As a digital/social media marketer, you know that innovation, especially in the time of a pandemic, can be a true asset when it comes to retaining your brand's customers and gaining new ones.

Key elements you can use to ensure engagement across your platforms include exciting, fresh visual tools. From emerging technology to new angles in visual content design, there are a range of visual advertising enhancements that can help boost your brand's sales and sustain your profits throughout 2021.

Here are five specific visual breakthrough areas you and your marketing team can use to best advantage:

Instagram Reels.

This new feature was rolled out in August 2020 and puts a fresh spin on the Story concept; for an SM marketer, Reels make creating imaginative new content easier than ever.

According to Instagram, users can assemble campaigns and content quickly and easily by accessing songs from the Instagram music library, utilizing AR from the site's effects gallery and using a timer and countdown function to shoot and edit content swiftly and seamlessly. Reels provides the perfect forum to freshen up your influencers' posts, or for creating a terrific IRL feel to your campaigns.

AR glasses.

Augmented reality is one of social media marketing's most promising trends, and the invention of highly versatile AR glasses that can be easily worn and customized by the user is a thrilling new tool.

AR glasses allow marketers to mesh a wearer's actual environment with images and messages that can correspond to their present location, building an all-encompassing experience that is unique to the wearer's needs, wants and interests.

According to Social Media Today, AR is a highly competitive area of the tech sector as a whole, with companies including Apple, Google and Facebook about to release their own advanced wearable model.

This kind of immersive tool can allow you to create the most engaging, imaginative content strategies ever. Imagine the possibilities when a consumer can virtually test run a new product you're launching before you even launch it. For example, you can target a select group of your loyal customers with access to AR glasses and make this a highly effective new campaign approach. You can also tailor programmable ads to be seen by consumers wearing AR glasses depending on their precise locations.

LinkedIn Live.

This exciting new platform allows brands to stream their live events and launches directly to consumers and connections. It can add incredible

power to your brand's word of mouth; according to LinkedIn research, LinkedIn Live videos get an average of seven times more reactions and 24 times more comments on average than native video.

Using LinkedIn Live can also be terrific for promoting your brand, because you can instantly open up availability to any event to an endless network of connections you and your entire team and demographic have established. Think of the process as a "hands across the globe" visual storytelling opportunity.

Verified information banners.

Today more than ever, consumers want authenticity. You need to always keep in mind that every statement, word and claim you put into an ad campaign needs to be accurate and fact checked. You need to prove to your customers that they can trust you in this regard.

Striking visuals ensuring that there is no false info on your pages or platforms are a great way to drive this point home. Run an eye-catching banner across the top of any brand text stating that you vouch for everything your customers are about to read about a particular product's function and quality.

Vibrant visuals.

Real life testimonials from your consumers are more important than ever. So, make their visual feedback clips fun and flattering! Foster a sense of true connection among the members of your consumer base by framing visual feedback with a lot of positive text complimenting and validating their comments.

Make sure their video contributions look great by tweaking with filters that show your customers in an attractive light. Add catchy music under their footage, then send the end result to each contributing consumer for their approval before you post. These kinds of direct video clips will get scores of views — and spur even more of your customers to sing your brand's praises and support your products. When your customers look good, you look good!