2022 Social Media Trend Predictions
New year, new social media trends. But don’t worry - we’ve done the hard work for you. Read on for the top six trends we expect to see in the social media industry in 2022!
SOCIAL MEDIA TREND 1: SOCIAL COMMERCE
Within the past few years, social media has really made an effort to streamline the buying process by enabling in-platform purchases. Though some social platforms are charging sellers a commission percentage, this feature remains advantageous to brands as fewer steps in the purchase process lower the chance of losing a potential customer somewhere in the conversion funnel.
In 2022, we foresee social media platforms taking e-commerce a step further. To keep up the rise of influencer marketing, Instagram shared in a recent blog post that “in the coming months, [they’ll] begin testing a native affiliate tool that will allow creators to discover new products available on checkout, share them with their followers and earn commissions for the purchases they drive — all within the Instagram app.”
Talk about a game-changing feature! We look forward to watching this tool, among others, roll out in 2022 to encourage in-platform purchases.
SOCIAL MEDIA TREND 2: INFLUENCER MARKETING
Considering the native affiliate tool Instagram is rolling out, it’s no question whether or not we can expect to see a spike in influencer marketing efforts in 2022. Especially with the rise of video features and platforms like TikTok, now more than ever brands are in need of creators that are willing to be the face of their brand and take the wheel when it comes to tapping into niche audiences through engaging content.
Why build a brand from the ground up when over 50 million people consider themselves to be a creator and have an audience and expertise to offer your brand? Hootsuite explained this best when they shared that “the smartest brands in 2022 will tap into creator communities to learn more about customers, simplify content creation, and build brand awareness and affinity.”
Looking to get started with influencer outreach in the new year? Download our Influencer Pitch Template and check out our blog post with our top tips on How to Find IG Influencers and Pitch To Them.
SOCIAL MEDIA TREND 3: VIDEO CONTENT
We mentioned this in last year’s social media trend predictions blog post and we’re saying it again for 2022: video content will remain KING. Tiktok and Instagram Reels will not only continue to take off, but we can also expect to see the lifespan of trends shorten as new trends are produced at a rapid rate.
If you’ve checked out our 2021 Social Media Analytics Report Reveal, you’d know that memes were among our top posts for the year. While static memes will continue to prompt engagement in 2022, we expect to see memes and video merge! Here’s an example of a recent video meme we shared for inspo.
SOCIAL MEDIA TREND 4: SHIFT IN SOCIAL ADVERTISING
We also expect to see a shift in social advertising in more ways than one. For starters, digital marketers have learned that ads must be tailored to each unique social platform. We shared in Our Top Takeaways From TikTok World, for example, that the best ads look and feel like TikToks. What works well on TikTok, however, may not work so well on another platform, like LinkedIn. We anticipate marketers will continue adapting their ad strategy to best enrich users’ experience on each individual platform.
Additionally, Google has shared plans to phase out support for third-party cookies by 2023. While not all advertising relies on cookies, many brands will still be impacted and spend the next year finetuning their advertising strategy based on this change.
SOCIAL MEDIA TREND 5: OPPORTUNITY FOR ENGAGEMENT
This past year, Instagram has come out with countless engagement stickers on stories and even recently released the ability to reply to comments with a Reel. We don’t see the rolling out of engaging features like this slowing down anytime soon.
Why is this good news? When a user engages with your content, this signals to the Instagram algorithm that your content is resonating with users. As a result, the algorithm pushes it to more people to view. Meaning, the more opportunity we have to spark engagement with our audience, the better.
Though keep in mind that Instagram has teased on Twitter potentially giving users the option of viewing their feed in chronological order, rather than ranked by what the algorithm thinks they would like to see, in 2022.
SOCIAL MEDIA TREND 6: GRAPHIC DESIGN
Last but not least, here’s a brief overview (with hyperlinked examples, of course 😎) of a few graphic design trends we expect to see in 2022:
We hope this blog post was insightful for you in discovering a few of our social media trend predictions for the year ahead! For more tips on how to navigate these trends, follow us on IG and subscribe to our social media newsletter.
xx- The Homies
