5 min read
Now that we are already through the first quarter of 2022, your business should be considering where it wants to go with its social media marketing strategy. To make things a little easier, we’ve provided six social media marketing trends you need to embrace this year.
1. Leverage Social Media as a Shopping Platform
For those of you who don’t have an actual product to sell, skip to trend #2. The rest of you read on because social media has emerged as a major shopping platform. We don’t need to be reminded that the pandemic was a catalyst for mass online shopping. As this trend emerged, so too did social media as a favored ecommerce tool. Ecommerce purchasers increased by 25.2% to 80 million. Experts predict this number will reach over 100 million by next year. So why is social media so popular for online purchases now? People have gotten over their initial confusion about using social media to purchase products.
When Facebook Shops was introduced, it created a major sales channel for businesses. But many social media addicts weren’t expecting to find the option to make a purchase in their feeds. When you think about it, it really is a match made in heaven. Since people use social media to find products, why not make life easier, and sales higher, by adding one extra step that allows them to make a direct purchase?
Now Facebook is joined by Instagram Checkout. We’re sure it won’t be long before Twitter and Pinterest follow suit. Considering one survey showed 43% of respondents said they’d used social media to shop in the last six months, this is your chance to earn big. And if your demographic is people aged 18 to 24, all the more reason to set up an account, as that number rises to 70% for that group.
2. Jump on the Short-Form Video Bandwagon
If you haven’t heard of TikTok yet, now is the time to become familiar with this social media sensation. It is strictly dedicated to short-form videos, although they’ve recently extended playtime to up to 10 minutes. Here’s what the big deal is with TikTok. It had only been around for three months before it was downloaded 315 million times globally.
This set a record for the most downloads for any type of app. Because of its popularity, Instagram tried to keep up with the short-form video trend and introduced Instagram Reels for video posts up to 30 seconds long. As an FYI, most reel posts are actually reposted from TikTok. Using short-form video is something to consider since one study shows up to 82% of online content will consist of videos this year.
3. Social Media is Now Part Of Daily Life
You’d think people would have had enough of social media by now, but clearly, this is no fad. Not only are there more users, but those users are spending more time on their favorite platforms at around 145 minutes per day. This is up by an hour compared to 2012. The driving force is probably purely behavioral in that it has now become a habit for users. But it’s also a nice way to stay connected with friends and family, not just for shopping.
However, it is the love of this connection that makes it an important place to be if you want people to find you. It’s the place to see and be seen. You can exchange information and provide products for sale to take advantage of this popular channel. Since people have their phones connected to their hands you have hours each day and night to make strong connections, gain followers, and earn some shares.
4. Facebook Rules
This one might come as a bit of a surprise. Facebook seems to be the social media platform for the older crowd, yet it remains the most used social media platform in the world. Next in line is YouTube. Despite TikTok’s instant success, it and other platforms are not knocking Facebook off the top of the heap, at least not anytime soon. It had over 1.8 billion daily users and about 23 billion visitors in 2021 with the average person spending almost an hour on Facebook each day. So, if you are still a company without a Facebook account, it’s not too late. Make 2022 the year you leverage this popular social media channel and gain some social cred.
5. Bite-Sized Content Impacts Short Attention Spans
It is a bit of an oxymoron of sorts that people are spending more time on social media than ever before, yet their attention spans are getting shorter. Perhaps it’s because social media provides instant gratification but in tiny bites. This is impacting attention spans that crave new info almost instantly. Scary but true. So, while people are spending 145 minutes a day on social, they are spending less time on each post. We’re talking about 8 seconds.
If this is the case, it’s not just short-form video you need to embrace, but also bite-sized content options, or disappearing content. It just takes one look around you to see that smartphones are attached to everyone’s arms. People of all ages and generations are using smartphones. We are now living with digital generations who never knew life before cell phones and computers. Between the need for ongoing stimulation, and the inability to pay attention for much longer than 8 seconds, marketers need to adapt their content to reach consumers suffering from a noted attention deficit.
6. User-Generated Content Helps Gain Trust
While you’ve gotten used to killing yourself to generate content, 2022 might offer some relief. Today, user-generated content (UCG) rules. It makes consumers feel more invested in your brand by contributing to your growth. So, the UCG trend is an easy out for you when you are low on content ideas. Some interesting stats on UCG:
- Brands see 20% increases on return visitors with UCG (TINT, 2018)
- Consumers spend 90% more time on websites with UCG (TINT, 2018)
- UGC images are also 81% more likely to convert (TINT, 2018)
- 55% of consumers trust UCG more than any other type of marketing (TINT, 2018)
It is also an affordable way to share high-quality content and create a sense of community.
By implementing some of these ideas, we feel that it will not only make you more relevant in today’s marketplace, but it will give you more credibility and brand awareness in a world of ever-changing content.
Are you wondering how you can take your social media strategy to the next level? At StructureM we offer social media solutions catered directly to your company’s needs. Contact us today and let us help you come up with a plan!
