Identifying social media trends for 2021 is a challenge.
Social Media Detox will will continue to be a growing trend. Especially when the coronavirus threat is over and we all start enjoying the freedom and pleasures of life offline. In addition, we will feel the excess of websites such as Facebook or Instagram.

The quality of communication on social networks will decline.
The pandemic has hit almost every business and agency with hiccups. The losses are large in most cases, so you should cut your spending wherever you can. Of course, it is easier to do this where it is difficult to measure success and translate it into results. Therefore, activities focused on communication and content production come first. No one will subtract budgets from SEM or even social media advertising.

Is it possible to count the profits generated by a post on Facebook or Instagram? This will not be the case. As a result, agencies will lose clients who neglect communication activities and deal with them alone. Communication on social media has long been a low-margin business. To compensate for the losses, agencies will have to lay off employees and take jobs for small (that is, up to 2-3 thousand monthly fees). This will lead to an increase in the occupancy rate of each employee. They will have to create more content at the same time than before. Some brands will also drop the production of premium content in the form of live coverage, video, or even infographics. All of this will lead to an avalanche of unwanted content that will not be engaging and pose a greater risk of image crisis.

However, these savings are obvious. Any more knowledgeable and experienced marketer (at least 5% of the industry) knows that cutting communication budgets is like bringing a ventilator to a patient with Covid19. We are shortening the consumer’s shopping journey through other touchpoints, which will negatively impact SEM campaign results and social media after just a few weeks.

Automation of advertising processes
The tools for creating and running paid social media campaigns are extremely simple. All you have to do is learn a few tips and tricks and at least everyone can do a decent job posting an ad. In addition, the Facebook and Instagram advertising system optimizes the campaigns for us.
Our X-Multi-Channel eCommerce SaaS can help you to post ads.

There is a problem with this optimization. We’ve always been intrigued by the mythical phrase “we’ll show your ad to those who are most likely to click on it”. We are not sure if we want to hit and spend the budget for “eager to click” people. Are these “clickers” promising customers? You may remember how Facebook rated the effectiveness and quality of ads on a 10-point scale. Agencies have swam in reports that their ads each have 10 points, which is the maximum score. Social media specialists recommended turning off every ad, which was less than quality rating 8. Meanwhile, in complex ecommerce campaigns, the best conversion was achieved by ads with a quality rating of 1.
Why? Because Facebook measures the effectiveness of an advertisement with the degree of engagement (left by reaction or comment). Sometimes it’s better to have a specific lead for a few dollars than 10 likes under a post or a flock of “clickers” for pennies a coin.

So let us don’t hope to have control over the audience and the placement for our ads. Facebook gives us this illusion because we can define the demographics and interests of your target audience. However, there are plenty of other behavior metrics, filters, and predictions that only Facebook knows about.

In short, the role of marketers will be limited to two decisions: whether to advertise and for how much. Artificial intelligence will cover the rest.

A politically correct approach will change social media
The Internet and social media were supposed to be a medium for free people. They were supposed to give the opportunity to express oneself freely. Everyone had the opportunity to express their convictions, points of view, etc. But the companies hadn’t entered the network with their money yet, and the major players today were not listed giants worth billions of dollars.

We understand the fight against content that breaks the law or is fake news. We should removing or blocking them before they are published. Today, each side is trying to calm down the the other. Request that their content be removed. You can’t disagree, you can’t share all of your observations. This leads to two things. First of all, we fall into the so-called information bubbles (also called rabbit holes in “Social Dilemma”). We only receive information on the one hand, we do not have to deal with counter-arguments on the other hand. Over time, we surround ourselves with more and more friends who think like us, have similar attitudes. We read websites that provide views that match our cognitive schema. We talk in groups with like-minded people. Unfortunately, in the years to come, we will burrow more and more into our own burrows.

The second effect of political correctness in social media will be the leakage of many web creators from major social platforms such as Facebook and Youtube. To keep big brands’ money, social media blocks and removes anything they might not like. And so, there is a growing number of disgruntled creators on Youtube who cannot make money from advertising because their content is considered too controversial. Many video content producers are seriously considering starting their own websites in order to have full control over content and be independent.

The Facebook ad manager has also been doing pretty good things for several months now, blocking ads or even entire accounts for some weird and unclear reasons. In addition, the list of things that should not be shown and communicated in advertising keeps growing. Let’s be honest – freedom in social media exists within the limits imposed by brands and businesses.

Development of virtual reality
Facebook is very active in the field of virtual reality. In addition to very good headsets, Mark Zuckerberg’s website connects VR with data more and more. For example, by the requirement to have a Facebook account. The headsets themselves sell like hot cakes – there is no need to even run an advertising campaign at this point. Of course, Sony or HTC do not want to be left behind. Microsoft also wants to compete for the virtual reality market.

Pandemic and all kinds of lockdowns are driving virtual reality. First, boredom. Often it is she who pushes us to embrace new technologies. Secondly, VR gives a new type of experience in communing with other people and the possibility of creating closer relationships. If you are afraid that artificial intelligence will lead to wars straight from the Terminator series, then you should also expect virtual reality to introduce us to the world known from the Matrix.Of course, the current technology is not yet advanced enough to make this vision a reality in at least 3 years. Headsets are still quite bothersome when used for a long time, they consume a lot of energy. However, each person who owns them becomes an who is popularizing this technology among friends.

What trends in social media do you see?
In our waiting room there is also Pinterest, as a place where marketers will direct their eyes. This website is free from negative contexts or fake news.

Exporis Digital Marketing Team.