Top 10 Social Media Marketing Trends of 2022

With 2021 being an absolutely crazy and chaotic year for most of us, there have been a ton of changes and shifts in both the real and digital world. To make your life a little easier going into the new year, I’ve gone ahead and listed out the biggest upcoming trends of social media marketing predicted for 2022. If you have any questions feel free to shoot me a message or leave a comment below. Enjoy!

1. Facebook Ads Performance Is More Effective Than Ever

If you’ve felt like you’ve noticed an odd increase in performance and effectiveness on Facebook advertising, you’re not crazy! It’s more effective than ever before. It seems that Facebook has found some interesting ways to maneuver around the whole pixel fiasco of 2021!

The future looks bright with the next iteration of tracking promising an evolved pixel with more stable Conversions API.

As shorts and videos continue to rise in popularity, a lot of your tracking in 2022 will likely be for short and simple videos. You want to make videos that do all the work for the viewer. Think easy to watch, highly informative, and extremely entertaining.?

Given the rapid rise in video performance and popularity, these forms of content are surely here to stay in 2022. Not only are they incredible for data analytics and tracking, they are even cheaper to run than classic ads now!?

2. Out with the Old, and In with the Old… Again

Long-Form Content is making a place for itself on the center stage of successful media in 2022. While much of 2021 was dedicated to the success of short-form media due to the explosive growth of TikTok and Instagram Reels, there has been a gradual rise in average length of videos not only allowed by platforms, but watched by users.??

With TikTok expanding to 3 minutes in length and IG Reels to 60 seconds, the shift toward longer-form content again may be inevitable. Prepare for informationals and story-telling formats!?

3. The Masses are Forgetting the Basics

With so many advanced methods and strategies in the current climate of digital marketing and social media, many companies ignore the importance of classic testing and service methods.?

• Despite the proven importance and effectiveness of videos, many companies still have yet to embrace it.?
• Many companies still have yet to implement upsell and downsell offers into their websites.
• Brands still aren’t capitalizing on the power of email and SMS marketing (aka 2 of the highest converting marketing methods).
• Some brands still are not discussing cost and pricing on their websites.
• Many websites won’t offer self-service tools (like pricing calculators, assessments, etc.), even though they should and it’s easier than ever!

The bottom line is that understanding what it means to value your customers, and potential customers, will always matter the most. Always consider what that means for your business.?

4. Ecommerce Grows on TikTok, Trend Lifespan Shortens

With TikTok solidifying its place in social media and entertainment as a cultural phenomenon, and Ecommerce being one of the fastest growing markets worldwide, understanding how to navigate within the social media ecosystem is pivotal for success.?

For context, TikTok already has over 1 billion and has already surpassed Youtube in average hourly viewing time. Understanding how to utilize these metrics can be the key to your brand's success in 2022!

Here are a few key forms of content creation to consider:

• Live Streaming – One of the most exciting growth and nurturing strategies (most recently seen with the live spotlight charts and rankings). Most notable is the move toward livestream commerce where clickable links and the ability to directly sell products are offered live!
• In-app shopping features – While this has become huge for every platform, TikTok’s recent partnership with Shopify offers brands the ability to tag products. Not to mention that TikTok shops is a highly anticipated feature to be released in 2022.
• Connection and Relationship Building – As more and more influencers continue to evolve out of platforms like TikTok, the relationship they build with their audiences continue to grow more and more powerful. Humanizing your brand can lead to huge growth with an unwavering audience.
• Staying with the trends – The lifespan of trends is shortening as more and more content is constantly upcoming. Users are consuming trends at a rapid pace and it’s likely that more tools will arrive to predict trends earlier. Stay on the lookout for more resources and tools in 2022.
• User-generated content continues to become more and more important for brands gravitating to the app. Apps like TikTok are constantly building out methods and strategies to connect brands with content creators to provide user-generated content that feels dynamic and native to the platform. If you’ve never heard of this make sure to check out the TikTok Creator Marketplace and Spark Ads.?

5. Connect with the Customer

From ads to live streams to guides and chats, the connections and relationships you build with your audience can make 1000 loyal customers worth 10,000 random purchases. While there are a variety of ways this idea takes shape, with some of them already being mentioned above, this idea is becoming more and more important in 2022 as more and more people develop the desire to buy from a person, not a business.?

