7 Social Media Marketing Trends for 2022
The social media landscape evolves at a lightning speed. Here are some of the most important social media trends to implement in your marketing strategy now and into 2022.
Ephemeral Content
Ephemeral content is any content that has a short lifespan. A well-known example is “Stories” which usually disappear after 24 hours and can be found on many platforms, including Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, and WhatsApp. Stories are often photo or video, but they can also be polls, quizzes, interactive questions, countdowns, sales and promotions. Ephemeral content allows you to share content frequently without annoyingly flooding your followers’ feeds. Yet the greatest advantage of ephemeral content for your business is that it motivates your audience to stay engaged by tapping into the FOMO (fear of missing out) effect. Studies have shown that Stories are powerful vehicles for engagement, and 20% of Stories can result in direct interaction.
Social Media Augmented Reality
Interest in developing new applications for social media AR steadily grown each year. Common examples of social media AR include face filters, lenses, stickers, interactive maps, interactive product displays, and emojis based on user appearance. Some great uses of social media AR to look into include branded filters, “try-on” or “AR view” shopping, and immersive experiences. Branded filters amplify opportunities for user-generated content. “Try-on” or “AR view” shopping boost impulse buys and ecommerce sales in general. Immersive experiences keep audiences engaged for longer by transforming the way users engage with marketing campaigns.
Bite-Sized Video Content
It is an unfortunate fact of modern life that our attention spans have gotten shorter and shorter, 8 seconds to be exact. As a result, bite-sized or short form video content continues to dominate as the most effective content format. The short-form video sharing app TikTok boomed during the pandemic, and Instagram launched IGTV, Reels and Stories to compete. Then in response to the growing shift towards video content and shopping, Instagram announced in July 2021 that they were no longer a photo-sharing app. Regardless of which social media platform you use, short-form video offers an innovative way to engage your audience and difference yourself from competition. Some video ideas to consider include behind-the-brand/behind-the-scenes, user-generated content, educational videos, and tutorials.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing has been a major trend over the years and it will continue to be an important social media strategy in 2022. According to Business Insider, influencer marketing is set to become a $15 billion dollar industry by 2022 with most marketers reporting 20 percent or more of their budget on influencer marketing. Some important trends to note include an increase of influencer marketing for B2B businesses, a shift toward micro-influencers due to the higher engagement of their audience, and the adoption of artificial intelligence for influencer identification, content management, analytics, predictions and more.
User-Generated Content
User-generated content (UGC) is any form of content that has been shared on social media by a user, such as images, video, text, and audio. UGC can be a user taking a selfie wearing your product, sharing a video review or product haul, or listing your item among their monthly favorites. UGC is the product of what we’ve been talking about for years, converting your customers into brand advocates that actually want to promote your products and services. There are countless benefits of user-generated content, such as minimizing the burden of developing new content, saving time and money, improving reach and engagement, boosting the length of website visits, and improving consumer trust. In fact, brands that use UGC are 81% more likely to convert, have a 20% increase in return visitors, and a 90% increase in time that consumers spend on their website. On the other hand, there are important potential cons to UGC if your consumer feedback is negative. This is why it is important to have a social media manager to actively monitor your online reputation, and correctly respond to negative feedback.
Informative-Focused Content
Users have grown tired of perfectly curated and aesthetics driven social media feeds, now they turn to social media to learn about a brand’s products, services, and new offerings. Users want to know more about the benefits of your product offering so it’s more important than ever to produce informative content to boost your lead conversion. Some ideas for informative-focused content could be step-by-step guides, how-to tutorials, behind-the-scenes, infographics, slides, lists, case studies and success stories, personal stories, and resources and tools.
Focus on Customer Service
As we already touched on briefly, it is becoming vital to provide good customer service through social media channels. Your social media manager should respond to direct messages and comments, answer questions, help resolve consumer problems, respond to reviews, and monitor UGC. According to Sprout Social, one of the top 4 reasons consumers will unfollow a brand is that they offer poor customer service (49%). It can be difficult navigating negative feedback, so we suggest creating social media guidelines to prepare your social marketing team and ensure these interactions align with your company values. Social media guidelines should cover tone, response time per platform, answers to FAQs, escalation protocols, etc. This will make it easier to stay proactive, respond quickly, and automate where possible with chatbots for common inquiries.
Social media marketing for your business becomes more significant and undeniable each day. Your customers turn to social media daily to connect with your brand, get customer support, learn about your products and services, scrutinize reviews, find deals and promotions, interact with other customers, and most importantly, buy what you’re selling. Social media is a powerful tool but it won't provide value to your business without strategy and elbow grease. We can build and manage your social media presence, leaving you to concentrate on what you do best. Contact us at 727-873-7371 or click here for more information.