COVID-19, Pandemic, Black Lives Matter, Instagram Reels, Lockdown, Unlock, Mental Health, Stock Market, Trump, China, India, Work From Home, DIY, Cooking, Recipes…
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, all these things are a part of your day-to-day life today. Whether you switch on the television, browse through your social media feed, or even talk to someone over the phone — I’ll be surprised if at least one, if not all, are a part of it.
Well, these are called ‘trending’ topics or the latest social media trends for a reason!
So what do all these recent social media trends mean for a business? How does a business get involved, be associated, or get with the trends?
More importantly, how does one keep up?
It can be overwhelming, especially today when people across the globe are connected digitally. Something big might happen in one corner of the world and within minutes the world (the internet!) is talking about it. Social Media platforms play a huge role in this wide and quick spread of information.
Let me put this up first — if you’re a business and you want to be a part of this ever-buzzing world of social media you need to stay fresh, relevant and at the top of your game.
Latest Social Media Trends — Old Isn’t Gold!
You may have the most creative idea to highlight one of the latest social media trends, but if it’s not fresh no one’s interested. It’s the same as wishing people a ‘Happy New Year’ in March! In social media terms, everything needs to be done yesterday!
Take, for example, you’re an e-commerce store that sells quirky stationery items. Every year you launch a new line of planners and calendars for the new year in January. But, this year, for whatever reason you launch your yearly planners and calendars in June.
Do you think the sales will be the same as every year? Sure, there may be some people who may still like the design or simply decide to buy it, but the majority of your existing and potential customers have moved on. New year planners and calendars are too old now!
Social Media Marketing works for a business in the same way. Every post you create and publish needs to be fresh and relevant to what the internet is talking about. Old or irrelevant content will not catch your audience’s eyes and will more often than not be ignored, or worse drive people to unfollow you and look for ‘fresher’ options.
You need to keep out a keen eye for the latest social media trends to be able to consistently keep creating fresh content that resonates with your audience, and urges them to keep coming back for more.
How do you do that? Well, here are 7 tips to help you create a buzzing social media strategy.
7 Tips To Keep Up With The Latest Social Media Trends
Keeping up with all the recent trends in social media trends is not an easy task, but with a little planning, the right resources, and right creative thinking you can nail it! With that, let’s jump in and look at 7 tips to keep up with the latest social media trends:
Tip 1: Pick and Choose Your Battles (trends!)
While you may want to be a part of every trend on social media, you don’t have to. Your social media marketing will only be effective when you say something relevant — this includes relevance in content, as well as the relevancy to your brand. For example, if you run a restaurant, your audience may not necessarily want to hear from you about the recent ‘Glow and Lovely’ debate. You’re not the same industry, your services are different, and unless you have a personal story to share it may come out as ‘trying too hard’. In such a case, the best thing to do is to support other brands that are making more relatable and relevant content. You can use features like Instagram Stories to share relevant content from other brands and individuals.
Tip 2: Listening (tools) is key
First, listen, then speak… an age-old life lesson. This holds true for social media too. Listening tools or social listening is monitoring your brand’s online presence to tap into your customer’s sentiments. There are special listening tools that let you know what people are saying about your brand, how people are talking about relevant keywords for your brand and deeply understand how people are talking on social media. This helps you finetune your social media strategy and create content that resonates with your audience. For example, if you find that more people are looking for ‘contactless delivery options’ from e-commerce stores during this time of the pandemic, if you still haven’t you can think about tailoring your services and letting your audience know through social media that you have made this possible for them.
Tip 3: Stay On-Brand
Every brand has a unique style, voice, look and feel. You need to find that and then create a strong brand identity that people remember. As important as it is to create good content for your social media audience, it’s equally important how you present that content. It’s as simple as, when you look at a big yellow ‘M’ no matter where in the world you are, you know there’s a McDonalds somewhere near you. In the same way, when you have an impactful and consistent brand voice, tone and visual presence your audience will instantly connect with you. Additionally, your on-brand aspects must be relevant to your specific audience. For example, if you cater to the young GenZ, using terms like ‘on fleek’ will have the desired effect. Whereas, an older target audience may not necessarily connect with the young lingo. Know your audience to create an on-brand presence.
Tip 4: Robust and Relentless Approach
People consume social content in different ways. I for one, use Instagram stories to stay updated with what people and brands are doing, whereas on Facebook I prefer scrolling through my feed. Like me, most people usually have a personal preference in the way they consume content and you need to be out there in a robust way to get everyone’s attention. Don’t stick to one format, and keep exploring new ways to connect with your audience. Closely monitor what works best for your audience and tailor your social media marketing strategy accordingly. Instagram Stories and Reels, Facebook Stories, Video Content, Polls and Quizzes, Hashtags, Discussions and Debates — explore all the possibilities, cater to all and relentlessly keep at it.
Tip 5: Pencil it in!
This is probably one of the most critical aspects of keeping your social feed fresh and relevant. Creating a detailed social media marketing calendar allows you to be more organized, better prepared, and also leaves room for additional last-minute needs. Say, for example, you have built out your calendar for the whole month and have designed and created the posts, well in advance to be automatically scheduled. Now, in case something new and trending happens across the globe you have the bandwidth to creatively use it to your advantage. On the other hand, if you do not have a detailed calendar you will end up being inconsistent, compromising on creative quality and may even end up missing out one some great content that could have gotten the desired attention. Always, always create a plan and prepare in advance.
Tip 6: Build Excitement Leading To Important Updates
While in real life surprises are best when sprung last minute, on social media, it might not have the same impact. If you have something exciting coming up, like a sale, a promotion, a new video or movie, or an event, build excitement leading to it so there are more people hooked on by the time the final release happens. The problem is that there is just so much content being uploaded every single second, chances of people missing out on your posts must be factored in. However, if people already know something exciting is about to come up, they will keep an eye out for it, and may even take the effort of going to your social media page to ensure they haven’t missed out on your big reveal.
Tip 7: Repurpose To Stay Fresh — Yes!
It might sound contradictory, but there’s a lot of effort and thinking that must go into creating a social media post, and if it resonates with your audience, and is relevant, why not bring it back! Additionally, it’s possible that something you created a year ago, is more relevant and relatable today. Repurpose old content in creative ways so they remain fresh. For example, if you created a video last year that is relevant now, you can use catch-phrases or quotes from it to create posts, or even take a snippet from it to create a short and interesting video/GIF. It’s your content and you have complete freedom and liberty to repurpose it in creative ways as long as it keeps your social feed fresh and relevant.
Get Buzzing
The world of social media is always buzzing — you can create the next big buzz!
While you must aim to keep up with the latest social media trends, you can also create your own trends. You know your industry, and you know what is trending within your industry so use that knowledge and expertise to create something that creates an impact. Staying fresh and relevant is all about knowing what your audience wants from you, what they’re looking for and how well it enhances your brand voice.
Put these 7 tips to practice and create an impactful social media presence.
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