy
products on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and
Messenger.”
 Facebook Watch: Facebook's own video-on-demand
service.
 Oculus: VR technology that makes social media more
interactive, which Facebook is touting as “the next
evolution of social.”

 Instagram removing likes: In response the growing
realization of the adverse effects on mental health,
Instagram is focusing on better humanization of their
brand.
 IGTV: Instagram's long-form video platform is not new, but
will probably get another push in 2021.
 Twitter's mDAU: A new monthly and daily active user
metric called “monetizable daily active users,” a move to
clean up its platform from bots.
 Tweet streaming: A new live-streaming feature.
 LinkedIn groups: Similar to Facebook Groups. Not exactly
a new feature, but LinkedIn may try to push it again next
year.

Digital marketing is made up of a lot of moving parts. You
can increase visibility and organic traffic through SEO,
and build a brand with your social media presence.
Marketing automation can save you time and provide more
personalized engagement. Managing PPC can mean
“jumping the line” on search engine result pages.