Digital Marketing Updates You Need to Remember for 2021
2020 was the year of change. Working from home, social distancing and masking up, Zoom fatigue, a new President-elect, and a significant boom in online shopping and digital marketing… there’s a lot to keep track of!
Well, we can help you with the digital marketing part, of nothing else. Here are the top 10 things you should consider for your digital marketing strategy for in 2021:
Google’s Core Vitals Update - time to spruce up your website
One of the most important investments you can make in your digital presence is search engine optimization. Whether your most significant business leads come from Google Search results, social media marketing, or emails, prioritizing your user’s experience is key.
Google’s most recent core update and their recent study shows that websites doing these three things experience a 24% decrease in their bounce rate. They are:
Largest contentful paint (LCP) - how fast does the web page load?
Cumulative layout shift (CLS) - how quickly is the page stable?
First input delay (FID) - how quickly is the page interactive?
In preparation for 2021, take a deep dive audit of your website. Comb through each page and see how well they load, and prepare to invest in improving these pages for 2021.
If you need help to audit and optimize your site, let us know… we’d be happy to connect you to one of our incredible collaborators!
Optimized for voice search
While you’re optimizing your site for Google, consider checking in on how well your site performs for voice search.
Over half of all web search inquiries are coming in via voice search (Alexa, Siri, Google, etc.), and this number is likely only to keep growing.
By optimizing your website for voice search, you’re more likely to to be mentioned by one of those little home robots, and you won’t miss a chance to interact with potential customers who want to find you this way.
Video is all the rage
No surprise here, but video continues to dominate as the highest converting and engaging content across platforms. Whether they’re on your website, social media profiles, or in your email campaigns, video is a great way to make sure people are consuming your content and learning about you.
Look back through old Slices and you’ll see we’ve been saying it for years now. Make more video!
Text & Email Marketing
Email marketing has long been a leader in the digital marketing world, and text message marking is growing surprisingly fast. Why is this the case?
Emails and texts get read.
Email marketing in particular has long been an essential part of any marketing campaign, but it is now viewed as essential.
As we approach 2021, consider how your business can capitalize on email and text marketing. Do a little research and see what works best for you this upcoming year.
Facebook’s Latest Updates
This year was another year of Facebook drama. It felt like, every week, there were new changes or updates or limits on the platform, and many of our clients have given up on it entirely. But as marketers, it behooves us to pay attention to the most important changes that affect organic reach and advertising.
Since Zuckerberg’s announcement in 2018 that the platform wants to focus on content that connects people to their friends and family, business page organic reach has taken a major hit. Meaning it’s increasingly harder to reach your target audience without spending some money on the platform.
Some Facebook marketers have found that their organic reach can be as low as 2.2% of their following, and it could be even lower for Pages with big audiences!
So what do we do? Like we said, many clients have given up to focus on other platforms. But if you’re still on Facebook, here’s what you do: finally make a small budget for Facebook Ads and try out a small campaign to see if it’s worth the investment. Not sure how to do this? Let us know; we’ll match you with one of our Facebook Ad experts.
Instagram Reels & Formatting Updates
Instagram Reels is the social media giant’s way of competing with TikTok. But it is also an excellent resource for marketers on Instagram to generate effortless, simple, and short videos. Instagram loves when you hop on their latest trend, and will often promote and push your content more when you using their newest features.
Another recent update to Instagram has been the connection of your Instagram and Facebook messenger accounts and rearranging your home feed to focus on shopping. Get ahead of the curve and get on Instagram’s good side by using all of these new features.
TikTok Takes the World by Storm
With over 800 million active users in the US and over 2 billion downloads, TikTok is the most popular app to date.
If your target audience is Millennials and Gen Z, TikTok needs to climb up your priority list quickly. Over 41% of kids age 16-24 are on the app, and 11 million+ millennials are dancing away on it too. If you want to reach either of those groups, time to TikTok!
Shopping on Pinterest
Pinterest is the visual search engine that has been around for years, yet we still believe it doesn’t get the recognition it deserves. Pinterest’s latest update included a significant boost to its shopping options.
LinkedIn is a New Fan Favorite
As we look to 2021 and with many people searching for new job opportunities, this is an important platform. Whether you choose to use the LinkedIn job search or not, having an updated LinkedIn page and profile is a great way to showcase your business to prospective hires and clients because this platform is getting more traffic than ever.
Optimize your LinkedIn profile and business page for 2021 and stay on top of LinkedIn trends.
2020 changed the way we work, live, play, and 2021 will be where we see much of that become a part of our everyday life, which means as marketers we must adapt. Are you prepared?
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