Is it even worth predicting 2021? Well, yes, for business sake. Here we’ve collected the most important things to note, from the leaders in social strategy at Social Media Today, Hubspot, Social Media Examiner, Sprout Social and Influencer Marketing Hub. 

Get in touch if you’d like our help to make your accounts more sophisticated in 2021. 

1. eCommerce will be a major focus for Facebook next year. After expediting ‘Shops’ on Instagram and Facebook this year, there’s a suggestion that Facebook will be looking at expanding Facebook Pay, which has been rolled out in the US. Facebook Pay lets you ‘Add your preferred payment method once then use Facebook Pay where available to make payments and purchases on our apps (FB, Messenger, Whatsapp, Instagram), instead of having to re-enter your payment information each time’. 

2. Instagram will look to continue the development of its shopping tools in order to further encourage habitual shopping behaviour - expect Instagram to add advanced one-click purchasing, new AR try-on tools, building on its existing AR shopping options (and potentially linked into Facebook's AR glasses), and video tags for products, providing more ways for businesses and creators to facilitate direct buying.

3. Expect TikTok to add in a lot more eCommerce tools as it seeks more ways to maximize its revenue, and revenue-share.

4. Expect Instagram to try out a new approach to user home feeds in 2021, based on how individual users enjoy the platform, with some opening on Reels, others on Shops and others on Stories, with the option to switch back to the usual feed. This would mean that the main Instagram feed would lose focus.  

5. In November 2020, Instagram announced it would become more search-friendly. Now, without the use of hashtags, if you search for a keyword in the search bar, relevant videos, profiles, and posts should populate. Enabling a more organic search, brands should plan captions carefully to include keywords.

6. Instagram has made a splash with Reels and these will grow to become more sophisticated. Stay ahead by including them in your content. Stick to 15 second videos so that viewers don’t need to click to keep watching.

7. As YouTube becomes more saturated with topical niches it’s also becoming more personality-centric. This means your most valuable differentiator is your unique personality—the way you speak, the way you explain concepts, etc. Leaning into what makes you different and injecting that into your channel from day one will make it easier to attract and build loyalty with a new audience. 

8. As social media attention spans continue to shrink, viewers will be looking for more ‘snackable’ content – shorter form, easier to digest. Take a ‘less is more approach’ and only post content that will add value and is what you know, through testing and insights, what your audience wants to see. 

9. This less is more approach will also ensure that you are delivering true value from your brand – which will certainly be appreciated as more and more brands saturate the platforms and users become more savvy with how they use them.

10. Navigating a social calendar during this year’s events has been a challenge. Now is the time to avoid burning hours on long-term planning when you know things can change at the drop of a hat. Plan in week-long bursts. 

11. Look to work with a network of small, relevant, niche influencers. This kind of influencer gets much higher authentic engagement and returns a more relatable experience to your followers. While we know celebrity endorsement works to reach masses of people, time and again consumers tell us they are not influenced by celebrity endorsement. 

12. Set goals and compare your performance against valuable metrics – not vanity metrics such as follower numbers. Social media marketing is maturing, and 2021 will likely see brands make more intelligent use of metrics.