As 2021 draws to a close I thought I’d look at some of my experiences working in social over the last 12 months.
- The year of iOS14. We heard rumours, no-one knew what to make of it, not even Facebook nor Apple itself so it seemed. If you live in the actual real world and haven’t heard of this then all that happened is that Apple restricted the amount of data Facebook (or Meta as it’s now known) can access from their devices. In my experience it’s not had a huge impact overall on performance but I have seen an impact on reporting. The numbers of sales etc given by FB are often under what my clients are seeing and attributing to ads using common sense. Good for clients who can see the bigger picture or maybe cut their teeth in non traditional ads first. Bad for report junkies out there.
2. (Over)Reliance on Social. It’s probably due to the Pandemic fast forwarding things along a few years but social is now seen as a central component to any marketing strategy. Indeed for many businesses it is the only marketing and advertising strategy. I feel like I’m a broken record when I say to clients that you can’t rely on social alone. Facebook and Instagram going ‘down’ this Autumn proved exactly why this is. Obviously social media should feature as an integral marketing channel, but you also need a reliable product or service priced appropriately, good customer journey, financial acumen and other forms of marketing such as events and/or email to name but two.
3. Sustained use of social and establishment as a shopping portal. Again I feel 2020/21 has zoomed forward people’s acceptance of shopping on mobile devices from social media platforms. This will grow. If you run a product based shop and aren’t selling on social we need to have words as it can be very impactful.
4. Security. I know one too many businesses that were hacked and lost all their followers and some money last year. It’s terrifying. Get cyber insurance, be sparing with third party apps, use a ‘difficult’ password, change it regularly and two factor authenticate always.
5. Emotional impact. I feel as much as social media is now truly ingrained in our life (even my tech hating husband has been known to peruse Facebook Marketplace!) however there has been a focus on the negative side of Facebook too. The impact of pre teen and teenage girls, trolls and the ‘everything is shiny’ aspect of Social. I feel we may be starting to get a bit of digital fatigue as well pandemic fatigue, but equally are too far invested, and bluntly, addicted, to leave (for long anyway).
Do any of these ring true for you? I’d love to hear your thoughts.