Social media is constantly evolving. What is working today may not work well for you tomorrow. To remain competitive in your industry, you need a strategy that continues to adapt to new social media trends. If you continue to stick with the same process over time, your social media accounts will eventually plateau—and your business could potentially lose sales.
Here are the top five social media trends you should look out for to boost your business.
1. Marketers Are Spending More on Paid Advertising
According to Hootsuite, 51.4% of marketers plan to increase their spending on paid social media. If your digital marketing strategy doesn’t include paid social media ads, you should strongly consider adding this. The latest social media trends involve all major networks increasingly cutting down on organic reach—which means less of your audience will be seeing your message.
As organic reach continues to decline, this will remain one of your biggest challenges yet on social media. You may have already noticed that your posts aren’t receiving the same attention as before. Therefore, all your dedicated work in creating content goes to waste.
However, you can maintain your reach and attract new business by using the right advertising strategies on social media.
2. Social Selling Is Taking Center Stage
With traditional media like print magazines, newspapers and television, this type of selling has declined—since social media, including Instagram’s shoppable platform, took over. Consumers spend more time with native shopping, where users shop for products and purchases without leaving the app. So, what’s most important is the promotion of paid “influencers” and the recommendations people receive from friends and family.
Building relationships with your target audience and getting them to trust your brand is what matters. People tend to trust your advertisements through referrals. So word-of-mouth marketing is the most powerful way to achieve growth in your business.
Consider working with influencers that are reputable in your industry. You’ll be sure to gain more traction from someone “famous” on social media instead of overpaying a larger outsider.
3. Facebook Ads Are More Effective
Facebook’s greatest advantage is the number of people you can reach, as it’s still the most popular social media platform today. With that in mind, Facebook ad experiences continue to rise as they’re more effective than ever before. The social networking platform has enhanced the whole pixel issue and has made their products much easier to use.
Also, tracking will be much more stable with the Conversions API (Application Programming Interface).
Additionally, there may be a new era of even shorter attention spans. So if you want to see success, think quicker with video content. Consider making your videos easy to consume, highly informative and entertaining.
Even though some people may mock certain features like Reels and TikTok videos, educational and inspiring content is here to stay. Use those Reels and TikTok videos as part of your Facebook ads. Many find these types of ads work remarkably well.
If you pair your short-form video with a bit of storytelling, you’ll find even better results. However, some businesses are also investing in long-form content. Here’s why.
4. Businesses Are Investing in Long-form and Short-form Content
According to Hubspot, 64% of marketers plan to continue creating short-form videos. In addition, 89% of marketers will invest more in long-form videos. With the rise of TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube shorts, this had all of our focus on 15-second messages.
However, all social platforms are expanding in terms of long-form content. For instance, TikTok has changed the content length to 3 minutes, whereas Reels are 60 seconds. Subtle changes like these are making long-form video one of the more popular social media trends.
Meanwhile, Clubhouse introduced the age of long-form live audio, whereas Twitter created Spaces and Facebook came out with Live Audio Room–fully supporting podcasting.
YouTube is also opening up podcasting opportunities. Additionally, social commerce is seeing a trend in live videos for selling.
5. Twitter Spaces Is Growing Among Social Media Trends
If you use Twitter for your digital marketing, definitely consider using Spaces as part of your marketing plan.
Audio content is continuing to rise in popularity. It’s becoming a powerful tool for marketers to build connections online and serve audiences through conversations and valuable content. Additionally, you can rest assured about being camera-ready or investing in any startup equipment. The only things you’ll need are yourself and your smartphone on hand.
Twitter is rolling out new features such as recording in Spaces and other ways to discover Spaces to join. So if you have an audience on this platform, it’s sensible to show up consistently in rooms and host one on your own.
Succeeding on Social Media in 2022
Although this list of social media trends is what we likely expect to happen, you must continue to do your research. Maintain a keen eye on your data and online consumer behavior. If you can connect the two, you can determine which strategies and trends are worth the investment.
