Planning for 2021: What’s Ahead for Digital Communications?January 26, 2021

Digital Communications Trends & Developments: What We’re Watching & Why

A potential monumental shift in online free speech protections, an increased focus on employees as digital messengers and the emergence of new social platforms are just a few challenges businesses, organizations and leaders will need to navigate in a rapidly evolving digital communications landscape. To ensure that your messages continue to move your stakeholders and drive your work forward, you need to be curious and proactive, stay abreast of the ever-changing digital environment, ask smart questions and be prepared to shift thinking and strategy even for tactics like video and data-analysis, which are likely already be part of your communications toolkit.

BCW’s digital experts in public affairs and crisis share the digital communications trends and developments that will be top of mind in the coming months, and pose questions to consider following a rash of headlines just weeks into the new year.

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John Randall, Senior Vice President: Developments Surrounding Section 230

For nearly 25 years, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA) has been critical in facilitating the free exchange of ideas online– helping to create an environment for the internet and social media to grow and become integral parts of our lives. Now, due to perceived abuses of Section 230’s protections by social media channels and other online outlets during the 2020 elections, and the horrific events of January 6, 2021, Democrats and Republicans alike are pushing for its repeal. A repeal or scale-back of these protections would be a seismic shift in how we create, share and consume content online. How will content monitoring requirements and potential censoring impact how we personally communicate online? How can smaller news organizations realistically be expected to monitor their comments sections?

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Claire Ingebretsen, Account Supervisor: Social Media Fracturing

Social platforms provide valuable platforms for communicating and engaging with self-selected supporters and empowering them to interact with likeminded people. The attack on the U.S. Capitol, which was allegedly partially coordinated on social media platform Parler, has become the latest test case for free speech limits on social platforms. Within a week of the attack, Amazon, Google and Apple banned Parler from their app stores and Amazon stopped hosting the platform on its web services, while social channels (e.g., Twitter) restricted or outright banned former President Trump from their sites, further politicizing social media companies’ free speech policies. Now, with the political Right accusing social media sites of suppressing free speech while the political Left claims they spread hate speech and help incite violence, conservative-leaning users are continuing to encourage their communities to leave established platforms in favor of platforms like Parler, MeWe and Rumble. What would a fracturing of social media into smaller, narrowly focused platforms mean for communicators and brands using social media to connect with supporters, share information or raise money? Will brands have to further spread their efforts across more channels? And if that is the case, how should companies evaluate the reputational risk of partnering with platforms viewed as free speech refuges by some and as extremist safe havens by others?

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Jenna Sauber, Strategy Director: Leveraging Employees as Digital Messengers and Motivators

2021 will be a year to focus on rebuilding and rebranding, hot on the heels of a new presidential administration. And one place companies are increasingly looking to for help with this is their own employees, to serve as trusted voices and messengers on digital platforms. A rapidly evolving digital landscape and a rush to speak up early and often on a host of issues creates a great opportunity for employees at all levels to act as authentic storytellers, message disseminators and motivators. Declining levels of public trust in government and media means businesses have a chance to not only be the news, but to share the news, using their employees as expert content creators and validators. As corporate, government, and nonprofit organizations look to increase transparency internally and externally, employees will play a big role, but what will that look like? Will companies work with employees to develop bespoke creative? Will employees be willing participants?

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Tom Shaw, Senior Account Executive: Heightened demand for dynamic video content

In the past decade, the creation and consumption of video has increased exponentially, and we now see branded videos included with posts on corporate social media accounts with increasing ease and regularity. In 2020, TikTok’s popularity exploded and with it so did the average citizen’s access to free, innovative video editing tools on a single app. Across social media platforms this year, the public has flooded feeds with videos they originally produced on TikTok. Since TikTok and its next-level content creation tools are here to stay, for corporate social media marketers to keep up with the expectations and tastes of the masses, they will need to produce more frequent and dynamic videos to captivate consumers. Will this mean leveraging irreverent videos to capture attention? Or will organizations coopt these social moments to advance their brand, like Ocean Spray. what we do know is that posting photos alone won’t cut it anymore.

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Eugenia Galindez, Assistant Account Executive: Data-driven decision making

Remote work has forced even the most entrenched luddites to shift to digital communications. This increased reliance on technology has produced more and new data allowing organizations to better understand their audiences so they can analyze and optimize their communications, messaging, and calls to action while still providing a human touch. In 2021, social listening and data-driven decision making will become an even more necessary tool for navigating consumer needs. While organizations will need to leverage data more than ever, what does this look like with Google sunsetting of cookies (still two years away but something to plan for) and other restrictions to using personal data for analysis and targeting?

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Emerging: The developments every communicator will intently follow this year are the anti-trust cases against Facebook and Google - especially in the aftermath of banning Trump and removing certain social media apps. These platforms have established themselves as a major factor in both paid and organic communications, and changes to their capabilities and offerings promise to impact how we communicate with various audiences in 2021 and beyond.