The new year is here, which means it is time for us to reflect on 2021 and gear up for 2022. Social media has skyrocketed over the last decade and is becoming a part of our daily lives. With more people engaged on social media than ever before, it is important to stay on top of the trends to ensure you get the best ROI for your business.
Old Trends are Here to Stay
Short-form videos (typically under 2 ½ minutes) hold their spot as one of the top forms of content. Trends suggest that 82% of online content will consist of videos in 2022. With TikTok staying on top as the fastest growing social media platform, this type of video content is a necessary weapon to add to your social media arsenal.
Instagram Reels and Stories are other types of bite-sized videos that tend to yield high engagement. Reels launched in 2020 but gained popularity in 2021 due to its high visibility. While Stories have been around for a few years, they remain popular for their authenticity and interactability. If you’re looking for a new way to increase social media engagement for your business, Instagram Reels and Stories may be something to look into.
Other trends from previous years are persisting in 2022. Keep these in the back of your mind when crafting your social media strategy:
- Facebook Remains on Top: While it seems Facebook has been edged out by newer platforms, it is still the most used social media platform in the world and will continue to dominate the market for years to come.
- Bite-Sized Content: The attention span of the average person is eight seconds. Keep your content short and sweet to boost engagement.
- Augmented Reality (AR): It started with the dog filter on Snapchat, and will continue to grow in 2022! Expect to see more user-generated AR filters in the months ahead.
New Trends are Emerging
2022 is bringing some new trends we haven’t seen as much in previous years – including shopping on social media. Social media and e-commerce will combine even more to form a new shopping experience known as social commerce. This will allow consumers to start and finish a purchase on social media platforms without having to open a new tab or web browser. This is huge for e-commerce businesses as retailers will get higher engagement on their advertisements, more leads, and be able to tailor customer experience based on the insights from social media. One app that has taken advantage of social commerce is LikeToKnowIt (LTK). LTK allows consumers to shop their favorite influencers’ outfits from social media photos, creating a dynamic and efficient shopping experience. Social commerce is projected to be a trillion-dollar industry by 2025, so it might be time to hop on the bandwagon!
Keeping Things Dynamic
We are using our smartphones to access more content than ever, so businesses should think about ‘designing for the thumb’ in 2022. One way to make content smartphone-friendly is to create a dynamic scrolling layout. This frictionless website design minimizes the amount of clicking users have to do to access your content; all of your featured content is available on a single page!
Do you ever use a search engine to find something, only to see it pop up in a Facebook ad minutes later? This is dynamic content at work! Dynamic content is tailored to the user based on their location, browsing history, or a recent purchase they made. This type of content has a high engagement rate, so expect to see more of it in your feed throughout the next year.
Looking for other ways to modernize your website? These strategies will also be trending in 2022:
- Dark Mode: In addition to minimizing eye strain, darker web pages make content stand out more!
- Faster Page Load Time: Studies have shown the ‘sweet spot’ for load page time is 2.4 seconds, and web pages that load faster have higher conversion rates
- Interactive Content: Consumers love taking quizzes, polls, etc. – so expect to see lots of this in 2022.
- Accessibility: Developers will be incorporating more features that don’t rely on keyboard-based input. Accessibility should be top of mind when designing for the web.
Authenticity Wins
There are plenty of mediums to share content in today’s world. The biggest takeaway to improve your social media marketing strategy for 2022 is to focus on creating authentic content. Employing user-generated content, where customers speak on the product rather than the corporation, is an effective way to improve authenticity. Brands that incorporate user-generated content have a 20% increase in return visitors and a 90% increase in the time that users spend on their web pages.
If your goal for the year is to improve your social media marketing strategy, figuring out where your brand can fit into these trends will be a sure way to improve your ROI in the year to come.
