2022 Social Media Marketing Trend & Predictions

Social media has become an integral part of our daily lives and will continue to impact us one way or another in the year 2022. Marketers who don’t use social media are truly missing the boat, but what will we be seeing from Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, YouTube, and the rest in the coming year?

It’s hard to make reliable predictions when so many things are changing by the day. However, a few trends are already creating a buzz over the internet, and these include.

Dominance of Videos

Social media of 2022 is to be dominated by video content! In fact, we will see more videos on social media platforms than ever before. The average American adult watches around six hours of video content every day.

Brands have started to realize that they need to get involved with social video content to engage with their audience. The statistics show that this content has a higher engagement rate than any other type of content on social media. Also, with the exponential rise of TikTok and Instagram adding reels to its platform, it’s obvious that video will be even more important in the coming years.

Growth of Social E-Commerce

Retailers and large businesses are buying into the idea of selling through social media. We have seen a growing trend in social e-commerce over the last couple of years, and as per eMarketer, the social commerce industry will amount to $80 billion by 2025.

Also, brands now realize that they need to sell their products as soon as customers see them on their feeds. Hence, they are leveraging social media to market and list their merchandise instead of driving the traffic to their website. Live video shopping is also set to grow, as it helps businesses and freelance sellers to go live, show off their products and sell them to their followers.

Micro-Influencers Will Be in Demand

In the year 2022, the growth of micro-influencers will continue to be on the rise. With social media becoming more saturated with content, people are finding it harder to trust traditional celebrities when making purchasing decisions. This is where micro-influencers come in, as they have a more relatable and trustworthy persona, thanks to having a smaller following.

Micro-influencers are also more likely to engage with their followers more often. As of 2022, Statista estimates that 72.5% of marketers are likely to increase their influencer marketing budgets while only 5% intends to decrease it. Consequently, brands are starting to shift their budgets towards working with micro-influencers to create authentic and engaging content.

Ad Spending on Social Media Will Likely Increase in 2022

Social media is popular for advertising, and businesses are spending more money to get their message out. But with so much content uploaded daily, it is getting harder to reach the targeted audience, and as a result, we are likely to see an increase in social media ad spending.

The Hootsuite’s 2022 Social Media Trends survey found that 40% of businesses are considering increasing their spending on advertising because of the dire need to increase their reach.

Customer Support on Social Media set to grow

As a customer service channel, social media has become significant enough for brands to recognize it as one, and we can expect it to grow in 2022. With people using social media as their main form of communication, it only makes sense for businesses to provide support through these channels. This is because it’s more efficient and cost-effective for businesses to solve problems through social media than having customers call or email them. It’s also an effective way to gain customers’ trust and improve their retention.

As per a report by Gartner, 80% of marketers will also be abandoning emails, SMS, and native apps for support requests in favor of messaging on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and the likes in the coming years.

Conclusion

Social media is always changing, and it will be drastically different from how it is today, largely thanks to the rapid advancements in technology. In 2022, we can expect to see more videos, the growth of micro-influencers and social e-commerce, and an increase in customer support on social media. So, make sure you keep up with these trends if you want to stay ahead of the curve!