By December, Holiday marketing program are in place and running. So the strategic thoughts of most digital marketing teams have turned fully to 2022 social media trends. And the ever-changing marketing landscape marketing looks as challenging, daunting and exciting as ever. For Social Media, the center of all this rapid change is in content creation and the channels through which we share it.
What 2022 Social Media Trends Will Need Your Attention?
Social media feeds for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn et al, may see significant changes as the companies come under continued pressure to overhaul the content curation that has up to now promoted paid content over organic SEO-focused social media work. Several changes may occur to address “personalization and privacy.”
It is hard, though, to envision what sort of regulation could be imposed to raise social media accountability and improve consumer protection, especially in minimizing harassment and negative impacts to mental health. So we will have to watch, wait and see how the Social Media channels react. We then will need to determine how we react to their actions.
Your Followers’ Feeds May Evolve – Will They See Your Content?
Given that digital ads are the lifeblood of the social media behemoths, though, paid ads will remain a necessary tool for driving awareness and motivating deeper consumer investigation.
Marketers like KO Websites will track all trends closely to see where our tactics will need to adjust to keep our clients’ content gaining reach and motivating engagement.
New Media Channels Bear Watching – But Jump In Only When It Makes Sense
The main strategic imperative in Social Media Marketing has not changed. Focus only on those channels where your desired customer is most likely to hang out. Example: Our law firm clients remain focused on LinkedIn, Twitter and (for some) Facebook. And we keep them active on the top find-a-lawyer channels like Findlaw.com and Avvo.com. But the mix changes by client. Some are consumer-focused (personal injury lawyers, say) while others are business-to-business (creditors rights and/or commercial real estate attorneys, perhaps). These two types of clients put their energies in different channels.
We have a dry-eye treatment client, on the other hand, who wishes to attract both consumers and optometrists. So we work on a few more channels for them than other clients who have a tighter focus.
All that said, spreading your energy, time and money too widely diminishes overall returns. This is an area of ongoing client education. Resisting “shiny penny” syndrome (chasing too many opportunities) is a key marketing success factor!
Where appropriate, though, newer platforms like Clubhouse and TikTok (yes it still qualifies as new!) may offer more targeted audiences. They may deserve being added to the marketing mix at some point. Content like live or recorded short-form video, or podcasts, offer new ways to creatively deliver brand messaging across the digital space. But more established players are adding TikTok-like options (YouTube Shorts, for instance) so we will see where our creative energies will need to be focused next year as the competition between channels continues to rage.
Track, track, track! Analytics Still Drive the Bus
We need to relentlessly analyze whether our efforts ultimately lead to business! Some social media campaigning is designed to raise awareness, but in the end that needs to flow through to an increase in sales. Done in a coordinated fashion, the activities up and down the sales funnel will confirm and amplify each other.
Other Social Media Trends on our Radar
Customer service will continue its migration to old and new social channels. Managing this flow is not always the purview of a digital marketing agency, but in what way can we assist a client manage that flow better? Consumers are moving seamlessly between investigating new products and services, ordering them, reviewing them and demanding customer services – all on the same channel!
Creative Influencers have more tools at their disposal to create content that may feature your stuff. This is an enhancement on the type of influencer who may interact with your product or service “in the real world” without setting up a mini-production shoot. And, key question, how do we influence the influencers who are not necessarily under our control?
Will augmented reality support the eventual rise of the metaverse? This is a niche opportunity as we approach 2022, for those with larger marketing budgets. Testing the tool to see how AR and VR work as engagement hooks bears watching. But let others take the slings and arrows first, and learn from their experiences!
Finally, Watch Out for the Unexpected with 2022 Social Media Trends
Change is good, they say. We acknowledge that change is inevitable. How quickly it comes at us and demands a productive response will keep digital marketing agencies like us nimble and awake through 2022 and beyond!
How may we help you deliver that productive response?