Be Ready for These 2022 Social Media Trends

The world has changed in the face of the pandemic, and though social media was popular before, it is growing as an important way to connect. If you still have clients that are not active on social media, it’s time you dragged them into the light. For your clients who are already active on social media, you will want to tweak their spend and direction according to strong social media trends that emerged in 2021 and will continue into 2022. If marketing is changing rapidly these days, nothing is changing faster than social media.

If you need to convince your clients, tell them that

• 1.3 million new users were added to social media each day in 2020.
• Millennials are logged on to social media for an average of two hours and 38 minutes every day.  Gen Z logs on for two hours and 55 minutes on average each day.
• 79% of people say that user-generated social media content greatly affects their buying decisions.

Now let’s take a look at what to expect in 2022 so you can maximize your clients’ social media spend.

TikTok Is on the Rise

TikTok, once barely considered by marketers, is very much on the rise. Not including messaging networks like WhatsApp, TikTok is currently the fourth most popular social media network following Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.

It was the most downloaded app in 2020 and reached 1 billion users in Sept 2021. TikTok had only 689 million users in January 2021, meaning its users increased by 45% in less than a year. This follows a prior growth increase of global users of 1,157% between 2018 and 2020. To understand how astounding this is, consider that in 2020 Instagram’s monthly active users grew by 6% in the US .

What’s all the excitement about? TikTok’s short-term, entertaining video format can help brands to appeal to new audiences and associate their brand with fun, entertaining content. TikTok has also spawned its own fast-rising stars who have become influencers to be reckoned with.

is also heavily influencing some other platforms. For example, Instagram introduced “Reels” in 2021, which is very much like TikTok. Reels is short-term video content. Similar to TikTok, you can scroll through not only in your own following but that of content curated for you.

You will want to take a close look at TikTok sooner rather than later particularly for your B2C clients but not exclusively for them. TikTok

Short Form Video Is Vastly Preferred

In case it wasn’t clear from the success of TikTok just discussed, short term video is very popular now. About the only place to find long videos these days is on YouTube, and even YouTube has introduced short term video called YouTube Shorts.

Short term video is not just popular among consumers. Hootsuite’s 2022 Social Media Trends survey shows that businesses prefer short-form video to other types of social media marketing. Almost 40% use them to market products and services.

People are especially drawn to live videos which help businesses engage and bond with your customers. Just keep it authentic, conversational and entertaining.

Instagram and Twitter Will Become Increasingly Important to B2B Brands

TikTok may be the fastest growing platform, but that doesn’t mean others have stopped growing. In the third quarter of 2020, Twitter had reached about 200 million daily active users, up 29% from the year before. From 2019 to 2020, Instagram saw a 14% increase in the time users spend on the app. That’s about 30 minutes each day.

In 2022 B2B brands plan to increase their social media spends on specific platforms as follows:

• Twitter: 70%
• Instagram: 63%
• YouTube: 59%
• TikTok: 58%
• Facebook: 49%

Influencer Marketing Will Become Indispensable

There is little doubt that people trust influencers they already enjoy and follow more than they do companies. It’s certainly not a new idea to align with celebrities to promote a brand, but social media has taken influencer marketing to a whole new level. You are no longer limited to getting a Hollywood star or rock star to tout your brand. Now it can be much more affordable with the rise of social media creators and micro-influencers.

For most brands, the only way to establish yourself quickly on social media is to partner with carefully selected influencers. Partnering with influencers is a social media trend that will only grow.

This need not be expensive. Micro-influencers may hold a lot of sway in their niche even though many are unknown outside the platform.

Paid Social Advertising Will Become More Necessary

I think we are all in agreement that with Google planning to jettison cooking tracking by 2023, 2022 is the year to develop other methods to reach clients’ audiences.  Targeted social media ads, partnering with influencers and creating ways to encourage user-generated content touting your brand are all ways to help fill the gap.

But those companies that were hoping to pick up the gap with organic social media are facing another challenge. Organic content has suffered declining reach. Thus, many companies that did little social media advertising in the past are now finding it necessary. For example, if you don’t boost your Facebook posts, only 5% of your followers might see them these days. Sure, this is another reason to expand to smaller networks such as TikTok. But if you have not been boosting your clients’ popular posts, it’s time to start.

Buying Directly on Social Media Will Become More Popular than Ever

Today, consumers can shop directly on many social media platforms. If your clients are not offering products for sale directly on social media, they should be.

Social media use is only increasing. Combine that with a population that stays at home more due to the pandemic, and it only makes sense to offer goods and services on social media platforms.

Social commerce is expected to reach $80 billion by 2050. Make sure your clients get their piece of the pie.

Consider White Label Social Media Services

Social media trends change rapidly, more rapidly than in any other marketing area. To optimize spend, businesses need to be on top of the trends and know how to monetize them. Many businesses are just not prepared for that. In a recent survey of large brands, 36% reported lack of talent and 33% reported difficulty running campaigns in multiple social channels as their biggest challenges in social media advertising. Among smaller companies, we can expect these numbers would be much higher.

This is an opportunity for savvy marketing agencies. Even if social media is not one of your focus areas, you can resell social media services reliably performed by experts.

Contact Umbrella for a free consultation to discuss white label social media services and how your agency and your clients can enjoy the best of all worlds.