Our Social Media Predictions for 2021
By: James Mercer
Tags: Social Media, Predictions, Top 10, New Year, Guidelines

The year 2020 has been one to remember for many reasons, with the largest one of them all being the pandemic — of course. This unprecedented time of lockdowns and working from home has given people more time to sit and reflect on many issues such as inequality, climate change and mental health. Expectedly, the forum for much of these conversations has been social media.

We’ve also seen an uplift in new social media behaviours across all channels and significant uptake of emerging social platforms (namely Tik Tok). To help keep spirits up, there’s been an in increase in live social media broadcasts, ultra reactive content and dancing, just to name a few! We expect to see more of this carry forward in 2021.

As we wrap up 2020, the Social Misfits Media team has put together their predictions for 2021.

Natalie — Managing Director

AR and VR have both been around for quite some years now, but they still haven’t fully been embraced as a communications tool. Given the restrictions we’ve had from Covid-19, and the increased importance of social media, and digital experiences in general, I predict more organisations will experiment with AR & VR in 2021.

Photo by Laurens Derks on Unsplash

Felicity — Junior Designer

My prediction for 2021 is we’ll be seeing a lot of the colour yellow. Yellow embodies hopefulness, optimism and joy. It’s no surprise that Pantone have named ‘illuminating yellow’ the colour for the new year to boost spirits and partner our excitement for 2020 to finally be behind us. Expect social assets to suddenly be filled with sunshine!

Photo by Rodion Kutsaev on Unsplash

Hannah — Senior Manager

Following on from the momentum built in 2020 for important social causes and movements, coupled with Covid-19 which has forced a huge amount of activism to move online, I think this is only going to get bigger in the new year. Both online activism from individuals, and organisations/brands needing to reposition themselves as socially conscious in order to build and maintain loyalty, will be key in 2021.

Photo by Henry Be on Unsplash

Angharad — Community Manager

My 2021 prediction is that more charities will move towards online fundraising. According to Charities Aid Foundation, between January and June 2020, the public donated a total of £5.4 billion to charity — an increase of £800 million compared to the same period in 2019. It will be more important than ever before for purpose-led organisations to create seamless digital experiences in order to drive mobile donations.

Photo by Peter Boccia on Unsplash

Biba — Community Manager

The shift to new ways of digesting and consuming information has been prevalent with the likes of TikTok in 2020, but I think what’s emerging is the way in which people have found themselves surprisingly taking action on this platform. With political stunts like that of the GenX TikToker’s who conned Donald Trump into thinking he had booked thousands of seats at his rally, to the widespread use of TikTok for educating peers on the BLM movement and raising money for bail funds — it’s clear that taking action doesn’t happen any less if the world comes together virtually. Millenials and Gen X’ers have built the perfect community of global change-makers and creatives and next year they will take the world by storm. Bring on Ratatouille — the first TikTok collaboratively-written musical to grace theatres in 2021!

Photo by Solen Feyissa on Unsplash

Erin — Director

Long-form and lo-fi! After a year of seeing every event become something that takes place on Zoom instead, the brands that were able to weather the change well were the ones who had a strong brand voice that was adaptable and authentic. People consume content differently post-2020, so we will see more brands experimenting with longer-form, off-the-cuff content on social (like lives), and become less risk-averse than they might have been previously.

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

James — Director

I predict that Social Media in 2021 will see less people spending time in front of a camera and more time in front of a microphone. With the rise in apps such a Clubhouse and Twitter’s counterpart to enter the market soon, we could see voice as the new social media medium of choice. It’s only a matter of time before organisations will be able to create ad content for these platforms.

Photo by Dan LeFebvre on Unsplash

So whatever 2021 brings with the new normal, change is inevitable. Whether you’re giving back, being entertained or receiving important information, Social Media will still play a huge part.

From all of us at Social Misfits Media, we wish you a Happy New Year!