If you have been active on social media for a long period of time, you have probably seen the rise and fall of different trends. things such as #TBT (Throw back Thursday) or ASL Ice Bucket Challenge have been a few we have seen burst into popularity and fade away as less popular. So in 2021 what trends should we be following to make the most of our social media engagement?
Stories
Instagram stories were introduced in august of 2016 and since then Twitter and Facebook have followed in creating their own 24 hours content creation platforms. Stories are still a growing trend as people find new ways to promote themselves, their business, and their content in new and interesting ways. With features such as writing, Drawing, gifs, stickers and geotagging this 24 hour content is fun, engaging and keeps viewers wanting more. In 2021 stories will continue to be a trend worth implementing in your social media use
Video content is a newer feature than stories but becoming more popular. Live videos and short looping videos like TikTok’s and Reels are becoming valued content on social media. Brands are prioritizing video content over written content as it quickly catches viewers attention and keeps them engaged with the brands content and page longer. we will likely see more apps creating their own version of TikTok just as Instagram has done. Utilizing video creation is a trend that will become highly valued and be a larger portion of content on social media in 2021.
Matt Schlicht – The Complete Beginners Guide to TikTok.
These types of content creation are holding viewers attention more than anything and becoming the features that are at the forefront of each social app. In utilizing these two feature in 2021 you will be using two of the best trends worth following to help boost your business account or personal brand.
Two Social Media Posts
Twitter: Make the most of your social media accounts in 2021, in my new blog I break down the best trends to follow. https://bit.ly/2QjdGd6
Facebook: Are you unsure which trends you should be using for your business content or personal brand? I give you the two top 2021 trends worth following to make the most of your content creation. Check it out in my blog this week. https://bit.ly/2QjdGd6
Have you every checked your social media and felt lonely, unfulfilled, perhaps jealous? you may be experiencing “FOMO” or Fear of Missing Out. This term was coined in an op-ed article at Harvard Business School in 2004. Patrick McGinnis who wrote the article said that the term came from the group of business students who first applied to school following 9/11 and how this pushed students to contemplate their own mortality. “All you wanted to do was live life to the fullest at every second,” says McGinnis. Now FOMO is one of the top terms to be associated with social media and the effects it has on the younger generation.
Social media FOMO has moved away from the original intent of “live life to the fullest” which, perhaps the original intention is now suited more towards “YOLO”. Now FOMO relays more on the way social media distorts our reality. We are constantly bombarded with other peoples lives but only the good things such as marriage, babies, pets, vacations, fancy dinners, parties, and the list can go on. Now instead of living our lives in our own fulfilling ways, we are concerned with the perfect projections of other peoples lives on social media. FOMO is created through opportunity ones has that others don’t and instead of taking the opportunities we have and appreciating them we only think of the better experiences others are having. This kind of FOMO creates anxiety, loneliness and lower self satisfaction instead of promoting fulfillment in life like the origins intended.
Social comparison is one of the greatest killers of our happiness and well-being, and social media tends to take this phenomenon and put it on steroids.
How Social Media Media Creates FOMO: Be Mindful of How You Spend Your Time Online – Steven Handel
So how do we combat FOMO. In a TIME Magazine article titled How to Overcome FOMO; Fear of Missing Out. they suggest a simple solution. gratitude. In the article they ask readers to try a simple exercise of looking at your life and all the things you may take for granted like family, home, friends, education etc. and how you would feel if these things were suddenly taken away. “Research shows it works. Mentally subtracting cherished moments from your life makes you appreciate them more, makes you grateful and makes you happier.” And really, having gratitude for the things you have in your life and the experiences you are able to live through, to me, is McGinnis’ true definition of FOMO. Don’t miss out the life you have worry about others.
Social Media Posts
Twitter; Have you experienced FOMO (fear of missing out)? You aren’t the only one. Learn out the origins of FOMO and how social media has changed the meaning in my new blog post. https://bit.ly/3dCtL5I
Facebook: FOMO or fear of missing out effects many social media users but learning the original meaning may change your perspective on how to cope with FOMO. in my latest blog I look into the origins of FOMO and how social media has changed the meaning entirely. check it out here. https://bit.ly/3dCtL5I
Do you find yourself constantly multi-tasking? not able to just focus on one thing at a time? Maybe you try to watch a movie and end up reading articles on your phone half way through. This could be due to the rise of fast paced news cycles and social media. Our brains have become accustomed to consuming large quantities of media in short amounts of time, so much so that as of 2013 the human attention span has dropped to 8 seconds. One second below the infamous “memory of a goldfish”. So what does this mean for our brains and the brands that use social media?
Brain Stimulation
Social Media is a fast paced technology that is also highly accessible which means when we are scrolling we are exposed to high quantities of brain stimulations. Think about your Twitter or Instagram feed, even watching a Tiktok. These forms of microblogging allow us to consume endlessly. Not only do our feeds go on forever, each post is created by a new person giving us variety between viewing our friends, brands, celebrities and influencers. The continuation of constant scrolling makes the possibility of what we could come across next exciting. This type of rabidly firing neurons in our brain is not something we often get in other forms of our life and therefore cause us to struggle with giving our continual attention to something slower paced.
