2021 is an active year for social media outlets and 2022 is shaping up to be even more active. Here’s how we see social media evolving up in 2022, along with what strategies marketers should set to stay ahead of their competitors.
Trend #1: Social Media Advertising Soars to New Heights
As Facebook and Instagram continue to grow an astonishing number of users and a proven proficiency to drive real action, most social media marketers will continue to spend a majority of their social media advertising budget on these platforms. While these platforms are still regarded as the most effective overall, the extent of effectiveness for social media advertising on Facebook and Instagram declined quite significantly from 2020 to 2021:
In contrast, the effectiveness of social media advertising on better “niche” social media platforms such as Snapchat, Twitter, and Pinterest showed surprising growths — note the 700% percent transformation on TikTok!
However, the success depends on the marketers to adopt the best sales funnel building software platforms to generate leads and sales. This will help them improve their targeting and customer base.
While Facebook and Instagram will always be an important part of the social media marketing blend, the critical takeaway here is that smart social media marketers should also look at spending a percentage of their social media advertising budget on smaller social media platforms where your brand’s message may be able to stand out more.
Additionally, because social media advertising on platforms like TikTok and Pinterest tends to feel more organic and less intrusive, there is a better possibility for your message to touch with users in a way that reproduces the experience they are looking for on the platform.
Trend #2: A Growth in Social Commerce
While there’s no repudiating that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a deep effect on almost every industry, one of the most critical for social media marketers to be conscious of is the fast growth in social media selling and e-commerce.
E-commerce grew explosively as consumers shifted online to order products for primary needs, surging better in the first 90 days of the pandemic than it had in the whole decade earlier.
This trend displays no signs of slowing down, so there is a lot of opportunities for social media marketers with goods and services to use social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest to help audiences find their products and purchase them directly via a social media platform.
Trend #3: Customer Service Becomes The Differentiator
As basically any social media marketer can point out that the COVID-19 pandemic also brought customer service to the forefront of the social media terrain, as audiences turned to a brand’s social media channels to know more and ask questions about the brand’s products, services, hours, policies and procedures.
Given that multinational shipping delays and labor deficiencies persist to affect industries of all sorts, it’s more essential than ever for social media marketers to have a strategy in place and plan for being on the front lines of everything from everyday customer complaints to crisis situations. Moving forward, it will be critical for social media experts to function with the customer service teams in their companies to guarantee proper customer care on social media — or risk losing those customers to their competitors that are more effective.
Social Media Trends Final Notes
Finally, these are just a few of the many social media trends that are sure to shape the social media industry in 2022 and beyond. By remaining on top of these social media trends, social media experts can take a better strategic approach to their work and develop outstanding campaigns that will resonate with audiences and drive lasting action for their brand.