Hootsuite’s Social Media Trends 2022 Report is based on global data and expert insights, it analyzes global social media trends, industry behaviours, breakthrough platforms, and new normals. Now in its 6th year, Social Media Management platform Hootsuite’s annual report on social media trend, examines the bigger picture—the themes, innovations and infrastructure that have become fixtures in the social space, regardless of yearly trends.
The Hootsuite Social Media report is based on a survey of 18,100 marketers conducted in Q3 of 2021. The report identified five social media trends to pay attention to in 2022, they are:
- Trend 1: The Brand Strategy Trend:
Brands finally get community right (with the help of creators)
- Trend 2: The Social Advertising Trend
Marketers get creative as consumers wise up to social ads
- Trend 3: The ROI Trend
Social quietly matures out of the marketing department
- Trend 4: The Social Commerce Trend
Social becomes the heart of the post-pandemic shopping experience
- Trend 5: The Customer Care Trend
Social marketers rescue their brands from the customer service apocalypse
Trend 1: The Brand Strategy Trend
Brands finally get community right (with the help of creators)
Digital communities are only becoming more central to consumers’ lives and identities, and creators are the key to unlocking them. Brands that partner wisely with creators are connecting with new audiences, earning their trust, and gaining cultural capital.
Gamers are gaming on Twitch. Readers are reading on Goodreads. Bikers are biking on Peloton. The digital communities have never been richer, more vibrant, and more impactful on our experience of daily life than they are now.
Stats
- Seventy-seven percent of people surveyed for a joint report by Facebook and NYU’s Governance Lab indicated that the most important group they are part of operates online.
- According to a recent Squarespace survey, young people now find digital life more important and memorable than in-person life. And nowhere are these groups being created and catered to more than on social media.
Recommendations:
- Instead of trying to build a community from the ground up, the smartest brands in 2022 will tap into existing creator communities to learn more about their customers, simplify content creation, and build brand awareness and affinity.
- Seek out online communities that are active and engaged around interests relevant to your product category. If you make dishware, talk to home cooks. If you service cars, find auto clubs. By using creators to tap into these circles where you’re not well known and adding value there, you’ll reach new audiences, build cultural relevance, and learn more about your customers.
Trend 2: The Social Advertising Trend
Marketers get creative as consumers wise up to social ads
Consumers are holding brands to a higher standard when it comes to creativity in social advertising—but rewarding those that get it right. As marketers plan to spend more on social ads in 2022, they’ll have to work harder to create ads that mirror and enrich the distinct experience each social network offers.
The largest increases in spend relative to last year are going towards TikTok, Pinterest, and Snapchat. Marketers are shifting their resources to where they can make the most impact—and, increasingly, that’s on networks that typically haven’t been a priority in the social marketing channel mix.
Insight
Consumers, wise to the sameness of social advertising, are holding brands to a higher standard when it comes to creativity—but they’re also rewarding those that get it right. Brands that want to stand out in 2022 will have to work harder to create ads that mirror and enrich the distinct experience offered by each social network.
Marketers are finding platforms like TikTok, Snapchat, and Pinterest to be far more effective for reaching business goals than they have in the past.
Recommendations:
- Build social marketing teams with the intent to experiment
- To keep up with the changes in the social landscape, your organization must welcome and embrace experimentation. When hiring, look for people who understand specific platforms intuitively. And make sure to diversify the skill sets on your team, either with training or by hiring people who specialize in analytics, video, audio, or writing.
- Choose the right social channels.for your business goals
- Accept that nailing attribution will take time, trial, and error
- Instead of zeroing in on metrics, focus on shifting the internal culture and mindsets of your marketing teams, embracing experimentation, and accepting that measurement may be murky and imperfect in the short term.
Trend 3: The ROI Trend
Social quietly matures out of the marketing department
Having seen the value of social in marketing, business leaders are buffing up employee advocacy programs, mastering social listening to gather consumer insights, and looking to deliver the kind of impact they’ve seen social have on their marketing elsewhere in their organizations.
Insight
Bold businesses in 2022 will buff up their employee advocacy programs, get better at using social to gather consumer insights, and strive to deliver the kind of impact they’ve seen social have on their marketing elsewhere in their organizations.
Recommendations
- Create a better employee experience with advocacy tools
- Help your employees feel more connected to your business and one another.
- Sharpen your strategy with deeper customer insights
- Organizations that were extremely confident in measuring the ROI of social media were also more likely to use it to gather insights about their customers
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Make your paid strategy smarter by using your organic audience to help you figure out who to target with paid ads.
Trend 4: The Social Commerce Trend
Social becomes the heart of the post-pandemic shopping experience
The era of social commerce is in full swing and the opportunity is only getting bigger. Competitive small businesses are finding a balance between social storefronts and bricks and mortar, while large brands test the outer limits of the online shopping experience.
Lockdowns shot ecommerce forward a decade—in three months
Stats
- 84% of consumers were shopping over the internet, according to Shopify.
- eMarketer reported a surge in ecommerce sales growth to 18%, the highest increase the firm had ever reported for this figure.
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And in what McKinsey dubbed “the quickening,” ecommerce penetration
rocketed ahead more in the first 90 days of the pandemic than it had in the previous decade.
- eMarketer projects that double-digit annual growth will drive ecommerce sales from $792 billion in 2020 to $1.6 trillion in 2025.
Social media has become the new boulevard, the high street, the avenue. It’s your display window.
Recommendations
- Remove moments of friction
The easier you make the purchase process, the more likely your customers are to follow through. Ask yourself what simple things you can do to improve their experience with your brand, even on your existing social profiles.
- Before you take on any more work in maintaining something like a Facebook Shop, make sure you plug all of the gaps in your existing social points of presence—for example, by updating your business profile with basic information like your operating hours and location.
- Invest in your social storefrontNow that your business profiles are spotless, you’re ready to delve into the world of the online storefront. From Instagram to Facebook to Pinterest, there are plenty of options for you to sell products directly on social.
Trend 5: The Customer Care Trend
Social marketers rescue their brands from the customer service apocalypse
Amid halting global supply chains and staffing shortages, many businesses can expect an influx of not-so-happy customers in 2022. Meanwhile, demand for customer service over social has been surging. Social media managers now find themselves in an ideal position to play the hero and steer their organizations through the upheaval.
A customer service apocalypse is upon us. And social is where it will play out.
Stats
- In a Nielsen survey commissioned by Facebook, 64% of people said they now prefer to message rather than call a business.
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According to Gartner, 60% of all customer service requests will be managed via digital channels by 2023.
Insight
In 2022, business leaders will look to social marketers to take a greater role in customer care. Pioneering social marketers will break from their departmental silos to build deeper inroads with customer service teams and take more agency in delivering customer care.
Recommendations
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Give yourself a unified view of all your messaging channels
- Make it easier for customer service and marketing to share information
Your customers don’t make the distinction between your customer support, marketing, and sales teams. To them, every interaction is just an experience with your brand. Make sure your marketing and customer service teams have clear lines of communication with one another so they can streamline common inquiries and mitigate issues in tandem. -
Invest in training and services for social media teams
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