Social Media Trends to Follow
Social media has been here for a while and is still one of the most popular channels to interact with people. There are many who made social media a space they use to connect with friends, family & brands. Brand marketing is also ripe through this medium giving you great opportunities to target your audience.
Social media is the current media platform of choice, and with that in mind, businesses need to make sure that they are constantly adapting to match the ever-changing trends. One way to do this is by carefully analyzing emerging social media trends and making adjustments accordingly. With a multitude of platforms and apps, it’s important to have an effective social media strategy. Here are some ways to help your business thrive in this ever-changing digital space.
By 2022, there are a few marketer key metrics that are used for thoroughly measuring social media engagement and online visibility. That includes posts per day, number of followers, and number of engagements with graphics. We have compiled a list of social media trends you can’t miss!
- Live Videos on Social Media
Live videos are becoming a new way of engaging with your audience. They allow us to connect with people in a more personal and natural way, which is why they are so popular on social media. Live videos have been around for years, but it was not until recently that social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram started to integrate live videos into their platforms. This has had a huge impact on the industry, as now every major brand is creating live content for its followers. Live videos are changing the way we engage with our audience and this will only increase in the future as the technology continues to develop.
Video marketing is on the rise recently and there is no looking back. With a majority of social media experts emphasizing video, there is no doubt that live videos are going to be hugely popular in 2022. Brands are starting to prefer live videos so they can connect with their customers more quickly and easily than ever before.
A lot of people have found a new way to enjoy content through live videos, which are being broadcast on social media. This overwhelming demand is good news for you and makes it easier for your business to stand out. Brands are using celebrities and talented people for live chats to further raise their brand awareness, which has led to the rapid spread of celebrity-driven live chats.
Impromptu live chats are a great way to reach your audience and make announcements. They’re also able to be done for a lower budget, which allows brands and businesses to be more spontaneous with their communications.
- Ephemeral Content for Better Engagement
Consumers are becoming increasingly distracted and consumed with the world of social media and pop culture. With this in mind, marketers have to adapt their content strategies to more interesting, engaging, and interactive content. Ephemeral content is a marketing trend that forces consumers to explore the content and engage with it in a deeper way.
The term ‘ephemeral content’ might not be familiar to you but it’s actually pretty easy to understand, especially if we mention the example of short-duration content on social media. They’re called Facebook and Instagram Stories, which disappear after they’re published. Brands often publish stories on Facebook and Instagram to keep their customers engaged. They’re causing major waves in the industry with the success story of brands like Danone Ice Cream, Louis Vuitton, and Jaguar.
People are constantly being exposed to new product launches, offers, and other announcements and their brand stories. They’re on the lookout for personal & informal content that can make their experience with a company better. Customers can expect a lot more brand engagement in the coming days with them rolling out polls, quizzes, “behind the scenes” moments, random banters, workplace tours, and a whole variety of engaging content. This will help them know your brand well!
- Social Media Chatbots for Effective Communication
Unfortunately, when we are talking about conversing with the customer service of a brand, it can be frustrating for some people. This is because many chatbots might write generic and unspecific text or simply go on auto-pilot. AI-powered chatbots are gradually becoming the best means of resolving queries. Not only can they respond to your questions quickly, but they also contribute to faster and simpler resolutions. If you have a website, it can be difficult to get a response from the brand when you need help or have further questions. If you are faced with a project where there is no human available, your options can be limited.
With the ability to integrate chatbots into social media pages, brands are not as dependent on human moderators. Customers have more access to the information they need at any time of day. Chatbots have become a very popular extra feature for not just customers, but also brands. Not only are they able to help people out and make the experience more enjoyable, but they can also contribute to better brand-customer relationships.
- Influencer Marketing for Branding
Influencer marketing is seen as the go-to marketing technique in many global industries, and it will continue to see popularity in the coming days. However, partnerships between brands and influencers are becoming more imperative in the next few years. Brands have a lot of content in the marketing department and now they are collaborating with influencers to promote their content on social media. No one promotion is ever the same, so brands and influencers need to work together.
Brands are expected to collaborate with a wide range of influencers for marketing purposes. There are just more people doing it and the standards for quality have increased, which means brands will have to be careful in choosing influencer campaigns. Brands and influencers need to give themselves new tools to make their content high quality. They can no longer get away with posting pictures of themselves next to a product on social media like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. It is creating more opportunities for them as a brand.
Social media platforms can now provide monetization opportunities for influencers to make a living as they strive to build their social media presence. That’s why it’s important for brands to recognize the value influencers offer and invest in them early on before they become well-known. The new paid subscription model for content is popularly found on social media platforms like Facebook and Youtube.
- Local Targeting
Local targeting online is becoming more prevalent and will continue to be in the years ahead. By geo-tagging their social media posts and stories, advertisers can target potential customers by city or neighbourhood level. Instagram advertisements allow you to target fans of a specific locality. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram give you all the channels to reach out to your audience in a direct and effective way. Plus, local brands have more opportunities for discovery than before.
Build your brand awareness and gain popularity before you target people from further away by reaching out to local people. With the increasing online competition, it is tough for small businesses to compete with big brands. With the advent of local targeting and advanced content personalization, you can reach out to, and cater to a specific audience with no need for larger brands that sometimes have trouble doing so.
- User-generated Content
UGC or User-Generated Content is any type of content generated by users on social media. A lot of brands are relying on UGC to help highlight their products and services as the best in the industry
Many brands are actively promoting user-generated content because they provide a direct link to their customers. They also help in creating better content that is marketed to their target audience. UGC is benefiting in many ways for the brands. The first benefit is that they can cut the marketing budget of branded content by displaying UGC, and second, it allows them to bring customers to the forefront and make them feel valued.
It’s not just the content that’s authentic, it’s also what makes it so valuable. UGC is largely uninfluenced by brands which means any opinions and reviews that a person has about your product or business are honest. Over the coming days, brands will encourage their customers to share their UGC on social media to boost their company’s engagement rate further. Preparing for this can be a lot easier if you already have a schedule of what posts you want to publish during that time.
There are a number of social media trends that will rule the year 2022 and have a massive impact on the users, as well as brands. In order to stay relevant, brands need to adapt to the constantly changing social media market. Social media has grown into an instant way for people to share what they are thinking, feeling, and doing with their friends and followers. This is the case with many different social media trends that marketers have already adapted and are looking forward to in 2022. If you haven’t adapted to these new trends year, it’s time you do so to leverage your brand on social media and stay ahead of the competition.
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