Facebook marketing is undeniably one of the most important ways to get your business out there without spending a fortune trying to do it. But what should you be focusing on with your Facebook marketing? To help you, here are the top ten Facebook trends for 2021.
- Facebook Live
With so many restrictions on our ability to see each other in person, it’s no wonder that Facebook Live is one of the fastest-growing Facebook trends. In just four months of 2020, Facebook Live usage saw a 126% increase. More and more businesses are using Facebook Live to keep in contact with their customers; this is an ideal way to show off your latest arrangements or hold a live “socially-distanced” floral workshop.
- Facebook Spark AR Studio
The Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) trends are snowballing, with a market size set to hit $18.8 billion in 2020. Facebook’s Spark AR Studio, which allows users to create and publish AR effects on the platform, has been hugely popular. To date, nearly half a million users worldwide have used Spark AR Studio to publish over 1.2 million AR effects. If you haven’t yet gotten on the “AR train,” the time is NOW. You’ll be able to offer your customers a virtual way to see your arrangements in their homes without ever coming into your shop!
- User-generated Content
While user-generated content (UGC) has always been one of the most popular ways to market online, the pandemic has taken it to a new level. Companies have had to shut down recording and production studios and limit their travel, so UGC has been their solution. In 2020, views of user-generated videos on Facebook have more than doubled, from 233 billion views in January to 495 billion in August. Use this trend to your advantage by asking your customers to share videos on your Facebook page when they receive their arrangements.
- Facebook Groups
Did you know that there are currently more than ten million groups on Facebook? These groups are an ideal way to connect people with common interests — like flowers! They’re also a way for people to help each other and get guidance when they need it. You can set up a Facebook Group in a matter of minutes and use it to connect with your customers and keep them “in the know” about your latest promotions.
- Facebook Shops
Online shopping is huge right now and will only increase. Facebook jumped into this online market by launching Facebook Shops earlier this year. Facebook Shops makes it easy for anyone to set up their online shop and start selling products. Even if you already have a website, Facebook Shops is an excellent way to increase the number of people who will see what you have to offer. After all, Facebook has a user base of 2.6 billion!
- Chatbots
The chatbot industry — you know, the automated messages you get from a business when you ask a question on their website — is thriving. According to Business Insider, the chatbot market size will grow from $2.6 billion in 2019 to $9.4 billion in 2024. Forty million businesses are already using chatbots on Facebook Messenger to communicate with their customers, sending and receiving 20 billion messages every month! Facebook is continually working to make Messenger more useful for businesses; if you haven’t set up a Messenger account for your online store, make sure you do it soon!
- Small Business Support
In 2020, Facebook announced it would be providing financial support to small and medium businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. To that end, they gave $100 million in grants to 30,000 businesses worldwide. This trend should continue well into 2021, as experts predict that the pandemic will last at least until that time. Facebook is expected to roll out more of these small and medium business grants in the new year.
- Video Marketing
Videos are the second most popular type of post on Facebook, currently making up 17 percent of all content — and this will continue to grow. If you’re already posting videos to Facebook, fantastic! If not, it’s a perfect time to start. And bear this in mind: videos between 65 seconds and five minutes perform the best on Facebook. A video showing your customers how to arrange a bouquet when they receive it at home might be a great example of what to post.
- Hashtag Usage
While hashtags began on Twitter, they’ve moved far beyond it. Everything, it seems, has a hashtag these days, and this trend will only get bigger. Now, Facebook has expanded its use of hashtags to help users get more engagement on their content and increase their reach. It’s doing this by introducing a list of recommended hashtags when you write a post and show you the number of Facebook posts containing the same hashtag. This focus on hashtags will grow to become one of the fastest rising Facebook trends in 2021.
Perhaps you’re using many of these Facebook tools already, which is fantastic! Add a few more of these trends into your monthly marketing, and we’re sure that you’ll have great success in 2021!
