Marketing trends change with each passing year. It’s pretty common for marketers to wonder what has changed in the field of content marketing.

Talking of 2020-2021, the COVID-19 pandemic has changed everything around us. The way we work, the way we communicate, the way we celebrate, including the way brands reach out to their customers. The pandemic has made everyone realise the power of virtual events and communication. And the trends show that it is here to stay even long after the pandemic is over.

Importance of visual content

This year, we’ve seen that the importance of visual content continued to grow propelled by the changes that occurred across social media platforms, advertising, messaging, etc.

Marketers have felt an increased need of creating effective visual content that can be easily shared across multiple channels, and it’s going to increase in importance from 2021.

In this blog, we will discuss some useful visual content marketing statistics from the past year that hold valuable lessons for anyone who wants to keep up with the trend that is Conversation Media Marketing.

For beginners, Conversation Media is an umbrella term that includes visual content like emojis, GIFs, stickers, memes, avatars, etc. within its ambit. Definitely, it’s the more personalised way of engaging with customers. Be it social media or anything else, Conversation Media has helped marketers reach millions of customers through fun stickers, emojis and other visuals.

Now, let’s see how visual content marketing performed during the last year and if it holds anything good for Conversation Media too.

1. Augmented Reality

71% of consumers believe that they would shop more often if they used Augmented Reality (AR). AR is one of the most game-changing technologies for retail in 2021. It empowers customers with the ability to visualize and customize products when shopping.

With augmented reality, brands can engage their customers throughout the shopping process and offer an entirely new customer experience. One that leads to higher sales and increased customer satisfaction.

A classic example of this is Snapchat’s animated avatars. They are so popular that Millenials and GenZs now think of them as their virtual identities.

Also known as BitMojis, they were used by Steve Madden to promote a new line of merchandise. Users could dress up their avatars with Steve Madden’s designs.

Genies has also created an avatar app that allows people to create life-like personalised avatars. Fashion brands like Gucci and food brands like Cheetos have leveraged Genies’ avatars for increasing their sales.

After the pandemic, these interactive experiences have become incredibly important as more people are staying home and not buying from brick-and-mortar brands as frequently as they used to.

2. Memes

A study says that memes can increase organic engagement from 5% to 60% on posts. This is ten times better engagement than regular marketing visuals.

Memes make the messages funny and relatable. They lighten the stress around us and leave us feeling happy and joyful. Brands have been utilising this feature of memes in their marketing strategies.

We have seen big names like Netflix, Prime Video, etc. grabbing meme opportunities from pop-culture and using them for marketing.

Even police and health departments across the world have embraced the meme marketing trend. The Mumbai Police is a classic example of this.

They do not miss any chance of using pop-culture memes in their Twitter and Instagram posts. As a result, they have built a brand image of theirs that’s more humane and communicative.

Despite the success brands have tasted with the use of memes, not many marketers are using them currently. Actually, just 4% of marketers use memes as their most frequent form of visual content, according to another survey.

Since memes have increased overall engagement on brand campaigns in 2020, let’s keep the trend alive by using memes for marketing wherever possible.

3. Social Media

Research from Pew Research Center has found that YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat are the top platforms used by teenagers in 2020. At least 72% of teenagers use Instagram and 69% use Snapchat.

These social media platforms offer great opportunities to brands to communicate and engage with their audience using Conversation Media. If you’re looking to target a younger audience with your marketing strategy, these are the best places to find them.

While social media marketing has been there for years now, things are changing. Millions of brands are fighting for attention and there’s a great possibility of your campaign getting lost in the crowd.

To put it simply, social media has evolved over the years and therefore, brands also need to change their strategies. Plugging in Conversation Media can prove to be an effective and innovative method of social media marketing.

4. Viral content

People love to view viral content and everything else related to it. From a simple meme to a tweet, anything can go viral these days.

Brands that leverage this virality stand out from the rest. Conversation Media helps here too. Post a meme or start a simple conversation on Twitter about the viral content and you will be noticed by your consumers. It will also give them an impression that you are up to date with the latest trends and not a dormant brand that doesn’t care about its customers.

Conclusion

Whether you’re trying to tell brand stories, present information, or solve customer problems, visual content has the power to increase the engagement. Visual content marketing is varied and has infinite possibilities. Conversation media is one of them.

You should be investing in it, if you aren’t doing so already.