What a year 2021 was for social media and marketers: TikTok hit 1 billion users. Snapchat achieved its first billion-dollar quarter. Twitter killed off Fleets and launched Birdwatch, a programme that allows users to flag misleading tweets. And the top story of the year? Facebook relaunching itself as ‘Meta’ in a clear bid to dominate the metaverse – the idea of integrating real and digital worlds even more seamlessly using virtual reality and augmented reality technologies.
With so much happening in the social media space, seemingly all at once, businesses are asking the question: “Which trends and features should do I need to stay on top of in this constantly changing landscape?” We break down 5 of the biggest social media trends to help prepare your social media marketing plans for success in 2022.
TikTok Gets Set to Takeover
TikTok’s quest for world domination will edge closer and closer to achieving its goal. To date, 1 in 8 people in the world uses the popular video-sharing app each month. According to Talkwater, the number one consumer intelligence acceleration platform, TikTok is poised to take over all other social networks and become the most widespread social networking platform in the world. Challenges, duets and live events will grow in popularity and virality, with greater use of TikTok’s 3-minute video feature for richer storytelling. It is crucial for brands, particularly those targeting the younger demographic to recognise TikTok’s possibilities for marketing, lead and revenue generation.
Great read: TikTok And Other Rad Apps Blowing Up Around The World
Video Content will Continue to Lead
Log onto any social media platform and you’re likely to see a video within the first 10
seconds or less. Consumers favour video over other media formats because the information is easy to digest, entertaining and engaging. Video is also very accessible to anyone with internet access, both to watch and to produce, which explains why industry experts anticipate that 82% of all online content will be video-based.
Instagram Reels has delivered rewards on rewards for thousands of brands and marketers and will continue to do so, generating engagement, brand awareness and the potential to go viral on the platform, just like Louis Vuitton, whose every brand marketing Reel has gone viral on TikTok, with an average of 5 million views. In 2021, Instagram also combined IGTV and feed videos into one format, Instagram Video, to make it easier to create and discover content.
Great read: Let’s Talk Video
Paid Media Will Keep Paying Off
Over the years, every major social network has aggressively cut organic reach as part of its revenue generation strategy. Considering that the average organic reach for a Facebook post is just slightly over 5%, it makes sense that paid media will become a necessity in one’s digital marketing strategies for 2022 and beyond. Paid media links advertising spend to results. Without it, the audience that you’ve worked so hard to build won’t see your message.
Read more: Why Paid Media Needs A Place In Your Marketing Strategy
An Increase In Social Selling
The closing of, and decline in brick-and-mortar retail stores in 2020 and 2021 brought about by COVID-19 lead to a surge in the adoption of sales via social media. While shoppable posts on Facebook and Instagram are by no means new, the ability to buy via these channels will become more of a norm, particularly as smaller businesses begin to leverage the platforms to create frictionless shopping experiences without customers having to switch to a website to complete their transactions. eMarketer forecasts that the social commerce industry will be worth $80 billion by 2025.
Money Talks on Social Audio
Audio-based social networking may be a relatively new concept, but it can raise the volume of your brand voice and image on social media. From Live Audio Rooms and Podcasts on Facebook (USA only) to Twitter Spaces, voice-only features are the next big marketing frontier when used correctly, offering digital spaces for brands to engage in conversation with customers around diverse aspects of their brand, while also pushing sales. Hootsuite’s 2022 Social Media Trends survey found that 74% of businesses plan to invest in audio-only content in 2022.
Social media moves fast, but we move faster. Need help putting these social media marketing trends into business plans of action? Contact us today for all your digital marketing needs.
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