Social media management might just be slightly different in 2022 after the 2020 debacle. As the upcoming year promises a slight chance of what one can hope for is normalcy.
The end of 2020 has left many businesses reeling and gearing up to strategize their business models for 2022. 2020 was not an easy year for most brands as professional skepticism runs rampant.
However, by studying the way this year went, valuable insight has been collected via 2020 trends. This can be used in shaping your social media management and marketing for the new year. One factor emerged triumphant, though; Social media engagement peaked due to COVID-19.
The periodic trends of 2020 have been more insightful than ever. They have given way to an extremely interesting evolution in social media content that every business owner or stakeholder should be interested in. This also waylays into the concerns regarding marketing and social media management.
Below are some ideas and suggestions that can help your brand better place itself for an upcoming year of success.
Also Read: The Benefits of Social Media for Business
Social Media Marketing Should be Relationship Based
As periodic trends keep on changing, your company’s approach to social media needs to change too. Keeping up with engagement and organically growing your followers will be much more difficult, keeping in mind that 2020 has been revolutionary. You need to focus on your brand’s agility as a way of remaining sustainable.
Studies have shown that 75% of people don’t think of advertisements as the truth. This can be worrying, but it is also the truth. As skepticism amongst social media users continues to peak there is also a trend that has emerged noticeably i.e., Fake news.
Allegations of fake news and the robust explosion of unethical marketing practices have made users wary of most forms of advertisements. Hence, it is no surprise that the followers you can retain are those you have forged meaningful relationships.
Therefore, the only followers that you can acquire in the future are the ones you’ll be able to forge a meaningful relationship with. It may not have been the case these past few years, but now, trust is an extremely relevant factor in today’s social media space.
2022 should be the year that social media management is more focused on building relationships. These relationships shouldn’t be limited to just your customers but your employees and niche-relevant influencers too.
This is the time for your business to not only work on rhetorical strategies but also focus on user-generated content. The higher the proportion of it, the better it is for you and your business.
According to recent studies, 70% of customers trust other consumers more than they do so advertisements. This makes sense if you think about it, considering that even in this day and age of social media addiction, people still tend to believe what they hear from the people surrounding them.
Also Read: How To Use Social Media Marketing
Integrate Platform Diversity For Your Social Media Strategies
It is a fact that during the lockdown, we all went a little Tiktok crazy. In March of 2020, TikTok reported 76 million downloads and surpassed all predictions that 2019 had for it.
It is no surprise that all the extra time that people had on their hands went into this. However, one also needs to pay credit to their idiosyncratic approach to social media engagement honing right into the social media addiction of millennials.
Nowadays, people are more inclined toward consuming varying kinds of content having a linear relationship with speed. Therefore, the shorter the videos, the better they are for consumers.
This just happens to be exactly what TikTok’s strategy actually is. This is why Facebook and Instagram have decided to follow them down this avenue by putting out Facebook stories and Instagram reels. Not to forget that even YouTube has now introduced a snap videos feature.
It is no surprise that there is a rat race out there for marketers to jump on a bid to further push their brands into the spotlight. This is also an indication that some of these newer trends and fast-rising platforms are perfect for giving your brand the revamping that it might need.
It is vital for most brands in 2022 if they hope to escape the rut they’ve been experiencing with conventional marketing on Facebook and YouTube.
It is abundantly clear that your marketing must be adaptable to all marketing platforms out there. This is also the time for you to consider generating newer content on these platforms. There is a huge chance that the millions of the 16-24 demographic who relish TikTok and Instagram don’t even use Facebook at this point.
Use Live Streaming to Further Your Brand
There has been a rapid increase in the consumption of live videos at the behest of the pandemic. This may be because live videos were used to fill that void left by the absence of the physical absence of people everywhere.
Live videos have been around for quite some time now. Nonetheless, they have opened a new gate for social media management and marketers in 2020 and can be utilized for 2022. The engagement that live videos continues to see-saw them surpassing other videos and taking the lead as the most viewed video social media content.
This has led to the reboot of event marketing, a trend that had died back in 2018. Buffer went on to share an interesting list of events that could be shared via live video that is warranted to thrill and engage your audience. They are but are not limited to office hours, Q&A sessions, behind-the-scene moments, production processes, interviews, and experimental content.
When you put out content like this, it makes your audience feel as if they have a connection with you. It can be metaphorically compared to the equivalent of giving them a tour of your house. With the current surge in live video consumption rates, the chances are that people would like to go on this tour. This will be an extremely powerful tool for you to forge relationships and nurture loyalty amongst your clientele.
Incorporate Politically and Socially Adept Content
There has been an increasing trend with relevance to social impact before the pandemic even began. However, this trend has now imploded upon the world as more people are yearning for social media content. Content that isn’t offensive to anyone at all.
In these tumultuous when brands choose to remain quiet on social issues and are constantly being called out. They’re infamously known as irresponsible, irrelevant, and unjust. Due to the Cancel Culture gaining traction, most of these brands have been met with a boycott.
56% of consumers said that they have no respect or loyalty towards businesses that choose to remain silent on vital issues. This is according to Merkle’s Q4 2020 media insights reports. This is the reality that we continue to live in each day all over the world. The political climate of the world continues to shift, and with this, your business strategy has to take a stand for what is right.
Your social media management and marketing strategy must integrate your stand on social issues in 2022. This will eventually become a part of your brand identity design. Consequently, you need to be careful of what you choose to say on all your social media platforms.
Your concerns for 2022 should consist of socially relevant issues and the ones plaguing your business. Moreover, the least you could do is provide information regarding social issues rather than picking a side on partisan issues.
The route that you choose to take will ultimately dictate your brand identity. Your marketing decisions will have to rely upon your contribution to social issues. So why not now than later.
2022 is all set to be a compelling year; it can be a year of mitigation and reevaluation for brands that choose to do so. In the end, the brands that choose not to be adept and malleable with their marketing might be gearing up for another taxing year.
