There have been notable shifts in social media trends for businesses in recent years. In 2022, the trends are likely to attain a new shape due to the prolonged changes.
It will not be enough for businesses to determine how they will leverage the massive social media audiences next year. In addition, they should also ask about the types of new social media trends that can expect in 2022.
So, what social media trends are likely to dominate in 2022? Here, they are:
TikTok Will Play a Significant Role
TikTok has exhibited phenomenal growth. It recorded a 61 per cent increase in mentions year-on-year in 2021. Also, it has registered itself as the first non-Facebook app to reach 3 million global downloads.
The fast growth indicates that the social media platform has gained immense popularity. Moreover, TikTok offers unique opportunities to engage businesses with potential customers. And, many brands use TikTok to market their products or services.
With the help of TikTok, brands can interact with their audience and showcase their brand personality.
In 2022, you can expect more brands to leverage TikTok’s growing popularity to expand their brand awareness and reach new audiences.
Brands Will Aggressively Try to Reach New Audiences
In 2022, reaching new audiences will be the top priority for businesses. Their top concerns are likely to include:
- Reaching new audiences
- Increasing brand loyalty
- Improving customer services
Businesses should stay active on social media and post consistently with trendy content to build their follower base.
Moreover, businesses should build deeper relationships with their existing audiences. And they should engage with followers through interactive elements such as polls, Q&As, and live videos.
Businesses Will Make Dedicated Social Media Hires
In 2022, social media will act as a powerful business tool. And social media is not just a tool for generating brand awareness but also revenue.
Businesses need to take user-generated content on social media seriously as that significantly impacts consumers’ purchasing decisions.
As social media marketing is likely to play a significant role in revenue generation in 2022, businesses will make dedicated hires to run social media campaigns instead of making a busy marketing team work with social media as a side project.
The underlying idea is that businesses need to prioritize social media because they will miss out on the opportunity to optimize the platforms to turn them into revenue generators otherwise.
With a dedicated social media team, businesses can monitor social analytics, participate in industry-specific conversations, experiment with new platforms and trends, etc. And, these will contribute to building a solid brand image and generate more leads for conversion.
Businesses should hire a social media manager to build their social media strategies and engage with their online audiences. They need to structure the tone, voice, and conversation behind your brand to attract its audience.
Augmented Reality to Gain Prominence
In 2022, augmented reality(AR) will become a preferred way for consumers to try-on products and interact with brands.
Although AR has been around for a few years now, it has gained popularity in recent years. Brands are now increasingly using AR to allow potential customers to test their products before buying.
AR has proved to be an effective tool for increasing revenues for businesses during recent years. Moreover, AR can increase click-through rates to purchase by 33 per cent.
Given its popularity, AR is likely to be a top option among customers while trying to buy products in 2022.
AR has already proved to be an effective way to reach people and drive results compared to other forms of advertising and marketing.
Investments in Twitter and Instagram Will Increase
Businesses are seeing higher ROIs from Instagram and Twitter. Although they are not new social media platforms, they have made notable impacts on businesses in recent years. For example, Twitter reached almost 200 million monetizable daily active users in the third quarter of 2020, up by 29 per cent year on year.
Likewise, Instagram registered a nearly 14 per cent rise between 2019 and 2020 in its users’ time spent on the app. It averaged 30 minutes per day. It recorded the highest engagement growth compared to all other social media platforms.
As businesses are becoming successful with Twitter and Instagram, you can expect more businesses to invest in both platforms in 2022.
According to projections, 70 percent of businesses plan to invest in Twitter in 2022, and 63 percent in Instagram.
Influencer Marketing Will Mature
The use of influencer marketing is getting popular day by day. And the pandemic has imparted strong momentum to the use of micro-influencers and nano-influencers.
As many businesses got positive results by using influencers during the pandemic, the practice will likely gain substantial momentum in 2022.
The increased use of influencers in platforms like TikTok has already delivered positive results.
Moreover, the alignment between social media and e-commerce has strengthened substantially. As such, you can expect to see more influencer partnerships in 2022.
Social Advertising Will Become More Complicated
Google has planned to phase out cookie tracking by 2023. As a result, you will see the death of the third-party cookie in 2022. So, several marketers will need to stop their existing strategies as social advertising evolves.
But, there is no need to worry because there are many highly effective advertising options that do not require third-party cookies. For example, there are user-generated content, targeted and personalized ads across social media platforms, email marketing, and search engine retargeting campaigns.
Instead of using third-party cookies, you can get the opportunity to develop a data-driven strategy using metrics to understand your users’ interests and preferences on a deeper and more personal level.
Consumers Will Expect More Snackable Content
In 2020, social media platforms, such as TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, published short-form or snackable content from brands to educate consumers about the brands. In 2022, you can expect more such content on social media channels.
The Rise in Social Selling Demands
In 2022, you can expect to see an increase in social selling. You can regard that to be an off-shoot of the efforts of social media channels to create a native shopping experience so users can purchase products without ever leaving their sites.
Videos Will Gain More Prominence
Video will gain more prominence across all social media platforms in 2022. According to the expectations, businesses are likely to use more short-form videos with brief, engaging, digestible pieces of content.
Conclusion
In 2022, you cannot escape using social media. Instead, you have to re-orient your strategy to handle the trends that will prevail in the next year.
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