For this episode of the Earned Media Podcast, we’re joined by 3 top social media influencers to discuss the new Talkwalker 2021 Social Media Trends Report, which predicts the top 10 social media marketing trends for the next year.

Gini Dietrich – Founder of Spin Sucks, creator of the PESO Model, co-author of Marketing in the Round and co-host of Inside PR and The Agency Leadership podcast.

Neal Schaffer – who helps businesses maximize the effectiveness of their social outreach efforts as a speaker, author, trainer, and consultant. His 4th and latest book, The Age of Influence, was published earlier this year by HarperCollins.

Christina Garnett – Through inbound marketing and audience intelligence, she creates strategy playbooks and visual intelligence reports to help clients to produce content that resonates with their audience.

Talkwalker is a powerful social media analytics platform. Their report showcases the top trends from experts and surveys them with consumers to rate how they'll impact brands. 

10. Remixing is on the rise thanks to apps like TikTok, Koji and Instagram reels.

9. The 4 C's of COVID-19 content – Community, contactless, cleanliness and compassion will be governing content marketing principles.

8.  Memes are big among younger generations. We discuss mimetic media, and how brands will use memes to connect with customers.

7. Nostalgia content. During times of uncertainty and economic downturn, with consumers looking back on happier times, brands will use demographics to align with nostalgic content that appeals to their target personas.

6. Conversational marketing engages customers through conversation, chatbots, social messaging, Zoom calls, and other live interactions. The panel shares how content agencies will leverage conversational marketing next year.

5.  During the lockdown, people turned to video games as another form of distraction. And video games present tremendous opportunities to brands that understand and appreciate these communities and cultures.

4. We’ll see a rise in old school marketing tactics as a result of marketplace uncertainty.

3. Which social networking platforms will be dominant?

2. How will digital disinformation impact brands?

1. What opportunity do socially conscious audiences present?

Neal stressed the growing importance of brand ambassadors and how Talkwalker with social media monitoring. 

On memes, Christina says as long as you’re ready to laugh at yourself, you’re good; otherwise it’s best to steer clear. 

Regarding how brands can leverage their conversational marketing, Gini says build that by community and conversation, you build trust and brand equity, so if you screw up, you can say “okay, let’s fix it and move on.” 

Videogames are huge now, and Christina explained how communities such as Fortnite have become a “living ad.” 

On Old School tactics, Neal brought up how brands have had to reset their marketing and message, and all of a sudden we’re seeing great customer education content. He pointed out that content for social media doesn’t have a very long lifespan, while the opposite happens with blogs, YouTube videos or podcasts.

Regarding the #1 marketing trend is socially conscious audiences, Christina says it’s easy to say that you have a great culture and that you’re forward-thinking, but it’s harder to actually be those things. She cited the example of Coinbase, which lost a lot of their staff because the company told employees not to talk about BLM. 

For Neal, if these issues are important to your audience, you’ve got to have a voice and take a stand. This can involve efforts like redoing packaging, rebranding names, etc.

Reference Links:

• CXPR with Brian Snyder, Executive Digital Director at Golin
  
  
• Intellectual Property and Digital Usage Rights Training
  
  
• Subscribe to the Earned Media Podcast
  
  
• Talkwalker 2021 Social Media Trends Report