Trending Topic
What does this mean for those who use social media to brand and advertise their company? Well due to shorter consumer attention span it is harder to stay the topic of conversation. With the volume of content increasing at a such a speed, and our brain easily becomes bored by topics quickly and craving something new, we switch between topics much more quickly than seen before. Topics that are seen to be “trending” on platforms fall out of public view in a short period of time. A study published in Nature Communications shows that in 2013 topics trending on twitter would last for an average 17.5 hours, in 2016 that time had dropped to an average 11.9 hours. Not only do companies need to make sure their online presence is seen by their social media communities and work to make positive interactions with them, that may only translate to 15 minutes of internet trending “fame”.
What Can We Do For Our Attention Spans
Now you may be asking yourself “In this social media centric society what can I add into my daily routine to combat the continual want to scroll endlessly?” A few ideas are; monitoring your screen time and setting daily allowances for yourself, relaxing your mind through breathing exercises and meditation, turning a space such as your bedroom into a stimulus free zone, or finding hobbies that don’t include technology (such as reading or biking). Tell me which one of these practices you will try out in the poll below.
Social Media Posts
Twitter: Have you ever wondered what scrolling through social media for hours does to our brains? I break it down for you in my latest blog post! Go check it out!
Facebook: How many hours have you spent hours scrolling through Instagram, twitter or Facebook? Don’t worry this is normal! Many people are doing this to create brain stimulation and we’ve become so used having such large quantities of social media content at our fingertips. In my latest blog you can find out how this affects both our brain and the brands who use social media. Make sure to also check out the everyday tips and tricks to how to help your attention span!
Lets take a moment and think of a time before stay at home orders, the closure of public spaces and wearing the same sweat pants 4 days in a row. Lets take a moment to remember when we could come together collectively in a place that allowed shared experiences as an audience. I’m talking about theatre. Most of us have probably been to a play or musical in some capacity. Maybe your kid’s school play, maybe local little theatre, perhaps a festival or even Broadway. Theatre used to be a space that thrived of the idea of “you had to be there” because you did. Theatre performance existed only in that moment for people in that room. Now with the emergence of Social Media theatre has become a space for all. From marketing on behalf of the show itself, to the struggle of creating despite closure of public space, Theatre has moved away from exclusive space defining performance to an internet art form.
Marketing on Social Media
Theatre is not revolutionary in its movement to social media marketing. Many brands and companies have taken advantage of social spaces that allow outreach to their audiences. Theatre is different though as traditionally audiences prior to seeing a show would only see a poster. A single picture that tries its best to encompassed the entire show. Now with the use of social media theatres can share more information, videos, and photos easier and without paying for the space to advertise. While this benefits theatre it also benefits future viewers who can take in all this media and make informed decisions whether the performance is something that they want buy tickets to.
It has indeed been demonstrated that theatregoers who use the Web have more opportunities to find information and, consequently, the performance that suits their taste. Moreover, online communication has been demonstrated to be effective in both retaining existing audiences and attracting “inexpert drama lovers”, educating new audience members by means of their active participation.
IT’S A MATTER OF ATTENTION: THE MARKETING OF THEATRES IN THE AGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA (ABRIDGED)
The Broadway production of Beetlejuice shares a look at set design and lighting grid on their instagram page.
Creating on Social Media
In the past year theatre has been taking a seat with closures of public spaces and gathering. So how can a whole new shows emerge? Social media has allowed a whole new platform for creation, surprisingly one of the biggest being the newly minted Tiktok. This platform reminiscent of Vine showing short videos that loop and reply for viewers, has created a platform for performers. In a place where people can “duet” each other (a process of adding your own videos to someone else’s in response) whole acting scenes have come together based around characters, time periods and lines that pop up onto the screen for the person joining to perform.
User handle @inkamagnaye duets a vintage acting challenge.
Maybe the biggest theatre creation to come off this platform is Ratatouille the Musical. Starting on the platform artistic creators began writing songs, choreographing dances, posting audition videos for a pretend musical based around the movie Ratatouille using the hashtag #ratatouillemusical as a fun way to pass time in a pandemic. This gained so much traction that a Ratatouille online musical was created. With tickets sold online, actors and dancers preforming from their own homes for viewers and the creation of a broadway-esque poster circulated. This show went from social media platform creation to online stage.
It’s a burst of goofy creativity that only could have happened on TikTok (with its collaboration-friendly features like Duet), and only with theater kids, (with their inexhaustible willingness to go all in, committing to a bit). Cori Jaskier, who does the female vocals on Mertzlufft’s “Remy the Ratatouille” track, told us about what makes TikTok such a unique space: “It’s just a wonderful artistic outlet. You’re able to reach people that you couldn’t prior.
Broadway Is Closed, But Ratatouille the Musical Is Cooking on TikTok
Even though a shift to social media marketing for theatre happened long before the pandemic hit it will likely not be going out of style anytime soon. Thanks to its reach to theatre lovers and beyond and easy low cost way to circulate more content on each play we will continue to see shows utilize these platforms when we are able to hold in person theater again. In the meantime we may continue to see artist and creatives use these platforms to bring theatre to a virtual stage.
Twitter Post: Theatre is no longer just for the average ticket holder and Broadway enthusiast. Read about how social media has changed both marketing and creation of theatre on my blog! #TheatreCreators #SocialMediaTheatre
Facebook Post: Social Media has been a game changer to all kinds of brands and companies but have you thought about the way it has changed the theatre communities? From the way we market shows to how creation has found a place in social online communities, read about how social media has evolved theatre in my latest blog post.
Algonquin College Social Media Certificate Program 