Social Media and Content? What to Focus on in 2021

2020 unsettled everyone, including marketers. People were sick, the market was sick. Many predictions have not come true, but not all. Today we will be more careful with the assumptions. And let’s immediately give a consoling spoiler: analysts say that no matter how painful and upsetting it may be in 2020, the digital marketing and sales market will grow up next year. So go ahead, online entrepreneurs!

Social media and content

Firstly, as in 2020, UGC remains in trend – content created by users. However, now brands do not just take content from customers, readers, viewers, but mix it with branded content. So, for example, did the online booking service Airbnb. Marketers have collected videos from hosts about how they are going through the pandemic and made a branded video for the service. UCG is getting more recognition, especially from YouTube. Influencers gain subscribers naturally on YouTube with help of the ‘shorts’.

Secondly, users increasingly appreciate the care taken by brands, bloggers, and companies. 78% of people want the goods and services offered to them to correspond to the four Cs : Community, Contactless, Cleanliness and Compassion . An excellent example of the first and last “C” is the video of the “Tochka” bank.

The popularity of memes is growing . Yes, yes, the sense of humor has not gone anywhere and helps to get through hard times. According to statistics, 55% of people 18-35 years old send memes to their comrades at least once a week. 

SEO (Google, YouTube, etc.)

Artificial intelligence continues its offensive. Search engine algorithms are getting smarter, they cannot be fooled by outdated and unscrupulous SEO techniques like bulk link buying on all sites indiscriminately or non-unique and unstructured content with keywords crammed out of place. The Google search algorithm is now based on the principles of EAT – Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness (expertise, authority, trust). These criteria must be met by your site and content.

2021 will bring us an increase in the number of voice search queries . Siri, Alexa and Marousi have reigned in homes, and you need to learn how to optimize voice search queries. Keep in mind that voice searches use longer phrases than print. Queries are like everyday speech (for example, instead of “SEO trends”, people will say “What will be the trends in SEO optimization of sites in 2021”). There are already articles on the Internet about SEO-optimization of sites for voice search. 

In 2019, Google launched indexing for mobile search queries. For a reason: experts predict that by 2025, 72% of users will go online from gadgets. This means that if you don’t already have a mobile-optimized version of the site (you can check it here ), you are losing a huge part of your profit. We advise you to take up this business in 2021.

In addition, since spring 2020, Google is taking into account the UX metrics of the site. These are the speed of loading pages, the convenience of the interface elements and site navigation, the structure and readability of the content. There are a lot of materials on the net on how to improve the usability of a site, for example this one . Use it in practice.

Plus, Google is showing more and more videos for almost any request, including those in the zero search block. Therefore, focus on SEO-optimization of videos: correctly write titles and video descriptions, put suitable previews, monitor engagement. Detailed tips are here.