Hootsuite Shares Social Media Marketing Trends for 2022
It’s no secret that social media changes constantly. From new features rolling out almost constantly to new platforms emerging, the changes can be hard to keep up with.
While it may be hard for consumers of social media to keep up with all the changes, it can be even harder for marketers to stay on top of their game. Throw in how everything has changed in the past two years because of the pandemic and it can be very hard to predict what will come next.
How are social media marketers supposed to predict what the next big trends in social media will be? Well, we’re in luck. Hootsuite recently released its 2022 Social Trends Report. This report surveyed more than 18,000 marketers, including social media platform experts and representatives.
The report breaks down five of the expected trends for the new year and how you as a marketer can use them to your advantage. The infographic below is a quick overview of the full report released earlier this month. You can download the full report from Hootsuite here. Fair warning: it’s an email opt-in download, but if you want to dig deeper, it’s worth the free download.
2022 Social Media Trends Report Overview
Now let’s quickly break down each of the trends. We don’t want to spend a lot of time on each trend, so we’ll share one quick thought about each. Again, if you want to learn more, we recommend downloading the full report.
Trend 1
The report’s first trend talks about community. This is something that has been an evolving trend for some time now. People seek out being part of a something bigger and often turn to social media to do so. If a brand can actively engage their followers and create that sense of community, they’ll be many steps ahead of their competition.
Facebook is even starting to emphasize more of a community feel with Facebook Groups with its new features rolling out recently.
Trend 2
This one shouldn’t be too big of a surprise. It’s not enough to simply create a generic graphic, run it as an ad and hope you get people to click through. Consumers want to see creativity. As marketers, to stay ahead of the game, you’ve got to get more creative and stand out. It’s predicted that more marketers will also be putting more effort into advertising on platforms like Tik Tok next year.
Check out episode 3 of the Digital Wrap-Up to learn more about short form video content creation and advertising.
Trend 3
Are more employers FINALLY recognizing the value social media provides their company? Here’s an unbelievable quote from the report: “Before 2020, more than half of marketing leaders didn’t feel confident attributing the impact of their social media marketing investment on business goals.”
This is mind-blowing! Maybe the pandemic provided the hindsight marketing leaders needed to prove to them just how valuable social media can be.
Trend 4
If you sell a product, you better be selling it on social media too. Not only are more people actively buying products through social media, they’re also doing their research about brands before buying in person or from their website. All the more reason to stay on top of your social media presence in the coming year. Put forth a good showing for those doing their research.
Trend 5
If you have a question or complaint about a business or product, where do you turn? More and more people are turning to social media. This emphasizes the importance of customer service not only in person, but on your social media platforms too. Make sure you’re responding to messages, replies, comments, etc. Consumers value that engagement and you could turn a complaining customer into a lifelong fan with a little TLC on social media.
Wrapping Up Social Media Trends
There are a lot of good takeaways in the full report that are worth giving a read. Again, it’s free, so why not give it a read? As a marketer (whether it’s your full-time job or you own a small business and do it all), it’s important to stay on top of the latest trends. Reading through this report can help get your new year started on the right track.
If you have any questions or want to talk about any social media trends, please contact us or leave a comment below.
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