Since the health crisis, last March dealt a blow to conventional media, with individuals gradually gravitating towards their smartphones to keep informed and amused. It’s no wonder that marketers have guided more dollars towards digital and social media ads. The new quarterly report based on data from the Socialbakers app reveals that Q4 2020 was already a channel breakthrough time, with advertisers pouring steep investments into tactics that would engage homebound buyers during an unpredictable holiday period and bring them to buy.
President Yuval Ben-Itzhak of Socialbakers stated brands are a “new normal,” doubling down on digital marketing, particularly when they seek to push e-commerce sales. As the company’s research indicates, however, where those brand dollars are heading is evolving in ways that may have consequences beyond the crisis of COVID-19.
Livestreaming has risen to the top of the agenda and progressively stands as an outlet to generate direct sales, with new shopping features being integrated by top platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Per Socialbakers, Facebook Live was the most interactive format on the social networking site in Q4, while video accounted for 18 percent of all Instagram posts.
Socialbakers wrote, “The increasing popularity of Live Video content and the momentum around Live Shopping experiences highlights just how important social media is as a revenue generation tool,”
The Interactive Advertising Bureau forecasts that directly shoppable media, including live streams, will become one of the fastest-growing advertising segments in the near future in the midst of the emergence of a “storeless economy” which the industry group says last year earned $120 billion in global sales. In several ways around the holidays, the desire to blend commerce and content, especially when targeting smartphone-savvy young shoppers, manifested itself.
For example, Walmart implemented a first-of-its-kind TikTok Livestream that allowed viewers to tap and check out products shown in the video without having to exit the app. The hour-long activation of Walmart focused on famous creators, including Michael Le, pointing to the strength of online personalities to win over clients.
Yet traditional influencer marketing, particularly #ad sponsored posts, continued to slide in Q4, stating that marketers have retooled how in their marketing campaigns they leverage internet stars. The number of brands working with influencers with a follow-up of at least 100,000 was almost level with pre-pandemic numbers, Socialbakers said, indicating that the channel did not feel the windfall. Socialbakers said the relative stasis might be a sign that brands have chosen to work more with influencers who have smaller audiences in recent months.
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