Top Social Media Marketing Trends for 2022

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Whoever said that 2021 couldn’t be weirder than 2020? I’m not speaking to you because you were SO wrong! While many of the trends everyone was talking about have come to pass in some form during the year, there’s still so much that has been off-beat and unusual. So I’m making no references to 2022 being anything other than the next calendar year…

But there are some interesting trends coming through with social media. Some are continueations of what we’ve seen so far and are no surprise. Others are a little more interesting. Let’s dive into what experts are saying so far.

Social media finally gets the hang of communities

Twitch is the most popular live streaming platform for gamers. Readers are reading on Goodreads. On Peloton, bikers work through punishing workouts. Our digital communities have never been more rich, colorful, or impactful in terms of our experience of daily life than they are now.

According to a joint study by Facebook and NYU’s Governance Lab, 77 percent of respondents said that the most essential group they belong to operates online.

According to a recent Squarespace poll, young people now rank digital life higher in terms of importance and recollection than face-to-face existence. And nowhere are these groups being formed and suited to more on social media than anywhere else.

Over a billion Facebook users participate in groups on a regular basis. Plant fanatics, witches, and rug aficionados are creating their own communities to share and grow their hobbies – no matter how obscure they may be.

Twitter has even started Communities, which Twitter says will give people “a dedicated place to connect, share, and get closer to the discussions they care about most.” Experts say this has huge potential to change the platform forever.

Stop thinking about your followers as your community

Many small and medium-sized enterprises make the error of believing that all they need to do when it comes to online community development is get people to follow them. Assuming a passive following equals an active, flourishing, and loyal social media community does a disservice to the power of social media.

It may also muddy your perception of the real value of your product. Instead, look for online communities that are vibrant and active in areas relevant to your product category on social media.

Support the growth of content creators in earnest

You should be listening to what people are saying in the online communities you want to attract—not only should you be allowing them, but you should also be actively supporting the material contributors who make those communities grow.

It’s not only about giving away free stuff and swag. Invest in your creator partners, take the lead in distributing their material, and aggressively promote their content on your platforms to create trust.

People will be more willing to cooperate with you if they perceive you as an active supporter of the creators they appreciate. It’s then just a question of whether or not you can live up to your end of the bargain.

Social advertising takes to the front of the stage

According to Gartner’s annual CMO Spend Survey, marketing budgets relative to revenue are at their lowest point ever this year.

However, more than half (51.4 percent) of the marketers we spoke with stated that they would increase their paid social spend in 2022. What are they going to do with all of that cash?

Last year, the majority of marketers we spoke with focused on Instagram. This year, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn investment has caught up. But it gets really fascinating when we look into other channels.

TikTok, Pinterest, and Snapchat are the largest increases in spending compared to last year. Marketers are directing their resources where they can have the most influence—and, more often than not, it’s on networks that haven’t received much attention in the social media marketing mix.

Build social marketing teams with the intent to experiment

In 2022, as consumers seek new experiences and developers and investors look for ways to create the next TikTok, we anticipate seeing more specialized networks emerge.

Your company must be prepared to experiment in order to stay up with the shifting social landscape. Look for individuals who know certain platforms well when hiring.

Make sure to diversify your company’s skill sets by teaching them or hiring folks specializing in analytics, video, audio, or writing.

Choose the right social channels for your business goals

Traditional social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram should not be disregarded. While less conventional social networks may be flourishing, you shouldn’t entirely give up core networks like Facebook and Instagram. Consumers want to find you on those places—and a strategic presence on a network that you know drives business results is preferred over trying to spread yourself too thin.

However, seek out new strategic possibilities from which you will most likely benefit. According to one study, small businesses prefer niche networks over broad networks.

HubSpot discovered that in a poll of 800 small business owners, 62% were active on Facebook, yet only 24% said it was highly successful. In reality, our research found that the older the social network is, the less effective small businesses perceive it to be.

Accept that nailing attribution will take time, trial, and error

Attribution will become increasingly difficult as business attempt to figure out the role of their content in networks where standards are less stringent, and analytics may be more difficult to obtain.

Over time, these changes will force marketers to get more strategic, resourceful in obtaining data, and adaptable to change.

However, when most firms follow quarterly periods that demand practitioners to track and attribute each activity to an equal and opposite (financial) reaction, gaining buy-in for a social channel mix experiment may be tough.

Instead of focusing on metrics, change your marketing teams’ internal cultures and mindsets, embrace failure, and understand that measurement is fuzzy and imperfect in the near term.

New distribution methods may offer you new possibilities: the ability to wow customers with your capacity to invent, to be the first to market, and to push the limits of your creativity. In the meantime, there’s a sense of satisfaction in making mistakes.

Social media marketing stands on its own beside marketing

Over the last decade, marketing executives have struggled to quantify how social media affects company performance. After being forced to rely on social significantly more during the pandemic, something appears to have changed.

By 2020, more than half of marketing executives worldwide didn’t feel confident in attributing the success of their social media investment to corporate goals. Business leaders have become much more comfortable measuring the influence of social media because they have to rely on these channels to keep up with clients, manage service requests, make sales, and figure out what the public really desires.

In HubSpot’s 2022 Social Trends research, particularly corporations with substantial social media programs, respondents stated that they have become more confident in calculating the return on investment (ROI) of their social media efforts.

The majority of marketers (83%) are somewhat, very, or extremely confident in quantifying the return on investment for their social efforts, up from 68% last year.

