10 Blogging Trends & Predictions For 2021

Blogging has evolved a lot over the years, much more in the past year alone due to the changes that have had a worldwide effect on the way content is both created and consumed. Because of this, blogging trends are constantly changing and evolving every year.

Many people have asked the questions “Is blogging dead?” or “Is blogging a dying trend?” and the answer to this is a big NO. Blogging is here to stay. It is only evolving and is by no means going extinct.

In fact, according to these blogging statistics, 77% of internet users read blogs and approximately 409 million people view more than 20 billion pages per month.

Think about how many search queries are made per minute on Google, and how a great proportion of those results are blog posts answering people’s questions. That gives a better idea of how important blogging and content creation are.

If anything, it has grown in popularity over the years and will only continue to grow even more.

Here are some of the changes we can expect to see happen in the blogging world and trends that we will see more content creators adapting to.

1. Visual content

It’s not a secret that our world is becoming more and more visual when it comes to consuming content on the internet. This is what has made visual driven  platforms like YouTube, Instagram and Tiktok gain more popularity and see tremendous success in the most recent years.

With the rise of a generation that is less inclined to sit down and read and that would much rather watch or look at something, there is going to be a growing trend of more visual content in the coming year and years after that in-order to meet this demand.

There are many forms of visual content in the internet including pictures, videos (long and short form), memes, diagrams, infographics and any other image based content.

A huge part of this type of Content is not just the content itself but its quality too. In recent years there has been less tolerance of low quality imagery, videos and other forms of visual content by content consumers. And this trend is going to be much greater in the year to come.

2. Diverse forms of content 

There are many types of content consumers on the internet. Some prefer to read words, others prefer to watch videos while others like to see a infographics summarizing the main points. 

Content diversification is becoming increasingly popular in the blogging world and is a trend we will see growing in 2021. More and more bloggers are taking one piece of content and translating into many forms and sharing it on different platforms inorder to serve a wider audience.

For example this post can be turned into a video showing different slides of the main point, it can be turned into a short Tiktok video, a carousel for Instagram or an infographic for Pinterest. These are many of taking one form of content and turning it into different forms for different platforms and different consumers.

3. Solution based blogging (aka problem solving content)

With everything that has been happening due to COVID19, there has been a greater demand and rise in interest for content that solves real life problems and issues and makes life easier for people, you know the DIY and how-to tutorial kind of content.

With people not being able to hire outsiders for things they could outsource before like fixing a blocked sink, doing hair and nails or painting a house, there has been an increased interest in content that solves real life issues, and this kind of problem solving and practical  content will be a growing trend in 2021.

4. Influencer marketing

Popular social media personalities like Beyoncé, Kylie Jenner, Arianna Grande, and Dwayne Johnson make six figure checks per sponsored Instagram post with some nearing a million dollars per brand collaboration. 

This form of advertising is growing more popular as more brands are adjusting their marketing strategies from only having traditional forms of marketing like billboards and newspapers, to social media and influencer marketing.

5. Cross networking

In an industry where influence and reach are the key performance indicators of success, cross networking or collaboration will gain popularity in 2021. This is one of the unique things about the blogging industry. 

Collaboration between influencers, bloggers and content creators is a great tool to increase influence and reach a new a new audience. One blogger promoting another blogger fortunately does not take away from that blogger as would be the case with a traditional business promoting its competitors.

6. Social relevance 

Last but not least, is a trend that we have seen grow tremendously in the recent two years, and that we will see continue to  grow in coming year, and that is social relevance. 2020 taught blogging world the important of being appropriate in relation to what is happening in society.

From COVID19 and people losing loved ones, learning to appreciate life and the simple things we have always taken for granted, to #BlackLivesMatter and the world becoming more aware of the issues being faced by minority groups, there has been a greater sense of social responsibility in the world and has called for greater need for bloggers, content creators and influencers across the board to be more socially aware and relevant. A trend that we will perhaps see more of in the coming year.

It’s become increasingly important to be socially relevant and produce content that is sensitive to the needs of society and matters to it, whatever niche you are in.

7. Adaptive content 

2020 was a very interesting year for the world at large. One main thing it has shown us we need to all embrace inorder to be successful is being adaptive. Many businesses were negatively affected when everything shut down during the pandemic, but on the other hand, there are other businesses that quickly adapted to the changes the world was going through and managed to leverage success during a time that most were struggling.

This taught us a thing or two that as the blogging world we can learn from about adaptivity. The needs to have a flexible plan for your blog that can adapt to the changes happening around the world, is greater now than ever.

One of the “laws of blogging” that we have preached for many years is to focus on a specific niche and narrow down. For many years some blogging niches like travel have been generally popular and successfu, but with travel being suspended for large portion of 2020 and people being more cautious about travel, this blogging niche has been negatively affected and bloggers in this niche area have had to resort to a niche change and think outside the box to keep their blogging business afloat.

So being able to adjust and adapt content to what’s happening in society and in the world at large is a trend we will be seeing in the blogging and content creation space in this new year.

8. Relatable content

At a time when most in person interaction has been halted, there’s a need for content that is interactive. People are turning to online content creators to provide a place and community where they can interact and divert their need for social interaction.

Being a relatable content creator and having a platform and content that is relatable is what will be trending in the year to come as people search for content creators that they can relate to and not just look up to. This will require being real, authentic and humanly. And this is a change that the blogging world is having to shift more towards.

9. Authenticity of content and content creators 

Inorder for people to find your content relatable, there is a need to be authentic and real.     Today more than ever people are looking for authentic bloggers and content creators. People who are, simply put “human” and whose content they can connect with.

Whether you’re a blogger, Youtuber or influencer, when you put out content that is authentic, people are most likely going to relate and engage with your content. 

In an industry where to many people are faking their lifestyles for likes and popularity, more people are being drawn to those that are remaining true to who they are and simply being authentic in the content they put out.

This is only going to grow in the coming years as more people look for people who they see authenticity in and relate to.

10. Interactive content

With relatability and authenticity comes interaction. Content that sparks conversations, and starts discussion is increasing in popularity and will be a growing trend in the coming years.

People like to feel like they are part of a community and when bloggers produce content that allows people to interact and feel some sense of blogging to a community through their contribution, the chances of them becoming loyal to that blogger are very high.

What are your thoughts on these trends? Which of them do you think we will see more of? Let me know in the comments below!

And check out these posts below:

-Why ever blogger needs to learn SEO to be successful in blogging

-How to create evergreen content that ranks well on Google

– 7 Easy steps for successful blogging this year