Road To 2021: 6 trends that will define social media marketing in 2021

Experts in the Indian A & M sector dissect the uncertain year that went by to provide trends foreseen and equip the social media marketing industry with the altered state of business as usual in 2021.

The specialists in their genres give a brief overview of elements such as performance, content, influencer-integration, and more, which give us a compilation of the social media marketing trends in 2021.

Multiple Selling Propositions

The marketing concept from the broadcasting era - The USP, that helped brands differentiate themselves from its competition would need to be transformed to MSPs, or multiple selling propositions that will place the brand in appearing as a provider of various solutions for diverse consumers.

Vishal Nicholas, EVP & Head – Strategy, dentsu India shares, "When you personalize communications to different segments, you aren’t focusing on the lowest common denominator anymore, you instead need MSPs or Multiple Selling Propositions that have the desired effect on each segment which may have very different need states".

An Indian Original

Original content pieces on OTT platforms that narrate tales from the heartland would grow at a faster pace. In the last two years, particularly 2020, regional content and mainline cinematic creators have been creating and distributing stories that are native to the country or inspired by an event back home.

"Add to the fact that we are finally creating original Indian content like Scam 1992, which is not the Indian version of a global format/show but a quintessentially Indian tale", adds Karthik Nagarajan, Chief Content Officer, Wavemaker India.

This provides opportunities for brands to create authentic propositions that merge with the content's narrative. For instance, the Shakuntala Devi X Parle-G collaboration tapping the genius of the mathematician. The OTT audience can be tapped on both AVOD & SVOD platforms, followed by multi-channel amplifications.

Influencer-Driven Creative Control

While influencer marketing has been largely driven towards awareness, the frequency of influencer campaigns and mismatch of brand-influencers often leads to ineffective communication.

Anupama Ramaswamy, Managing Partner & National Creative Director, dentsu Impact, reckons we may see this change with influencer marketing. "Consumers are wary of influencers and consider them to be mouthpieces of brands. While brands prefer to maintain creative control when working with influencers and I believe this will shift towards influencer-driven storytelling", she adds.

Also Read: 7 AR Campaigns that add the C to ‘Cool’

Disclosure on Sponsored Content

Pranay Swarup, CEO & Founder, Chtrbox states, "Disclosure of sponsored content will start to become the norm, which will further help build trust with consumers". An observation from international markets sparked this speculation.

In October 2020, Adam Mosseri, CEO, Instagram announced that the platform is planning on a few developments in making sure users know when creators are getting paid for the posts.

Voice & Video Optimization

Alexa… is slowly becoming a prefix of many queries; voice-based search has grown to prominence - and these trends would continue to widen.

Sachin Kumar, Founder, Bottle Openers Digital Solutions says, "This AI advancement is set to impact search queries because voice search keywords tend to greatly differ from regular ones. It’s best to focus on longer terms, natural and conversational phrases and question-type queries as these are most abundant in voice search".

The unrelenting growth of video, AR, VR, and the increasing competition calls for meticulous optimization and improved discoverability through optimization in title, description, and tags. Keyword-research and tracking trends would help one use this tactic.

Cost Per Lead <<<<<< Cost Per Acquisition

The stringent scrutiny of investments in advertising has magnified the economic crunch and every rupee would need to generate return going forward; this performance marketing will become marketing in 2021.

Deven Dharamdasani, CEO, SVG Media adds, “Performance channels must be measured beyond one month of retention and they should give indirect benefits to channels that build or increase their organic growth. Insights through data mining will aid the goal.”

The available options such as biddable media, direct display media partnerships, and several other performance channels need to serve the brand for the long term and build brand loyalty that can enable a brand to survive any pandemic or recession.

Brands would expect marketing to generate a consumer base in addition to engagement.

As brands and agencies gear up to ace the year of recovery & hope, we at Social Samosa with AliveNow Creative Tech Studio SAMMIE BSMB are all set to acknowledge and appreciate the work executed by humane brands in an exceptionally difficult year.