Top Social Media Marketing Trends for 2022

Social media marketing has managed to become an integral part of our lives in a short span of time. What started out as a medium to keep in touch with friends and family soon became a channel for brands and businesses to connect with their target audience through well-crafted social media strategies.

With the rapid growth of this medium, many social media marketing trends have emerged and evolved over the years. Adopting these new and upcoming trends helps businesses stay afloat from fierce competition.

Top 9 Social Media Marketing Trends to Watch in 2022

We have compiled a list of top social media marketing trends for 2022 that every marketer should follow for better engagement and better online visibility.

1. Live videos changing the social media game

Most of the social media marketing experts have been telling brands to focus on video marketing for some time now, there is no doubt that live videos on social media are going to gain a lot of popularity in 2022. Brands are now frequently looking for live videos to engage with their customers. For chit-chat.

Surprisingly, the popularity of live video has even surpassed the demand for video content. Currently, live videos are being broadcast on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Tumblr as about 82% of viewers prefer live videos on social media.

There has also been an increase in various brands bringing celebrities and celebrities on live chat and creating opportunities for people to bond with their favorite celebs or role models.

Instant live chat is a great way to capture your audience's attention and make important announcements, especially when algorithmic changes have limited the opportunity for brands to appear in people's feeds.

2. Increase engagement with ephemeral content

If ephemeral content sounds new to you, you may better understand the term in the context of social media. Yes, we are talking about trending short-duration content that disappears within 24 hours of posting, AKA Facebook and Instagram Stories.

The stories are fun, engaging, and keep people on their toes, literally! Brands are experimenting a lot with the "Story" feature on Facebook and Instagram to give their customers a glimpse into their world.

While images, videos and textual content continue to inform everyone about new product launches, offers and other public announcements, brand stories aim to be more personal and informal.

Hence, customers can expect a lot more brand engagement in the coming days with polls, quizzes, “behind the scene” moments, random banters, workplace tours, and a whole variety of engaging content that will help them build a brand. would help to know. very closely.

3. Growing demand for social media chatbot communication

When it comes to communicating with the customer service department of a brand, no one wants to waste their time on general computerized communication. This is the thought that comes to people's mind when they hear about chatbots.

Fortunately, in 2022 and beyond, chatbots are not here to waste people's time, but to bring quick resolutions to the table. AI-powered chatbots can precisely understand your queries and concerns and provide you with the best solutions within seconds.

How do you benefit from this? Many brands do not have the facility to provide 24X7 support to their customers, and it can be even more frustrating if you get stuck with an order from a site where there is no human to help you.

With AI-powered chatbots across social media pages of various brands, there will be less dependence on humans, and customers will get answers to their queries at any time of the day.

Since this is a bonus feature for the customers as well as the brands, AI chatbots have gained a lot of attention recently and are also contributing in improving the brand-customer relationship.

4. More brands will adapt to AR and VR technology

Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) are the current social media trends in 2022, as brands strive to provide an exciting user experience. Many e-commerce companies have adapted to AR-powered shopping, allowing users to try out products before buying them. This will help consumers to make informed buying decisions before investing in something.

Platforms such as Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook allow users to click images or create videos or share them to try on hundreds of different filters, including updating a profile picture with a brand logo or mascot.

Top technology players are making VR gear available to users at an affordable cost, which allows them to enjoy an immersive gaming experience. Facebook offers a feature called "Facebook Spaces", where up to 3 people can interact using a VR device.

There are still many improvements needed in the VR and AR field, and people are already ready for it. Hopefully, in the future, VR and AR technology will become completely mainstream and enhance the user experience manifold.

5. Brands will continue to invest in influencer marketing

Influencer marketing dominates in 2022, and it will continue to do so for the next few years. However, the way brands and influencers collaborate will see a change in the days to come.

Brands will no longer collaborate with influencers on a series of social media promotional posts, not just one promotional post. They will make equal efforts to promote the content created by these influencers.

Big brands look forward to collaborating with micro-influencers and niche bloggers to bring inclusivity and transparency to their marketing efforts. This also means that brands will be careful in choosing influencers and take action against those who thrive on fake followers.

When it comes to endorsing branded products or services, influencers can no longer shy away from posting their photos with the product. They need to put equal effort into content creation for brands that focus more on longer content, how-to videos, demos and photo stories.

Social media channels are now offering influencers exclusive monetization options to support them in securing their future as they work hard to leverage brands. Many social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube have launched paid subscription models to get exclusive content for followers, which is a new social media trend today.

6. Local targeting to be more prevalent

Like local SEO, local targeting has become more prevalent in 2022 and will remain so for years to come. Local brands are looking for a way to connect with their target customers by geo-tagging their social media posts and stories.

Instagram already allows people to see posts and stories near them, making local brands more discoverable. In addition, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram promotions enable businesses to target audiences in a specific locality through their IP addresses.

If you are a small business, you should reach out to local people to increase your brand awareness and gain popularity before targeting people from afar. With increasing online competition, it is hard for small businesses to compete with big brands, especially when starting out.

In such a scenario, local targeting is the best way to reach people and get maximum ROI. Plus, it allows you to cater to a specific audience by creating personalized content for them, which big brands sometimes fail to deliver.

7. Twitter to turn into a credible news portal

Where platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest are mainly used as entertainment platforms where users can enjoy light-hearted jokes, Twitter has always reserved space for serious conversations on various topics of interest.

Twitter is a site that has always given priority to news from around the world. However, in the past the authenticity of such news was not 100%, which led to controversy.

In the coming years, Twitter is expected to keep a close watch on fake news and only allow those that are from 100% authentic and credible news sources. Although Twitter has never been at the top of the social media game in terms of popularity or usability, it remains an important platform for many.

Twitter is now expected to emerge as a mainstream news media platform and increase people's participation.

8. Development of social media communities

Social media communities are on the rise this year. As brands seek to meet customer needs and meet their expectations, they are adding customers to social groups where they can interact closely with them.

These forums are very useful in getting customer feedback and suggestions, discussing, resolving complaints and sharing personalized content that customers like.

In the future, brands can use these niche online communities to gain feedback on new products before they are launched and gain richer customer insights at every stage of their business journey.

9. Video Content Continues to Bloom

Video content is probably the most engaging form of content right now, and it's here to stay for a long time. In fact, brands are increasingly shifting to video content and prioritizing it over written content and images.

Many brands are looking to introduce premium video-based content to engage people even further. Videos can quickly grab users' attention and keep them hooked to the screen.

Following the massive success of video-based app TikTok, Instagram has also recently introduced a similar feature called "Reels" in its platform, which allows users to record and share short videos. Hopefully, more social apps will introduce additional features in the coming days that will support video content creation.