Social media has dramatically impacted how modern businesses market to their customers. You will be hard to find a large-scale company that does not utilize some form of social marketing. In 2021, there were 295 social network users in the United States, this correlates to about three quarters of the country’s population. With this rapidly evolving industry it is imperative that you have the skills to drive your social media accounts. The proper utilization of social media marketing can yield companies a stronger brand awareness, increase leads, and positively effect customer accusation.
In this post I am going to discuss 8 key points that marketers/business owners need to know about social marketing in 2022.
- TikTok’s Growth is Making the Platform a Leading Forefront
- Smaller Platforms Such as TikTok are Becoming Popular For Ad Campaigns
- Ecommerce on Social Platforms Will Continue to Expand
- Expanding to New Audiences Will be a Huge Goal
- There is an Explosion in Video Content
- The Social Audio Sector is Growing
- Paid Ad Campaigns Will Become the Norm
- Influencer Marketing is Here to Stay
So whether you’re a seasoned marketing professional, or a social media newbie, you’ll love the powerful social media management tips in this guide.
Let’s dive right in.
1. TikTok’s Growth is Making the Platform a Leading Forefront
The growth of TikTok has been huge over the past two years. More and more users are joining the platform, and more businesses are beginning to realize the marketing gold mine that is present.
According to an article by techcrunch “A new forecast has dubbed TikTok as the world’s third-largest social network, just behind Facebook and Instagram. In its inaugural forecast on TikTok’s global install base, Insider Intelligence — the firm previously known as eMarketer — predicts that TikTok will reach 755.0 million monthly users in 2022, after seeing 59.8% growth in 2020, followed by 40.8% growth in 2021”.
With this continual growth, TikTok is becoming a key factor in social marketing. This is especially true when trying to connect with the younger millennials and Gen Z markets.
2. Smaller Platforms Such as TikTok are Becoming Popular For Ad Campaigns
Social media ad campaigns have been traditionally hosted on Facebook, because of the sheer size of the audience. As new platforms come about the market share is being spread, and more users are actively using smaller platforms such as TikTok and Instagram. Now don’t get me wrong, TikTok is not a small social platform, but it is relatively smaller. These smaller platforms are becoming increasingly popular for social media marketers to reach additional markets.
Smaller platforms offer reach to strong bases at a lower cost for the campaign. On average with TikTok is costs about $1 per 1000 impressions, between $2-3 per conversions, and $5 per 1000 impressions on remarketing. When is comes to Facebook the cost on for these ads can sometimes be up to 20 times the cost. The benefit that Facebook has over the smaller social platforms is the age of the users. If you are marketing for a company that offers products to a traditional older crowd then you would likely realize a higher ROAS on Facebook the Instagram and TikTok. All of these factors must be taken into account when looking at your unique social marketing plan for 2022.
Another key factor that lends favor to smaller platforms is the update that apple released in 2021. This update protects IPhone users from targeted ads from Facebook. This has impacted the way marketers are looking at allocating their funds for the future, and has become the key for the smaller platforms.
3. Ecommerce on Social Platforms Will Continue to Expand
As Covid-19 swept across the world since 2019, business have had to change how they operate. Many brick and mortar businesses have felt the heavy burden of lock downs, social distancing, and the sheltered mindset from the virus. On the flipside, digital businesses have seen a huge increase in populatiry during these times. Ecommerce has been one of the industries that saw a huge uptick in sales over the past few years. More specifically, social ecommerce has begun to change the way consumers are shopping in this technical day-in-age.
Facebook understands the importance of social ecommerce and in 2020 launched Instagram Shops. Instagram Shops is a direct attack on Amazon, and has seen significant growth since its launch date. The power of combining social media and ecommerce has show is huge, and it is esitimated to increase at a rate of 31.4%.
So why should you care about social ecommerce? As the buying habits change, so does the marketing strategies of business owners and marketers. The new way of shopping through social media platforms can offer many businesses the opportunity to reach additional customers, increase product interest, and drive sales. China has been one of the leading places for social ecommerce sales, and it accounts for about 13% of total ecommerce sales in China. As the mindset of the consumer changes, so does the branding of successful companies.
