Considering how prominent social media is in everyday life, businesses and marketers flock to these platforms in hopes of finding and connecting with their target audience. 

In fact, a staggering 93% of marketers worldwide are using social media for business. In 2022, almost 92% of marketers who work for companies with more than 100 employees in the U.S. are expected to begin using social media with their marketing strategy. 

With that said, the remaining content will explore some of the most popular social media trends for businesses, social media strategies, and everything you can expect to see in the coming months. 

Ready to jump in?

1. Growing Demand for Chatbot Communication

On-demand messaging has shifted to more of a preference for customer and service communication. 

With the emerging chatbot trends, more and more industries are choosing to integrate chatbots into their business to be able to deliver continuous, non-stop customer care. But it’s not just for customer care, in fact, AI is expected to cut customer service costs by 50%, 

In fact, according to Gartner, “Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be a mainstream customer experience investment in the next couple of years.” With that said, 47% of organizations will use chatbots for customer service and 40% will even deploy virtual assistants. 

Here are a few different types of chatbots that you could see emerging:

  • Menu-based chatbots
  • Rule-based chatbots
  • Keyword recognition chatbots
  • Machine learning chatbots
  • Voice bots
  • Appointment or scheduling bots
  • Customer support bots

AI has been reinventing the ways people communicate with businesses and AI is vital for enabling machine learning on e-commerce websites. Going forward, chatbots are predicted to move from simple user-based queries to more advanced predictive analytics-based real-time conversations. 

Actually, the market size of Conversational AI is expected to reach $1.3 billion by 2025. That means its compound annual growth rate is 24%. Additionally, 75-90% of queries are projected to be handled by chatbots by 2024. 

2. Small Networks Will Become Popular for Ads

TikTok isn’t the only “smaller” network catching the attention of brands. Pinterest and even Snapchat are also gaining in popularity. 

According to data shared by Pinterest business, ads on their platform can generate twice the return on ad spend for retail brands, compared to other social media channels. 

While Snapchat isn’t super popular for marketing (compared to Facebook or Instagram) Snapchat advertising statistics show that the potential for ad growth on Snapchat has increased. 

Additionally, Apple made a recent announcement earlier this year that it will block the ability of Facebook to target a significant number of its users. With that said, it is vital for brands to begin looking at other platforms for advertising and new audiences. 

3. Brands Will Adopt More VR and Augmented Reality Technology

This social media trend of 2022 is one of the cooler trends on this list. Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) aren’t just for gamers anymore. 

Brands try to offer an exciting, and shoppable experience for their customers and many e-commerce businesses are beginning to adapt to AR-powered shopping. 

Meaning that users would be able to try on products before completing a digital purchase. That will help customers make the best decision for them before buying anything. 

Already, platforms like Snapchat and Facebook messenger allow people to try on hundreds of different filters which can sometimes include updating profile pictures with brand logos or business mascots. 

Top technology experts are beginning to make VR gear more available to people at an affordable price.  That means that you can enjoy an immersive game-like experience. I mean, Facebook already offers a feature called, “Facebook Spaces,” where up to 3 people can engage with each other using a VR device. 

In fact, according to eMarketer, the number of VR users in the US is 57.4 million while the number of AR users is a whopping 90.9 million. It is expected to jump in 2022 in the US to 95.1 million users! 

4. TikTok Will Continue to Grow

While TikTok may not see the same growth as it saw in 2020 during the Pandemic and lockdowns, it doesn’t mean that its growth has stopped. 

Image of TikTok Log In Page

In fact, TikTok reached a staggering 1 billion monthly active users in 2021. The company has also been improving the development of its ad platform, making it easier for businesses to create an online presence on the network. 

Here are a few reasons to advertise and expand your brand on TikTok:

In addition, the company said that 47% of its users have bought a product because of TikTok and 67% agree that TikTok inspired them to shop even if they weren’t planning to do so. 

Given this amount of growth in recent years, it would be a wise marketing strategy to turn to TikTok as a social media platform, especially if your product or service is geared towards a younger audience. In fact, only 26% of millennials use TikTok. 

5. Reaching New Audiences Will Become a Primary Goal for Brands

When it’s time to build your brand up, you may need to add or change the type of audiences you promote to. Reaching a new group requires precision, research, and expanding on different social media networks. 

According to Hubspot, one of the main goals of most marketers in 2022 will be to reach new audiences. That includes growing relationships with customers and boosting customer service. 

In previous years, these goals were more focused on boosting sales and advertising products. With that said, it’s anticipated that there will be a change in how brands are going to use social media platforms moving forward. 

6. Instagram and Twitter Will Continue to Maintain Popularity

While a lot has been predicted for smaller channels such as TikTok, Pinterest, and Snapchat, one thing is for sure Twitter and Instagram aren’t going anywhere in 2022. 

Actually, according to HubSpot research, Twitter and Instagram will become even more important in the B2B space. In 2022, 70% of respondents said that they plan to increase their investment in Twitter. 

Image of twitter homepage

While 63% of B2B businesses plan to increase their ad spend on Instagram. So, let’s take a second to put this information into perspective. A Hootsuite study shows only 49% of B2B businesses plan to increase their investment on Facebook. 

