Top 6 Social Media Predictions for 2022

Are You Ready For These Social Media Predictions For 2022?

2022 is already well underway so what can we expect for this new year?

So much happened in 2021, that 2022 is bound to have a lot in store for us marketers and entrepreneurs.

So today, we’re going to share our top 6 social media predictions for 2022.

These social media predictions will surely give you a leg up on your competition and help you start the year off strong.

Let’s dive in!

Top 6 Social Media Predictions For 2022

1. Instagram will continue to invest in its eCommerce and creator tools.
2. Influencer marketing will continue to increase as a result of Instagram updates.
3. AR will become more mainstream.
4. Local marketing will become more commonplace.
5. Video content will continue to soar.
6. The veil between brand and consumer will continue to thin.

1. Instagram will continue to invest in its eCommerce and creator tools. 

2021 saw a ton of new features from Instagram.

And if you’re not up to speed on those yet, read our new Instagram updates post as that is IG-specific and gets more in-depth on that platform. 

But for this post, it’s worth mentioning that Instagram head Adam Mosseri has published several announcements over the last few months…

…sharing new updates on the app, most of which being new eCommerce features and tools for creators.

So if you’re an eCommerce store owner, Instagram is definitely a platform worth looking into and investing more of your marketing into in 2022.

2. Influencer marketing will continue to increase as a result of Instagram updates. 

The next one on our list of social media predictions is something that has been around for a while now.

Influencer marketing itself isn’t new.

But as online ads have done nothing but increase over the last decade, people are listening more to other people…

…than they are with the ads that they see in between every piece of content they look at online anymore.

And to clarify if you’re unfamiliar, “Influencer marketing involves a brand collaborating with an online influencer to market one of its products or services. 

Some influencer marketing collaborations are less tangible than that – brands simply work with influencers to improve brand recognition.”

So essentially you, as a brand, will need to find regular people who don’t work for your company but do represent your average consumer well…

…and sponsor them in some way so that they post content about your brand in front of their thousands or millions of followers. 

Sponsoring them could look like sending them a free product or paying them directly for their content. 

So it makes sense as to why this type of marketing has been working for the last several years.

That’s because wouldn’t the recommendation from your friend weigh heavier in your buying decision than an ad you just saw on the side of a blog article?

The same principle applies here.

While influencer marketing has already been around for some years, we suspect that we will see it continue to morph and grow in 2022…

…as Instagram releases new tools to empower influencers and make brand partnerships that much easier.

Now let’s move on to the next one on our list of social media predictions for 2022.

3. AR will become more mainstream.

With Facebook’s rebrand to Meta and the expansion of the Metaverse, we think we can expect AR as well as VR to become more mainstream. 

AR being augmented reality and VR being virtual reality.

Millions of people have already used AR every day for years and may not have even realized it.

If you’ve used Snapchat filters and Instagram filters that project things in the photo or video or make things look like they’re really there, you’ve used AR.

But one article said, “The applications of AR on social media are not limited just to photo filters to post fun posts and stories. 

Brands can also leverage augmented reality to provide better shopping experiences to their customers.”

And we think that’s a great point. 

If you’re an eCommerce store owner, you know one of the cons to not owning a brick and mortar is people’s inability to try stuff on. 

But AR is a tool that could allow your customers to digitally try things on before buying, thus conquering that objection to purchase.

And that’s just one example. 

We’re sure we’ll see more potential applications for AR pop up over the next year. 

4. Local marketing will become more commonplace.

Next on our list of social media predictions for 2022 is local marketing.

Local marketing is marketing that is centered around a physical radius of a business and targets the local consumers in that area.

We’ve already seen some new locally-centered tools come out this year with geotagging in posts and Stories.

This also includes the new Facebook Neighborhoods feature that’s coming out. 

And some businesses are seeing “good results on niche sites like NextDoor.”

NextDoor, by the way, is an app specifically for neighborhoods.

So we think we can expect more localized tools to appear over the course of 2022…

…that give small businesses more direct access to their local communities and customers.

5. Video content will continue to soar.

Note the word continue there because it has already been on the up since 2020. 

We saw TikTok explode with short-form videos.

Instagram quickly followed suit introducing Instagram Reels, and now the combined video and IGTV format of Instagram video.

YouTube is the second-most-visited site, only being second to Google, and it’s the second most used social media site, second to Facebook.

And, it contains both short and long-form video wherein a lot of cases, the long-form video tends to outperform.

One study found that “by 2022, online videos will make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic — 15 times higher than it was in 2017.”

And beyond YouTube just being popular, it’s also effective. 

“70% of viewers bought a product from a brand after hearing about it through a video on YouTube.”

And, “50.9% of B2B decision-makers relied on YouTube to look up information about purchases. This was ahead of even Facebook.”

And the reason is because it’s all video.

Video is what’s working in 2022. it establishes trust quicker between the brand and consumer and helps them to make a purchasing decision faster. 

So we think we can expect video to take off even more than it already has with new video creator tools becoming available. 

And now before we get into the last one of our social media predictions for 2022…

…here is a quick reminder to check out our new social media ads training course that is out now.

6. The veil between brand and consumer will continue to thin.

It is 2022, and brand transparency matters.

One study found that 86% of Americans say transparency is more important to them than ever before. 

In another study, 86% of customers picked authenticity as a key reason to buy from a brand (or not).

And to bring it home, another survey concluded that 81% of buyers needed to trust a brand in order to buy from them. 

So how do you create that brand-consumer trust? By being transparent with your audience. 

One article said, “Brands that are willing to pull back the curtain to reveal decisions about product development, diversity hiring…

…and more are far likelier to have increased customer trust.”

So it’s important to be as transparent with your customers as you can.

And social media is an easy way to do that via direct messages and communication…

…as well as brand social listening with your comments and responses.

We’re already seeing new tools that help brands do just that.

For instance, in our Instagram updates 2022 post, we talked about how you can now respond to reel comments with another reel. 

So you can literally reply to your customers with a public, face-to-face video directly answering their questions.

Also, along the same lines of transparency, we think this is another reason why we see user-generated content (UGC) perform so well. 

The more transparent, open, and honest your brand comes across with your audience, the easier it will be for them to buy from you. 

So we think we can expect more tools to roll out that will promote that brand authenticity.

Wrapping Up

So those are our top social media predictions for 2022!

If you need any help with your social media marketing (in any of the platforms mentioned above), then check out our social media marketing services.

Contact us today at 404-596-7925. We would love to hear from you!

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