4. Expanding to New Audiences Will be a Huge Goal
The expansion to new social media audiences is a huge goal for marketing in 2022. The markets are evolving rapidly, and the operators that have reach to the widest audiences will reap the benefits. With your expansion efforts you must understand the demographics of each network. Learn how to understand the typical individuals that use Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc., and design your marketing strategy on each platform to reflect.
Secondly, the investment in Ads is going to become essential in the near future. The investment in ads give you two useful tools. First, the ability to reach a larger number of individuals than with organic reach. Secondly, ads collect a significant amount of data. This data can be used to understand how the posts are being received by the target demographic.
There are also many other factors that should be taken into account when trying to reach a wider audience. Become a master of the hashtag. Hashtags are an effective way to increase the visibility of your posts, and are also a great way for customers to tag your brand. The creation of engaging content is also a strong tool that can expand your post reach. All of these factors need to be taken into account when looking at how your team is going to approach the expansion of your social platforms in this new year.
5. There is an Explosion in Video Content
If you look at your Facebook feed you are likely to see more and more video advertising. With the creation of TikTok and Snapchat advertisers have adapted strategies to the audiences. According to a study done by wyzowl “Views of branded video content have increased 99% on YouTube and 258% on Facebook between 2016 and 2017. On Twitter, a video Tweet is 6x more likely to be retweeted than a photo Tweet”
There are billions of users across the social platforms, and each of these users likes to receive their information in different manners. Some prefer images, some text, some audio, and a large crowd has been seen to respond well to video. The ability for you to diversify your feed and offer your subscribers multiple means in which they can absorb information is going to separate the elite from the rest. The creation of videos requires much more effort than a simple post, but the return on time invested is tenfold.
6. The Social Audio Sector is Growing
Just as the video content sector is growing, we have also seen a huge expansion of social audio content. Now investing time into the audio sector might now be fit for everyone, those who do are likely to see many benefits from it.
Podcasting has seen steady growth over the years, and subscribers on platforms such as Spotify consistently listen to their subscribers. There are podcast in all fields, and they offer listeners an easy way to absorb information. A great tactic to get started in audio sector is becoming a guest on a podcast. This will allow you to have a segment from a trusted podcaster that you can share on your social feeds. Podcasting has also been shown to provide quality backlinks to your website.
The audio sector has shown growth, and could offer you the ability to reach new crowds. The expansion of your reach is going to separate you from your competitors. If you find it fit, audio marketing could be the element you just so needed to push you to the next level.
7. Paid Ad Campaigns Will Become the Norm
The sector of digital marketing is becoming increasing more competitive. This increased competition has made it more difficult for small companies to gain a large reach on the platforms. This means that in 2022 paid ad are going to become the new norm. Emarketer did a study that showed that ad spend has increased 64.8% from 2021 to 2022, and is predicted to increase 66.8% between 2022 and 2023. This is the world that we are coming to realize, and it is no going to change any time soon.
8. Influencer Marketing is Here to Stay
Over the past two years we have seen a influencer marketing blossom into the marketing beast that it is today. Brands are projected to spend $15 billion on influencer marketing in 2022 alone. You might be thinking how is this relevant to me, I cannot afford to have the Kardashians promote my brand. The trick is understanding where the market is going, and how to fit it to your business.
Microinfluencers are the key to finding your port to this growing market. Microinfluencers offer smaller companies the strength of influencer campaigns at a much lower cost. Combining this with other methods discussed in this post will lend towards a strong social marketing campaign.
Conclusion
In conclusion, social marketing has become a part of successful marketing strategies. In this new year we are going to be further pressured with the competition in the social sector. By utilizing a variety of proven tactics your platforms can see increased growth, which will help drive your business.
The questions that I have for you is “Where do you see your social media campaign going in the year of 2022?” Drop your answers below in the comments section!