Social Media Trends you Should Keep in Mind in 2022
Table of Contents
What is Social Media Marketing?
Why is Social Media Marketing so Important?
Social Media Trends you Should Pay Attention to in 2022
#1 Don’t be afraid of showing your human side
#2 The rise of social commerce
#3 Customer service on social platforms continues to grow
#5 Innovative and interactive social selling and communication
RIP to the social media where you just shared statuses or posted some nice pictures of your family. Nowadays, social media is a powerful tool in the world of marketing and advertising.
In a sea of information, content, and memes - standing out might be difficult, but definitely not impossible!
Let’s see what is on the horizon for social media in 2022, so you can build the best SoMe marketing strategy that will help you boost your visibility, achieve a higher conversion rate, and drive more traffic to your business!
What is Social Media Marketing?
Before hopping on the trends, let’s understand the basics.
Social media marketing on phone
Social media marketing is a type of digital marketing that uses online social platforms to promote your business, products and services. Social media marketing can also help you connect and communicate with customers.
As the years have gone by, marketers kept discovering the power of social media. What started only as a publishing platform to generate traffic, today is a field full of possibilities, and one of the most powerful forms of marketing.
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, and even TikTok have done wonders for businesses around the world, of all shapes and sizes. So, if you’re not already leveraging everything these digital marketing channels have to offer, you’re definitely missing out!
Why is Social Media Marketing so Important?
For its versatility and incredible reach-power, using social media for your business brings a number of benefits! Some of them include:
Driving more inbound traffic: Social media channels provide global reach, which means that wherever you are, you can reach customers from everywhere. Without social media, your inbound traffic would be most likely limited to your usual customer base. With every platform, you create a new path to your website, and every new piece of content can reach a new customer.
Exposure and brand awareness: Like we said above, using social media allows you to reach a global audience, which of course facilitates an increase in your brand visibility and recognition.
- According to research (2021), 4.62 billion people around the world now use social media, and 424 million new users have come online within the last 12 months. That means that more than half of the world is connected on social media.
Generating leads and a higher conversion rate: Having a larger reach walks hand in hand with having a higher possibility of generating more leads and thus having higher conversion rates. Some platforms even have features that facilitate these conversions, such as the Facebook and Instagram “embedded” shops, CTA buttons, direct communication, etc.
Building trust and loyalty: Being active on social media helps with humanizing your brand, but also induces customers to build trust. The modern customer wants to relate and connect with a brand emotionally. By being active and transparent on the platforms, you can grow your online presence, and ultimately guide your audience to trust and connect with your business. And there you have it, the main ingredients to creating lasting customer loyalty!
Social Media Trends you Should Pay Attention to in 2022
Alright, let’s finally find out how you can leverage social media in 2022:
#1 Don’t be afraid of showing your human side!
Make-up influencer making a video
As we mentioned earlier, customers nowadays are not just interested in buying the product, but also in connecting with the brand. Being authentic and honest is key here! Showcase your day-to-day, wins and losses; be open and truthful; and don't be afraid to hop on trends or let loose sometimes. Interesting and engaging content can come in many forms.
#2 The Rise of Social Commerce
Social commerce it’s what we call eCommerce that’s made exclusively on social media.
This type of eCommerce has been around for some time and is here to stay because customers want more and more agility and practicality. Social commerce is working towards becoming a norm, and going to a website to purchase something is seen as being “one too many” clicks.
#3 Customer Service on Social Platforms Continues to Grow
Once again, agility and practicality are playing a big role in the business world. According to Gartner, 60% of all customer service requests will be sorted out on digital channels by 2023.
Because it’s where they spend most of their time, customers are requesting assistance directly from the company’s social media platforms even more than before. If they are able to purchase an item on Instagram for example, why wouldn’t they ask for support in the same place?
Social media it’s becoming the host for the full customer buying circle: Awareness, consideration, intent, purchase, post-purchase. Everything is in one place.
#4 Attention to Mental Health
With more than 4.55 billion people active on social media, and the massive amount of information and content being thrown at users 24/7, digital burnout has become even more prominent.
Since the pandemic, businesses have started paying more attention to employees’ mental health, making sure it’s one of the top priorities. Now, we’ve started to see businesses raising awareness to their customers about it. Instagram, for example, released a new “take a break” feature that enables the user to create reminders that they’ve been scrolling for a long time and they should take a break.
This trend will most likely continue to grow throughout the years, as we become more aware of how important it is to take care of our mental health.
#5 Innovative and Interactive Social Selling and Communication
A lot of marketers and business specialists are betting on more innovation and technology to grow on the consumer market. AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality) are starting to be the popular kids on the block.
You’re probably familiar (maybe even a bit too familiar) with those filters on Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok for example, in which you can add makeup to your face; change your hair color; or even put on cat ears on your head, right? Well, that is what we call Augmented Reality! Specialists predict that brands will start to incorporate these technologies into their social media campaigns soon too!
Same goes with communication, where brands are constantly trying to create a better customer experience through innovation and interactivity. Customers are looking for a more immersive experience and companies can take advantage of that to try different communication strategies and innovative SoMe campaigns.
Social selling graphic (Photo credits to: everyonesocial.com)
Pro tip!
Investing in flipbooks is a great way to spice up your communication and even social media strategies. Catalogs, magazines, eBooks, you name it! Besides the many features you can incorporate into your flipbook, like videos, GIFs, sounds, a shopping cart, and built-in statistics, they also come with a real page-turning effect!
Social Media Trends you Should Keep in Mind in 2022 - Interactive flipbooks
We’ll give you an idea: if you are starting social selling, why not stand out from the competition and use a flipbook? You can share your flipbook on your social media platforms, and your viewers can instantly open it without any download time.
From there you can make use of the shopping cart feature, which makes it possible to even finalize a purchase!
Remember what we said earlier? Nowadays, customers want to be able to do everything in just one place - fast and easy! So why not innovate and guarantee a unique customer experience?!
To learn more, you’re always welcome to contact us, or book a personalized demo call.