Some of the biggest areas to re-evaluate your strategies:

• Building out your advertising funnels to properly connect with and nurture your audience will make or break your paid advertising success. At our agency we dive deep into the culture of your brand and gain a fundamental understanding on how to connect with your ideal audience.
• Live Streaming video and live commerce implementations have a ton of potential to grow in 2022 and can be a great way to directly interact with your audience.?

With roughly 60% of web purchases being impulse buys, and a majority of purchases being based on familiarization, constantly connecting with the right audience and building relationships with them will undoubtedly prove to be a successful avenue.?

6. Facebook Ads Attribution Expands

While we were very fortunate to have an incredible creative team that helped us prevail as an agency, 2021 was a deadly year for many brands and agencies that couldn’t survive amidst the iOS restrictions and regulations. Since the first wave of shock and chaos, Facebook's tracking has continued to become more enhanced and is getting ready to expand far beyond iOS.

While this implies there will be another phase of large changes and adjustments, those who remain diligent and focused will have the opportunity to grow even larger and more successful than ever before. While there have been rumors regarding a new Facebook attribution system for a while now, there are numerous cutting-edge tools and tracking systems surfacing to combat these setbacks while creating amazing new features. As more and more new and exciting platforms, targeting methods, tracking tools, and even potentially meta-verses surface in 2022, there will continue to be more opportunities for growth and expansion for brands that take advantage of the options available to them.

7. TikTok Fuels New Advertising Strategies

While many businesses tend to consider TikTok to be a place for kids, those who look deeper will see the sheer magnitude of potential the platform holds both in 2021 and 2022. Keep in mind that the wave of development driven in social media by the mere existence of TikTok has led to the creation of Facebook Reels, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, Pinterest Idea Pins… and now even LinkedIn is rumored to be adding short-form video.

While we’ve already mentioned the importance of video content, even more important is to consider what’s new in a constantly evolving industry. If you can, you’ll always stay ahead of the competition and get a headstart expressing yourself and your brand to the world.

8. YouTube Offers More Ads Placements

Building directly off of the idea mentioned above, the number of options and variables we are offered is increasing. If you’re investing in video-based presence, you should start preparing to use it in new and innovative ways.

Back in October 2021, Google announced that video action campaigns will automatically include YouTube-connected TV placements. What does this mean??

This feature will offer yet another way for brands to expand their reach using video-based content and media. Not only could this lead to great traffic, but will also offer a new avenue for collecting data from Android mobile devices.

9. The More You Spend on Facebook the Better the Campaign Performance

In just about all of my posts and articles, I will always say diversification is the key to a successful brand. In addition, the more you spend as you scale, the better your ads will perform. Utilizing a variety of marketing channels like Google, YouTube, Instagram, etc. can help provide your campaigns with better data to optimize conversion and increase performance.

While I offer plenty of resources and articles talking about what metrics to track and what strategies we use at Adamant Media, understanding this concept in general can be extremely helpful as you begin to run ads and scale.

Keeping this in mind, and testing with respect to very focused and very broad considerations can help you identify exactly what type of specifications will be most effective for your brand, while accumulating data for retargeting and scaling strategies down the line.?

Lastly, make sure to constantly track where your leads come from, and always keep an eye on how each platform is performing. Understanding the differences and similarities between them can oftentimes help you more efficiently scale all of them together.

10. Social quietly matures out of the marketing department

These points aim to provide insight as to just how powerful social media marketing has become for brands and businesses of any type. Many struggled to quantitatively link social media to outcomes of their business. As businesses were forcibly pushed online due to the pandemic, social mediums have evidently grown to be a core channel for business.?

It was reported that in 2021, 83% of the marketers surveyed reported having some level of confidence in quantifying the ROI of their social efforts, up from 68% last year (this survey was done by Hootsuite).

While this may not sound life changing, it shows the growth and developing importance of social media marketing and digital presence. Regardless of platform, method, or strategy, growing the presence of your business online in 2022 is a must.

I have had the opportunity to see this first-hand as the founder of Adamant Media, a digital marketing agency that specializes in scaling ecommerce and tech businesses using paid ads and email/SMS marketing.

I am always happy to offer knowledge on what I know, or point you in the right direction if I don’t know. If you have any questions feel free to shoot me a message or leave a comment below! ??

Scott Caputo

CEO of Adamant Media

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