In 2020, Influencer marketing became an important part of marketing spends for most brands. It became more than a “good to have” component in brands’ efforts to stay relevant and close to the audience.
Content creators and influencers made fabulous use of the limited resources and settings they had access to during the pandemic. Having set a good precedent for quality and salience, let’s have a look at what 2021 might have in store for the audiences on social media:
Video Content Remains King
The visual mode is the easiest form of content consumption – 0 effort to visualize (unlike reading long posts). Also, video is an extremely entertaining and engaging mode of communication! The more authentic, in the moment, less “curated”, the better.
Micro and Nano Influencers To Take Center Stage
The kind of engagement and connect offered by micro and nano influencers is phenomenal, despite limited reach. They are more relatable and authentic to their audiences. Moreover, brand’s budgets having taken a hit due to a pandemic, they might want to make the most of their limited budgets using influencers with a limited yet valuable reach.
Longer Brand – Influencer Partnerships
With reduced attention spans among audiences, and the commercial message clutter on social media, brands could consider longer relationships with influencers to promote their products and services, so as to reach the consumers at multiple touches and touchpoints. Trust and commitment will be essential.
Platform Agnostic Audiences
Audiences are now present on multiple social media platforms, and they’re quickly adopting to newer digital mediums.
For brands to make their campaigns reach wider audiences and connect to them, they need to be present on multiple platforms and use each platform’s features to their own advantage.
Diversity and Inclusivity
Content creators and influencers are closest to the consumers, and they have understood the social activism around the lack of inclusivity in representation. They want to make content for their not very homogenous audiences.
Influencer marketing can also be the most effective medium to shift preconceived ideas. We can also anticipate more diversity in content creators.
Data, data and Data
You’ve already heard this enough. Influencer marketing gives brands access to a pandora’s box of consumer data. These brands could use this data to further target and personalise their communication online and even offline.
Authentic and Less “Curated” Content
Again considering the pandemic we have been through, the limited resources and production for content brought about enhanced creativity and authentic content from influencers, that the audiences easily connected to. Audiences are moving away from perfection to being more real.
Do you know of more interesting trends we should look out for in 2021? Let us know in the comments below!
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