Top Digital PR Trends You Need to Follow in 2021

If you thought that the world stopped in 2020 while working from home, you’re wrong. A lot of things were happening in the digital domain. The Internet was on fire as most of you spent time online watching your favorite Netflix or YouTube, face-timing to catch up with your friends and family, using social media like Facebook and Instagram.

This sudden shift in how everyone perceived the Internet and changes in consumer behavior has given some valuable insights into what will work for digital PR. So, here are some top trends that you can follow to spice up your marketing strategies.

Top Digital PR Trends You Need to Follow in 2021

Live Streaming and Videos

Videos have existed for a very long time and are the future. If you never thought of using them in your marketing strategy, then 2021 is the time. Videos were all over the place in 2020 in webinars, live-streamed events, or video conferencing. Live streaming became popular in 2020 when all the events were canceled due to the pandemic, and businesses had to look for new ways to connect to their consumers.

With social distancing in place, live streams allowed for a personal connection through live customer engagement. According to Livestream, 82% of audiences preferred live streams to social media posts. Looking at this, you can rethink your digital PR strategies aligning them with live streaming platforms such as ticktock, Instagram reels, Facebook live, etc.

Visual Search

In 2018, Google came up with theGoogle lens that enables users to find products based on the image uploaded. This Artificial Intelligence technology allows searching using an image and not any keyword. Besides Google Lens, the Pinterest lens and several other related visual search tools turn on the user’s camera into the search bar.

This was the beginning of search engine transformation where customers no longer had to wade through different search results to find what they wanted. It is the future of search, and businesses should leverage visual search adding high-quality images of their products and descriptive keywords.

User-Generated Content

Just like live streaming, user-generated content marketing skyrocketed. This became a new alternative for the business to promote products and services. The beauty of this kind of marketing is that it’s not like a typical ad that you see on TV or anywhere else. User-generated content includes social media posts, real videos, reviews, images to promote a brand candidly. This content has a significant influence on the purchasing decision of consumers.

Sometimes social media influencers are in paid partnership with the brand, and other times, it can be genuine feedback from a customer. These reviews look more authentic, and it works too. It’s more like the traditional word-of-mouth promotion but with a twist.

Brand Activism

Brand activism has popped up as an upcoming marketing trend in the year 2020. When most people were spending their time online, it was no longer possible for the brand to stay behind the curtain.

Consumers are no longer passive buyers; they want to buy products from good brands representing the same values as they have. Therefore, they had to come out, speak up and interact with their brand-conscious consumers. Many brands came together to talk about the pandemic behavior. Another movement for which brands spoke was ‘Black Lives Matter’.

The digital scenario doesn’t seem to be changing much, as it is slowly gaining popularity amidst the pandemic crisis. So, you’ll see all these digital marketing trends going up in the next few months. Adding them to your marketing strategy will bring more value to your brand and help your business not only survive but grow in this uncertain time.