Create a better employee experience with advocacy tools

Connect your staff. Consider using a tool to help employees share your content across their own social networks and create greater internal awareness by sharing news among teams within the company.

Sharpen your strategy with deeper customer insights

Organizations that were highly confident in assessing the ROI of social media were also more inclined to utilize it to gain insights about their customers. Consider investing in a social listening service if you want to get more value from social this year.

Consumers express their feelings about your brand on social media all day, so pay attention to what they’re saying. Make better use of social media listening by using it to discover new consumers, retain current ones, figure out what others are saying about your company, and develop more complex social strategies with real-time feedback.

Integrate your paid and organic social strategies

While they are frequently contrasted against one another, the reality is that combining your paid and organic efforts can result in outstanding outcomes. You may build a more comprehensive and effective social strategy by playing to the strengths of one and filling the gaps with those of the other.

Make your paid strategy more effective by utilizing your organic following to assist you in determining who to advertise to. Use retargeting advertisements to let your organic viewers (your best clients) know whether you’re having a sale, changing hours of operation, or introducing new items on your shelves.

Paid advertisements can bring in new consumers, while organic channels like forums and social media groups develop a community and push customers farther down the purchasing process.

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Social commerce is the big boom area

Social commerce was a flashy new opportunity for the most innovative firms to play with and gain a tiny competitive edge before the epidemic.

That all changed when consumers went into lockdown, and many turned to meet basic requirements by buying online. Suddenly, according to Shopify, 84% of customers were shopping over the internet.

The number of ecommerce sales in the U.S. increased 18 percent year over year in 2017, according toemarketer. The firm’s best recorded increase in this statistic was 19% (in 2015). And during McKinsey’s “quickening,” ecommerce penetration accelerated more in the first 90 days than it had done in the previous decade.

Remove moments of friction

The more simple you make a purchase process, the more likely your consumers are to complete it. Consider what small changes you might make to enhance their experience with your business on social media sites already in place.

Before you accept any more responsibilities in maintaining a Facebook Shop, make certain you address all of the holes in your existing social presence—for example, by updating your company profile with basic information like opening hours and location.

You can also advertise sales, events, and discounts right on your company’s pages whether you aren’t yet ready to start a social store. Add product descriptions, encourage reviews, and answer publicly visible consumer support issues.

Invest in your social storefront

Once your company profiles are clean, you’re ready to explore the world of the internet store. There are several alternatives for selling items directly on social networks, including as Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest.

Given the scale of the social commerce opportunity, businesses should devote as much care to their web storefronts as they do to maintaining their brick-and-mortar stores clean.

Invest in stock photography, hire a writer to create product descriptions, and give thought to how you’re structuing your store. All of these measures will have an impact on the public’s perception of your brand.

So, put some effort into it and make sure that your brand’s social media presence is as close to the real thing as possible.

Personalize the shopping experience at scale

You’ve cleaned up your company profiles and opened your social storefront, and sales are now booming—too fast, in fact. In truth, you’re unable to focus on what’s going on in your physical store because you’re handling so many queries and customer service inquiries.

Your next move is to customise the purchasing experience at scale by using conversational AI technologies. Allow yourself to let go of the idea that you’ll be able to handle everything on your own.

With an AI-powered assistant at your disposal, you can handle all of your customer touchpoints from one location, provide off-the-shelf recommendations, and let bots take care of routine inquiries while you focus on the more difficult aspects. That’s a fantastic experience in my book.

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Customer service over social media continues to be a must

Social marketers, if you feel like your job description has ballooned over the past year, you’re not alone. Spurred on by lockdowns and chaotic shifts in business operations, we’ve seen social marketers take on more responsibility for managing an influx of customer service inquiries.

“As a social media manager, you’re not just in charge of content creation and strategy,” says Nathan Allebach, creative director at Allebach Communications and the mastermind behind Steak-umm’s viral Twitter threads. “It’s really often one person who is also in charge of customer service and community management, too. It’s a meme that social media managers do it all, but that’s increasingly the reality.”

This storm will not be dying down anytime soon, and those who believe it will are in for a big surprise. People have been bored, anxious, and irritated for the last two years. Many individuals are using money to manage their distress.

The shipping industry is in a chokehold at ports across the world due to massive increases in consumer demand, making it tough for firms to fulfill orders.

Meanwhile, shortages of personnel are ravaging global industries, leaving fewer people to fulfill rising purchases destined for soon-to-be-disappointed clients. A customer service apocalypse is on the horizon. And it will be played out in social media.

Give yourself a unified view of all your messaging channels

Whether you’re managing a crisis or simply trying to make sure customers’ needs are met on time, social customer care is the front line of your business. From fielding DMs on Instagram to handling public complaints on Twitter, managing all these inquiries across every single social channel that your business uses can quickly become a challenge.

Make it easier for customer service and marketing to share information

Your customers don’t make the distinction between your customer support, marketing, and sales teams. To them, every interaction is just an experience with your brand.

Make sure your marketing and customer service teams have clear lines of communication with one another so they can streamline common inquiries and mitigate issues in tandem.

Invest in training and services for social media teams 

From developing strategies to making standout content to resolving customer service requests and every little task in between, social marketers are expected to do it all. Invest in trusted training and services programs that will help your social marketers develop critical business skills, set themselves apart from other marketers, and help them thrive within your business.