Social media marketing post-COVID: marketers predict the future

Social Media Today, the world’s top social media thought-leaders, in July 2020, predicted what a post-COVID social media marketing industry might look like. This is taken from emerging trends that have come to light since the start of the year, in which most of humanity has spent at least a bit of time under government-enforced lockdowns. What will the social media marketing landscape look like once we put 2020 to bed and start again in 2021?

Here are five predictions:

Video content will be king

Even before the 2020 Great Lockdown, marketers were predicting that video content will explode by 2021 – and all the signs are pointing to this becoming a fact. Video sharing apps like Youtube and TikTok have experienced massive spikes in downloads since the start of the pandemic. TikTok alone was downloaded 115 million times in March alone.

Authenticity will be critical

As countless demonstrations and protests across the planet recently have proven, the people are sick and tired of having the wool pulled over their eyes. Brands will have to be authentic by default in the social media marketing world of tomorrow, offering followers an unfiltered human side that will help garner positive customer relationships.

Rapidly changing consumer needs

Commercial structures rely on supply and demand to remain in place. If we want to grow our customer base, we’ll need to satisfy the demands of the consumers. COVID-19 has shown that our needs change as our environment changes. Brands should be keeping an eye on current affairs, especially topics that impact on their social media target audiences.

Social consciousness on the rise

We currently live in a ‘conscious’ era, when the vast majority of people have a cause that they align themselves with. It could be global warming or violence against women and children. Regardless, being empathetic and aware of the target audience’s values and loyalties will help brands succeed at social media marketing is the “new normal” tomorrow.

More social listening required

Lockdowns forced business owners away from their stores and into their homes. They were forced to find other revenue streams, which lead them to e-commerce and social media marketing. There is tons of competition entering the digital marketing world at the moment, so brands will need to keep an eye on both their and their competitors’ performance on social media to stay relevant.

While the above predictions give an idea of what thought-leaders believe will happen after COVID-19, digital marketing is – by its very nature – always evolving. Nobody knows for sure what will happen to the marketing industry, but one certain thing is that now is a great time to get qualified in social media marketing.

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