Social media and consumer behaviour have evolved vastly in the past 2 years. As it continues to evolve, we examine 5 major social media trends to look out for in 2022:
1. Shoppers will expect to buy your products through social media
Since the pandemic, thanks mostly to stay-at-home orders and store closures, social media usage has increased. Social commerce is becoming increasingly popular – according to eMarketer, social commerce will become an $80 billion industry by 2025 in just the US alone. That means if you are ineCommerce, you should seriously consider setting up a Facebook and/or Instagram shop for your store. Many shopping platforms have integrated with Facebook to make your set up easy. If you are manually entering your inventory, you don’t have to list everything, instead you should feature items most relevant to your Instagram followers. Experiment with posts and make sure you tag your products.
2. Consumers don’t like brands they can’t reach online
Being able to reach a brand online for customer service will be increasingly important to consumers in 2022 and onwards. According to Meta, “64% of people say they would prefer to message rather than call a business, and 60% say they are open to receiving personal messages from companies.” This means that consumers will expect to be able to reach your brand through social media or your website for any customer service inquiries – something to consider for your 2022 strategy.
3. Organic reach will continue to decline, and you’ll need to invest in paid advertising
The decline of organic reach has been happening for years now and is forecasted to continue as more social media networks are moving toward the “pay-to-play” model. According to Hootsuite, the average organic reach for a Facebook post is 5.2%, meaning that just 5% of your followers have a chance of seeing your un-boosted posts. No matter what your advertising budget is, it’s important to the basics of audience targeting and how to boost posts in 2022.
4.TikTok will become one of the most important social networks for marketing
Not only is TikTok one of the fastest-growing and most popular social networks in the world. It’s become a great place to reach an organic audience. As of September 2021, TikTok announced that they have surpassed 1 billion monthly active users, which is up by 45% since July 2020. If you haven’t already, it may be time to consider incorporating TikTok into your brand’s social media strategy. With the right approach, the payoff can be significant.
5. Long-form video will only work on YouTube
It’s time to learn how to create short-form videos! Since TikTok and Instagram Reels took over the world, the demand for long-form video has declined on every network except for YouTube – and even then, YouTube launched YouTube Shorts, their version of short-form video. If you’re a brand that’s looking to reach new audiences, consider experimenting with posting short-form videos. If you’re already posting on Reels, consider reusing the content on TikTok and vice versa. Just remember to remove watermarks when posting across platforms.
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