Over the past two years, there has been a shift in the way brands promote their products or services on social media. With the rapid growth of social media users, a number of social media trends have emerged and gained popularity over the years. Adapting to these new and upcoming trends will help businesses and startups engage well with their target audiences in spite of fierce competition.
As social media popularity continues to grow —and there are over 3.7 billion social media users globally in 2021 — brands aren’t just wondering how they’ll engage the huge social media audiences in 2022. They’re also asking the following question frequently, “What social media trends should I expect in this constantly changing landscape?”
To answer this question, we identified a few research-backed trends that social media marketers should watch and leverage in 2022. So, let’s dive in:
Adopting new ways of engagement-Live videos and short duration content:
According to research, 82% of audiences prefer to engage with brands on social media through live videos and webinars. Platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook are leading the trend by offering an easy way for businesses to conduct live videos and webinars for engaging with their audiences.
Marketers have also started bringing in celebrities and influencers to their live videos to bond better with their audiences. Live videos and webinars have evolved into an interesting way of launching new products, revealing offers, running campaigns, and generating leads.
Short-duration content like Facebook and Instagram stories has gained huge popularity for brands to catch the attention and boost engagements through simple call-to-action methods. Brands are using such short-duration content for running quizzes, conducting quick polls, and virtual tours to communicate consistently with their audiences.
The biggest social media priority for firms will be to reach new audiences:
- Most customers have shifted to an online-first purchase experience during the pandemic. As we headed to 2022, it’s only normal for firms to think about how they might use social media to attract their new audiences, strengthen current connections, and enhance customer service to ensure long-term client loyalty.
- Staying active and consistent in daily posting, taking advantage of trends and popular material, and investing in high-quality creative assets to boost one’s social media profile.
Additionally, one should also engage the followers with interactive aspects such as polls, Q&As, podcasts, and live broadcasts to create stronger ties with the current audiences. As per Social Media Trends 2022 survey by Hootsuite, 74% of businesses are interested in investing in audio content like podcast series.
Firms need to make more dedicated social media hires:
social media isn’t simply for raising company recognition. It’s also a powerful revenue-generating tool. According to a survey, 79% of individuals say that user-generated content on social media significantly impacts their purchasing decisions. So, a dedicated team will surely work in making the progress.
Owning to the popularity of social media marketing businesses are looking forward to hiring more talents to handle their presence on different social media platforms. More specialized roles like performance marketing, content marketing, SEO specialist, social media marketer, Facebook marketing, Google ads expert, chatbot development, and online reputation management have been generated opening doors for new-age marketing professionals.
Businesses in the B2B industry will raise their Instagram and Twitter spending:
- Even though Instagram and Twitter aren’t new to the social media arena, many marketers are still reporting increases in ROI across both. In Q3 of 2020, Twitter surpassed over 200 million monetizable daily active users, an increase of 29% year over year. Instagram, on the other hand, had a roughly 14 percent increase in users’ time spent on the app between 2019 and 2020, reaching an average of 30 minutes per day.
- This was the fastest-growing social site in terms of interaction. In 2022, as Twitter and Instagram continue to grow in popularity, more marketers will spend on both channels. According to HubSpot, 70% of marketing professionals expect to increase their investment in Twitter in 2022, while 63 percent plan to increase their investment in Instagram.
Brands to increase investments in influencer marketing:
The pandemic accelerated the emergence of “unfiltered” (or less scripted) material, as well as “ordinary influencers” like micro-and nano-influencers. As the alignment between social media and e-commerce improves, more influencer collaborations are leveraged to boost sales. However, in 2022, aligning with the influencers who make the most sense for one’s company will be critical in identification. This will include influencers that specialize in more specialized areas that make the most sense for one’s company, as well as influencers with perhaps smaller but more engaged followers.
Social selling demands will be growing:
Over the years, social media networks have worked hard to develop native shopping experiences that allow users to buy things without ever leaving their platforms. Other platforms have invested in native advertising to provide consumers with a more seamless experience. For example, TikTok introduced the Spark Ads advertising format, which allows marketers to raise the prominence of existing organic content. More companies will employ social selling to reach people whenever — and wherever — they’re ready to buy as we approach 2022.
As social commerce is booming more and more retailers and D2C brands are eyeing boosting sales directly through social media. The U.S retail social commerce is expected to reach $80 billion by 2025, a research stated. The social commerce concept is getting more popular among the adult Gen Z that is from 18 to 24. In the U.S more than 50% of GenZ users have made a purchase using social media. Countries reporting the highest adoption of social commerce are India, U.S, Russia, and China.
Final Words
The greatest thing one can do as a social media marketer is to keep researching engagement trends, and online consumer behaviors. The team of social media with data can figure out which trends or methods to embrace or how to manage uncharted online conditions.
At ResearchFox we publish our reports on the websites and on other social platforms which include insights from various experts, taking our clients through all the important 2022 trends forecasts to remain competitive. This is how we leverage social media to engage with our clients and audiences.
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