Both so much and so little has happened in 2021 (time warp back to 2020, anyone?), so here’s a round-up of the biggest movers and shakers in the social media landscape over the past year.
Organic: With 2021 being dubbed the year of “The Great Resignation,” it’s no surprise that LinkedIn has risen in popularity to support this professional reshuffle.
LinkedIn has reported record levels of engagement over Q4, as reported by parent company Microsoft, with user sessions up 19% and all-time high engagement. Perhaps most surprisingly, Gen Z users now account for a large percentage of active LinkedIn users.
Is LinkedIn becoming… cool?
OK, maybe not quite, but here are some interesting stats for thought:
- Today, more than 78 million Gen Z professionals are on LinkedIn
- 71% of Gen Zers spend more than an hour on social media each day
- 63% of the above visit LinkedIn more than once a week
Plus, LinkedIn has been steadily rolling out new (and useful) features for Company Pages to provide more robust organic-only offerings for businesses.
Paid: In our experience, LinkedIn advertising has historically been five to six times more expensive than Facebook advertising. Certain limitations—such as the minimum number of users for Matched Audiences, or restricted targeting parameters—have made LinkedIn a secondary choice even for B2B advertisers. However, since the beginning of the global pandemic, recent IOS14 changes and Facebook’s platform changes, LinkedIn emerged as one of the fastest-growing advertising platforms for marketers. Don’t get us wrong—it always was a good choice, but now it’s a great opportunity for B2B marketing.
In their own words, now is the time to make LinkedIn a strategic priority. According to eMarketer, in the U.S alone, LinkedIn made up the largest share of B2B display ad spending in 2021.
With 774 million users located in 200-plus countries, LinkedIn is one of the top three players in B2B advertising. Three professionals sign up to join LinkedIn every second. The platform’s advertising business has grown more than five times in the past five years. In the fourth quarter of 2021, LinkedIn’s revenue surpassed $10 billion for the first time.
While advertising on LinkedIn is still more expensive than on Facebook, the cost per acquisition is slowly decreasing as the algorithm learns more about user behaviour and collects more data. In short, LinkedIn means business.
TikTok
Unless you’ve been living on another planet this past year, you have no doubt either been swept up into the TikTok wave or are actively avoiding downloading another social app (we see you, and no shame in that). Either way, we would be remiss if we didn’t touch on the most-downloaded and highest-grossing app of 2021.
We could write a long-form essay (or three) on TikTok growth, trends, tips, etc.—so we’re going to. More TikTok blog content to come (stay tuned), but for now, here are some of our favourite resources to tide you over.
Later.com Blog
Social Media Today
TikTok Business Help Centre Resources
Organic: Pinterest has always had a unique place in the mind of consumers. An estimated 444 million people use Pinterest every month to find products and ideas and to get inspired.
In 2021, more male and Gen Z users joined the platform. The growth and the changes in user behaviour are why Pinterest ended up on our watch list. Pinterest hasn’t been sleeping on new features either, which include Idea Pins and Trends, intended to create a more personalized user experience.
Paid: Pinterest can be the perfect addition to traditional Facebook/Instagram advertising—especially for brands looking to reach consumers at the top of the sales funnel, as most of the users employ Pinterest to plan for the future.
In addition, Pinterest has been working tirelessly to update its Ads Manager and improve its targeting parameters. With a vast amount of data available on user interests and search patterns, the platform can easily compete with other social media channels for marketing dollars.
If you’ve reached the end of this blog and find yourself feeling rather overwhelmed, we’ve got you. Our team of social media experts lives and breathes this stuff, and would love to create a custom, integrated social media strategy for your business.