Important Social Media Trends for 2022

It can be tough to navigate the realm of social media, considering the massive amount of competition around. Thus, to achieve your social media objectives, such as lead generation, increased engagements, and reach, you need to be knowledgeable of social media trends 2022 and apply them to your marketing strategy.

We have listed nine (9) social media trends 2022 that you need to watch out for.

Social Media Trends to Watch in 2022

1. Customer Service to rise along with Social Commerce

The very first among the social media trends 2022 is the continued rise of social commerce along with the improvement of customer service. The social commerce feature of social media platforms will continue to roll up this year to keep up with the demands of customers who shop for goods and avail services online — the pandemic has only triggered it more. Brands will test all shoppable features across all platforms, and social commerce will be among every marketing strategy – from ads to live broadcasts to shopping links to influencers.

In this light, marketers should give more emphasis to focusing on improving online customer service in order to maximize the marketing potential of social media platforms.

2. Slimmed-Down Media Models

The next thing among the nine social media trends for 2022 that you need to keep an eye out for is slimmed-down models. We’ve all heard of well-known social media sites with massive and active viewers. Facebook, to name one, is consistently increasing its daily and monthly engaged users, despite the widespread criticisms of its methods. 

However, newer platforms have also continued to emerge that provide an essentially slimmed-down media model, which aims to provide a more convenient, straightforward, and safer space for their users. Surprisingly, not all of them are social networking sites — others are podcasts platforms such as Spotify, newsletter services like Substack, and even sub-communities inside major social platforms like Twitter Spaces.

As a result of these platforms, marketers will need to nurture customer experience alternatives on mainstream social media platforms that aren’t attention-grabbing material, but at the same time, create brand presence on these slimmed-down media models as well.

3. Continuous Rise of Influencers

The continuous rise of influencers is surely a part of social media trends 2022 as it is the most obvious in this digital era. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, influencers have become more icons of trust than brands themselves. This is why influencer marketing is not going anywhere this 2022, and is even dubbed to be a more promising option for marketing to pursue. In this regard, it is projected that more influencer collaborations will be utilized cto leverage a boost in sales, given that the relationship between e-commerce and social media is undeniably strong. 

4. Brand Accountability

Among the social media trends 2022 that should never be removed from the trends is brand accountability. Consumers have become wiser about their purchases and are now holding brands more accountable and responsible for their products, customer service, and promises, especially since they can keep and present "receipts" through social media platforms. Being able to keep an eye on the conversations surrounding your brand shall help you in creating authentic responses that should convey and maintain legitimacy and accountability to your brand.

5. Augmented Reality to Boost Interaction and Product Testing

This social media marketing trend 2022 is surely around for quite some time now but has only recently gained traction – and that is the use of Augmented Reality to boost interaction from the brand to the consumers and become a way for product testing. Augmented Reality (AR) has increasingly become a way for brands to let consumers test products before purchasing. AR has also shown to be beneficial to a company's bottom line. In fact, AR has been shown to increase purchase click-through rates by up to 33%. In comparison to other kinds of advertising and marketing, AR is the most intimate approach for businesses to reach individuals and is more successful at delivering outcomes. This means that marketers should be open to using AR to enhance customer experience.

6. Adoption of Short Videos

The adoption of short videos to shape video metrics is among the social media trends 2022 that everyone must have certainly foreseen. Instagram and Facebook reels and Tiktok dominate the social media environment these days, signifying the user's interest incline on short videos over images. Marketers must determine whether link playback leads to conversion behavior. This entails tying social media data to sales or conversion statistics.

7. Addressing Health Flaws in Social Media Metrics

This social media trend 2022 may not be the first thought of everyone but it definitely is something that is needed to be addressed. Because of people's reliance and increasingly active use of social media, it has created more social awareness and, unfortunately, impacted their mental health. More so, people are susceptible to fatigue, and may even feel drained from the endless use of social media. In this regard, social media platforms have been more sensitive and have displayed efforts to address this. Youtube, for example, has opted to remove the dislike statistics from its videos’ public display. Thus, marketers should anticipate more collaboration between social media platforms to prevent abuse.

8. Sophisticated Social Advertising

Google is now planning to phase out "cookies" by 2023. Fortunately, there are a plethora of extremely effective advertising choices available that do not involve the use of third-party cookies. Some of the examples are social media ad targeting and personalization, user-generated content, email marketing, and SEO. With this, marketers should pivot on their present strategies as social advertising continues to evolve.

Companies to hire dedicated Social Media Managers

Social media is an undoubtedly effective business approach. This means it would be to your advantage if you hire dedicated and competent social media managers to step up your social media game.

Consider employing social media managers from SmartVAs to help you establish and connect with your online audiences if you haven't already. If your audience is ready to participate with your brand through social media, these managers deliver the voice, tone, and dialogues behind your brand.