5 social media trends you should definitely follow in 2022

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5 Social media trends of 2022

Social media is now an essential part of a marketer's portfolio. In recent years we have started to work from home on a massive scale. Stores remained closed and everyone was looking for online alternatives. The communication between your customer and your company continued to exist, underwent a digital transformation and became even more important.
 
After the turbulent corona times, we take a look at the social media trends of 2022 with you, so that you can apply them to your company. This way you can create the best digital experience for your customers via your social channels.

Trend 1: Focus on the platforms your customers prefer

The days when Facebook was the go-to platform for maintaining an online presence are no longer applicable today. Your target audience is on various channels at the same time, and may prefer different channels than you do. What we do know is that TikTok is booming, we cannot deny that anymore. Platforms like Snapchat, Pinterest and WhatsApp are also becoming more popular. So why procrastinate to have a presence on these platforms?

Example

Madelie is a small webshop with a large number of organic flowers. The traditional media channels she used were Instagram and Facebook. In 2020, the beginning of the pandemic, she decided to use Pinterest. Here, she built a large network, as the target audience used the channel as inspiration for their home and garden design. As a result, she saw traffic to the website increase rapidly by as much as 13 percent.

Trend 2: Make use of social commerce

Now that digital is the new normal, we are also seeing social shopping gaining popularity. Customers often don't make a one-click purchase when they see an ad anymore. There has to be more to the story behind the product, and this is where social media comes in handy. Your company's social media channels serve as the core platform to sell, engage, and offer comprehensive service.

 

Example

Blueland is a great example of how to approach social commerce best. Their Instagram page became the digital storefront for their products, selling products in a new way through product placements. Users scroll through their feed, click on the photo, and thus get to see what products are being sold.
 
In addition, users can respond to the post to ask questions, and Blueland plays on that nicely. That's how you create engagement and customer care in one hit.
 

Instagram Shopping feature

Image: Instagram Shopping Feature (Source: Instagram)

Trend 3: Expand customer care to all social platforms

Another social trend that ties in with the previous trend is the extreme importance of customer care.

Social media is considered a fast channel with a lot of interaction. An ideal opportunity to help your customers quickly. Waiting endlessly for an answer via email that you have sent last week or picking up the phone to find out something quickly, are often major thresholds for the customer. Therefore, use the channels where your target group is present and extend your customer care to all your online channels.
 

Example

Emma is a 24-year-old Instagram influencer who feels at one with nature. To brighten up her living room, she regularly shops for plants. On Facebook, she comes across the company page of The Sill, where they offer plants via Facebook shopping. Emma has some doubts about purchasing her plants and decides to send The Sill a message via Messenger. Quickly she receives a reply and continues her purchasing process. 

When taking care of her plant, she also has some questions, so she chooses Instagram to send the shop a DM. Thanks to The Sill's omnichannel approach, all platforms are integrated with each other, so service agents know about everything to help her along.
 

Trend 4: Tap into online communities

The amount of followers doesn’t represent the amount of fans. 
 

A study by Facebook and NYU found that 77% of those surveyed say their most important group of which they are a member is located online (1). Especially for younger generations, platforms like Instagram and TikTok are incredibly important.
 
So what exactly does this mean for your business? Build a community around your brand. Or better yet, leverage other communities and content creators that are relevant to your product category.
 

Tip: as a business, you shouldn't always use influencers with millions of followers. Smaller influencers are more likely to have a more engaged community, which means you'll get better results.

Example

During the lockdown, there was a visible rise in the purchase of DIY items. BigDug, an English B2B company specialized in storage racks, saw this as an opportunity to target a different audience. The company anticipated on the existing communities that were looking for tips and tricks on improving their home during the lockdown. This allowed them to partner with various influencers through TikTok Marketplace, to showcase their products through the use of TikToks.

Trend 5: Measure the return on investment of your social channels

Social media is paying off, and business leaders have noticed. Pre-corona, many had fears about the effective ROI of social media. The digital transformation made us rethink this. This is shown in a study conducted by Hootsuite (2).
 
This is mainly due to the fact that social media channels such as Facebook and LinkedIn provide clear insights from our efforts. Measuring is knowing, and the platforms themselves notice this.
 

Example

In 2017, Instagram introduced the account for creators and businesses. This allowed content creators to measure the results of their efforts through detailed insights. In 2020, TikTok came out with this feature as well. You can roughly compare it to Google Analytics but for your social account. To date, there are about 200 million companies using such accounts (3). Be sure to enable this for your company as well.

Sources:

  1. Social trends 2022 - Report - https://www.hootsuite.com/research/social-trends (2022)
  2. The Power of Virtual Communities - Report - https://virtual-communities.thegovlab.org/reports.html(2022)
  3. 31 Mind-Boggling Instagram Stats & Facts for 2022 - https://www.wordstream.com/blog/(2022)
     

 

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