Paid Media
Social Media Trends 2022 – What to Watch Out For!
If your business aims to remain competitive in today's jam-packed online landscape, you must adapt to the latest trends and innovations. There's just no way around it. However, it's quite a tough job to study and forecast marketing trends. Sounds heavy but don't worry, we've got you covered! For the…
If your business aims to remain competitive in today's jam-packed online landscape, you must adapt to the latest trends and innovations. There's just no way around it. However, it's quite a tough job to study and forecast marketing trends.
Sounds heavy but don't worry, we've got you covered! For the next two months, we'll uncover the hottest, most anticipated trends for the new year covering everything from content production to its distribution and from technology advancements to omnichannel integrations. Put these exclusive trends to work and reflect on them while outlining your own digital marketing strategy for 2022.
We'll start with the touchpoint that rules the web - Top 5 Social Media Trends that have the Potential to Influence Conversations and Conversions in 2022:
Into the Metaverse with Augmented Reality
With Facebook introducing AR content, Snapchat releasing the Local Lens feature and Instagram enabling its AR-based 'try-on' feature, AR is quickly becoming critical for the overall social media UX — especially for the consumer. AR yields unprecedented outcomes in traditional marketing and advertising. It captures people's attention for over 85 seconds, increases interaction rates by 20% and improves click-through rates to purchase by 33%. AR gives way for people to interact with digital objects in their homes, stores, and public spaces. For example, digital trial runs via AR make sampling significantly easier and faster for shoppers, leading to more sales. In addition, AR's ability to connect the physical and digital worlds makes it adaptable for multiple use cases. Take Facebook's metaverse, for instance; it will use AR and other technologies to bring people together under a single overarching platform.Power of Hyper-Personalisation
Good social media personalisation pays close attention to involvement history and context. When executed well, such personable experiences enable businesses not only to differentiate themselves but also to obtain a sustainable competitive advantage. Social media dialogue will get more custom-tailored as marketers leverage data to create one-on-one experiences. Nearly 9 out of 10 marketers consider it a priority and invest in the betterment of their personalisation attempts. A greater emphasis is being placed on building laser-targeted content assets that are humanised as social media experiences on DMs, live chat and chatbot integrations. Delivering ephemeral content which can't be missed creates FOMO, presenting unique experiences and allowing the viewers to interact directly with the brand, all with a sense of exclusivity and urgency.Whatever you say, say only in Video
There has been an evolving shift in user preferences from pictures to video content in digital marketing. As a result, consumers are becoming more interested in video content, which can engage and deliver value. Be it long-form or short-form, videos continue to gain a lot of traction and give value to customers, especially to enhance in-person shopping experiences through Reels, TikToks, and Live stream broadcasts. Video content gets 48% higher overall engagement and 1200% more shares compared to text or image-based content. Brands can even leverage User-generated content (UGC) for videos to gain trust and influence purchase decisions. The underlying benefit of video content on social media is its adaptability and variety. It captures a wider target audience, even the lazy users, and drives them to consume new video content.If it's Organic, it has to be Local
If you want to grab customers' eyeballs, you need to market everywhere they're looking. Therefore, a substantial focus on 'location' has become a strong social marketing trend for both sponsored and organic social media efforts. Brands will produce on-location footage and tag each post appropriately to increase awareness by promoting a LIVE event in the area and expanding the overall reach in the process. Brands shall advertise customised content and start offering content to audiences within specific geographic areas. This will trigger impulsive buying, boost sales, and give an effective marketing angle. Furthermore, to stay relevant, marketers must catch up with technology and embrace location-based marketing to retain their customers, bring in revenue, and provide a richer in-store experience.Valued Niche Social Experiences
With billions of active social media users, people seek experiences in smaller, niche communities and subcultures. Consequently, brands are doubling focus on creating such experiences to enhance relationships with the audience. Facebook has introduced features that are being added to make media groups more comprehensive and appealing to both its admins and its members. In addition, it provides the ability to form subgroups — both free and paid. Along with that, there are experiences like:- Audio Rooms: Users on Facebook are still loving this feature. It is beneficial to use this kind of communication within a Facebook group to communicate with members on a more personal level.
- LIVE: The power of live is still evident, and streams are gaining more value, organic reach and engagement. It's likely that Meta will continue to roll out and push this short-form, full-screen video format very heavily.
