7 Social Media Trends Marketers Should Watch in 2022

The growing audience engagement of social media platforms has forced businesses to consider it as a prominent marketing channel. Now businesses and marketers are proactively working on social marketing strategies, and it surely delivers profitable results. However, the biggest problem with social media is the changing trends. One must keep up with the trends to continue having favorable results.

In this post, you’ll see some of the social media trends that you every marketer should heed in 2022.

1. Social Commerce
2. Third-party Cookie-less Advertising
3. Short Videos
4. Social Listening Strategies
5. User-Generated Content and Social Proofs
6. Influencer Marketing
7. Technology (VR and AR)

Let’s learn about these in detail.

7 Social Media Marketing Trends for 2022

The social trends we are discussing aren’t new, but these are the evolving trends that will have a significant impact this year. Let’s dive in!

1. Social Commerce

The number of U.S. social commerce buyers grew to 80.1 million in 2020 and is anticipated to increase to 96.1 million in 2022. (source: eMarketer, 2021)

Earlier, people were only using social media to get to know about a brand, but platforms like Instagram rolled out the features like shoppable posts and stories to allow people to buy from the same platform without being redirected to the brand website. This optimization of the process surely increases the conversion because people want to do things with minimum effort. Redirecting the user to a site somewhere affect the buyer experience, and selling on social platform solves this.

This is the reason social commerce is a huge success. So, you’ll see a significant rise in social commerce this year. So, if you are an e-commerce business or your client is, then selling on social media should be on your list this year.

2. Third-party Cookie-less Advertising

Google will soon take down the third-party cookies from the advertising in order to improve the user data security. So, marketers should pivot their advertising strategy accordingly. However, social media has some options you can advertise without having any dependency on third-party cookies. You can consider demographic, location, and interest-based to personalize and laser-target your ads. Moreover, there will be first-party data to be the basis of your advertising strategy. The Facebook pixel will still give you ample data to support your ads strategy.

3. Short Videos

After TikTok, short videos became the most popular format consumed by people. TikTok got so much popularity in a very short time and has 1.4 billion monthly active users. After seeing the popularity of TikTok, Instagram and YouTube launched Reels and YouTube Shorts, allowing users to create and consume short videos. So, if you want maximum user engagement, your content strategy must include short videos.

The decreasing attention span of users is the reason short videos are doing so well.

According to studies, the attention span of the average person today is 8 sec, which was 12 seconds 20 years back.

People are spending more time on social media but less on individual posts. You can take a hint from this and make more bite-sized snackable content.

4. Social Listening Strategies

Social listening terms recently came into the picture. Basically, it means tracking what people are talking about you or your brand on social media. This way, you can know people’s emotions towards your brand. People’s emotions are really important, and you can make a strong bond with your customers if you play your cards right.

Half of the worldwide marketers have turned to social listening to understand consumers’ changing preferences during the pandemic. (source: eMarketer)

People’s emotions towards your brand also have an influence on your new prospects, so it’s vital for businesses to track and maintain a position brand image across social platforms. You can use tools like Hootsuite to monitor the social listening of your brand. You can also monitor the social listening of your competitors so that you can turn the negative comments for them in your favor. If there is some negative comment about your brand, then make sure you tackle them in the right way instead of ignoring them.

Unattended negative responses will spoil your image as a reliable brand. So, make sure you give enough attention to social listening and make an effective strategy.

The correct planning and implementation are really important, so it’s fruitful to seek out social media services if you don’t have the required skills.

5. User-Generated Content and Social Proofs

People are more likely to trust the user-generate content instead of the content curated by the brand itself. Because it is obvious no one will talk bad about themselves, but customers will surely share the authentic experience. This is the reason user-generated content holds so much value in marketing. You can showcase the UGC content as social proof to show your reliability.

Other text-based reviews can be manipulated, but not social posts from people’s accounts. So, it’s necessary you find the user-generated content for your brand and re-share it on the brand’s social media pages. Along with social media pages, you can share those social proofs on other channels as well to earn authority and trust. Moreover, you should also run some campaigns or invite your prospects to post something about your brand on their social handles.

 

6. Influencer Marketing

As the name says, influencers have a big influence on people, and followers take their recommendations seriously. Even people trusted influencers more than brands during the pandemic, proving the effectiveness of influencer marketing at this time. Moreover, influencer marketing gives you significant exposure in a short time. However, you should be really cautious about who you are choosing for your influencer marketing. Make sure the majority of your influencer’s followers are your target audience. You can even consider the micro-influencers of your niche to laser-focus your targeting. Promoting your brand to an irrelevant audience won’t do you any good.

7. Technology (VR and AR)

Betterment of customer experience is the evergreen trend of marketing, and brands are now using technology to do so. Brands are using AR and VR to give people a more realistic experience of the brand’s products or services before making the final purchase.

Social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat incorporated AR into their filters to make them more realistic and engaging. For example, Gucci implemented an AR filter where you can try on its sneakers.

Likewise, you can also create AR filters for your brand to engage your customers with your brand in a fun way. So, make your social marketing go hand-in-hand with technology to improve your customer experience and fetch better results.

These are the 7 social media marketing trends you should consider in 2022. Make sure you always keep up with the existing and new emerging trends to have regular exponential growth. For more such content, stick around!

 

About the Author

Gajendra Singh Rathore is a digital marketing expert and is associated with a social media marketing agency in Toronto. He is always eager to learn, experiment, and implement. Astronomy is his escape from the outside world.