That means more brands are distancing themselves from Facebook and finding new audiences on other social media platforms. 

7. Twitter Will Shift to a Trustworthy News Portal

While platforms like Facebook are primarily used as entertainment platforms, Twitter has always reserved the spot for serious talks on various topics of interest. 

With that said, Twitter is one platform that has always prioritized news stories among other forms of content. 

However, sometimes the authenticity of those news stories wasn’t completely accurate. Which led to controversies on and about the platform. 

In the coming years, Twitter is actually expected to keep a stricter fact-checking process on tweets and fake news. Twitter tends to allow only 100% authentic reliable news sources. 

Twitter has never topped the social media ranks in terms of popularity, however, it has continued to be an important platform. 

In 2022, Twitter is expected to bring more mainstream news media and tends to increase participation from social media users. 

8. Instagram Likes May Die Down

It may be safe to say that 2022 may be the year when digital marketing professionals who focus on marketing trends will need to shift their focus from likes to social trends and content marketing. 

Marketing campaigns aren’t strangers to social media “likes”, but it seems like 2022 might be the year that we will begin to see the “likes” fad die down. It is well known how the constant fixation on social media validation tends to have a fairly negative impact on individuals. 

That’s why Instagram has begun an experiment where they make the like counts private for some users. Although this isn’t an official update, we may see some form of this implemented onto the platform. 

Image of cellphone with Instagram app

To be clear, Instagram hasn’t removed likes, it’s simply hiding them from public profiles so only the poster can see how many likes a post or Instagram story has. 

9. Paid Advertising Will Become Necessary 

Social media in 2022 means that paid advertising isn’t an option anymore but a necessity. A Hootsuite survey suggests that 43% of businesses point out the decline of organic reach and the necessity to increase paid advertising budgets will be the major challenge for brands. 

Considering that the average organic reach for a Facebook post is just over 5%. With that said, that’s why it’s so important to get your PPC ads right. 

If you aren’t sure what to do, book a call with one of our experts now, we’re here to help! 

10. Social Audio Will Become More Popular 

Clubhouse was launched in 2020 and since then it has become increasingly popular. In fact, in June of 2021, Facebook followed suit by launching its Live Audio rooms, new features, and podcasts in the U.S. Additionally, LinkedIn launched a test of Audio Rooms in January of 2022. 

Image of Clubhouse homepage

Brands are listening and taking notes! In Hootsuite‘s 2022 Social Media Trends Survey more than 74% of businesses say that they’re planning to invest in audio-only content such as podcasts in the next year. 

The same study showed that hosting an audio live stream as a thought leader was one of the most popular strategies. 

With that said, the trend has not quite caught as much attention of smaller brands, especially those on a budget because it may not be the most affordable form of content marketing. 

It might only be an audio clip, but there’s still a lot of time, effort, and creativity that goes into creating new content.

11. Local SEM Targeting Will Get More Prevalent 

Local SEM and local targeting have become more popular in 2022 and will continue to grow in the coming years. Local businesses are finding more ways to connect with their target customers by geo-tagging their social media posts. 

In fact, Instagram already lets people look for posts and stories that are in their area. That gives local brands a chance to become more discoverable. 

Additionally, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram give brands the ability to enable target audiences from a specific location through their IP addresses. 

12. Memes 

Memes are everywhere! It’s also really hard to find someone who doesn’t like them. They are one of the most creative short-forms of content creation and it’s really hot in social trends right now. 

In fact, niche memes are a good way for creators to connect with their audience and promote a brand without losing any sense of fun. 

Here are a few ways you can use memes in your marketing:

  • Make your memes match your brand voice
  • Repurpose existing memes
  • Create original memes
  • Keep meme types in mind
  • Use the best fonts and colors 
  • Repost relevant user-generated memes

Here’s an example:

Meme for newsletter subscription(source: DigitalMarketer) 

13. Influencer Marketing Will Continue to Grow

Influencer marketing is growing at a rapid pace, it’s also expected to keep dominating in 2022. However, the way brands should collaborate with influencers may see changes.

Brands will now collaborate with creator economy and influencers over a series of social media promotion posts rather than just a single post. They may put equal effort into promoting content created by specific influencers. 

Here are a few different types of Influencers:

  • Mega-Influencers 
  • Macro-Influencers
  • Mid-Tier Influencers
  • Micro-Influencers 
  • Nano-Influencers

In fact, Adam Shapiro from Upfluence believes that influencer marketing will drive online sales by offering an easy shopping experience in the social media landscape. 

Social commerce features are continuing to rise in popularity and online checkouts are becoming more and more available on almost all social media networks. Influencers are vital for converting brand awareness into sales. 

Adam predicts that influencers will lead the way in live social shopping, affiliate marketing, and sharing authentic product recommendations. 

There was a greater focus on networks that provide tools for their creators to better help them monetize and manage their brands or businesses. That will continue in 2022 and become more aggressive with competitors like TikTok, Instagram, Youtube, and Snapchat. 

These Social Media Trends Are Here to Stay

Staying on top of what’s going on with social media is an essential part of building your brand. If you haven’t adapted to any of these trends, it might be time to do so! 

If you need some help with that, schedule a call today!

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