Trends in Broadcast Media and Fashion

It's that time again. Social media managers everywhere are blinking our eyes and poking our heads out from behind our screens to take the lay of the land. We've got strategies to plan, and we need to know: which social media trends are going to change the game in 2022?

Is TikTok going to overtake Instagram? Is organic engagement any meliorate? Is it necessary to host a live audio chat once a calendar week?

It can exist tough working in an industry that morphs faster than a Power Ranger. Merely, don't worry, we're here to save y'all a bunch of late nights because nosotros have answers.

We looked at the 5 central trends outlined in Hootsuite's global Social Trends 2022 report, along with data from our survey of over 18,000 marketers to bring you this list of nine social media trends that will boss the industry in 2022. And probably even change the way you lot practise your job.

Download the full Social Trends report to get an in-depth analysis of the data y'all need to prioritize and programme your social strategy in 2022.

Instagram has held the #1 spot in near social marketers' hearts for the by few years. It was growing the fastest, had the highest returns on investment (depending on your manufacture), and (bonus) was pretty fun to hang out on. But that'southward changing now.

TikTok surpassed the 1 billion user mark in September 2021. That made it the seventh most popular social network in the world.

If you lot exclude messaging networks, TikTok is the 4th most popular social media network after Instagram.

Why is this a big deal? Well, in January 2021, it only had 689 million users. That's a 45% increment in less than a year.

And this comes after its largest growth spurt of all: a global user base increment of 1,157% between 2018 and 2020.

To put this into perspective, Instagram'due south monthly agile users grew at a rate of half dozen% in 2020.

Even more interesting? Google Search Trends shows that TikTok completely dominates Instagram'southward short-course video content.

Over the final year, search demand for TikTok has grown past 173%. Only search demand for Instagram Reels has only grown by 22%. And information technology has decreased by 33% for Stories.

Only despite TikTok'due south rapid growth, most businesses are hesitant to invest in the network. Take the results from Hootsuite'south Social Media Trends report.

Only 35% of respondents said they planned on increasing their investment in TikTok in the next year. Almost businesses continue to identify big bets on reliable networks like Instagram and Facebook.

Only that'southward not the whole story. When asked which social platforms they considered most effective for reaching their business goals, 24% said TikTok. This is a 700% increase over 2020.

TikTok introduced several helpful concern tools in 2020 and 2021, including business profiles, ads, and a creator marketplace. This could be why businesses are feeling more optimistic nigh information technology this year.

To-Exercise List: If brands aren't flocking to TikTok however, they volition exist soon. We recommend being at the front end of the wave rather than behind it.

Grab an account handle for your brand
Explore TikTok and so yous can start feeling fluent on the platform and notice some ideas
Sketch out the basics of your TikTok marketing strategy

2. You volition commencement spending big ad dollars on smaller networks

Of all the social media trends on this list, this one is perhaps the virtually surprising.

New research shows that consumers may be more receptive to advertising on smaller channels like TikTok, Snapchat, and Pinterest than the bigger social networks.

A report by Kantar, commissioned by TikTok, institute that consumers ranked TikTok ads as more inspiring and enjoyable than ads on other platforms.
A Nielson study deputed by Snapchat found that ads on Snapchat had more than reach than Idiot box ads and led to greater sensation and purchase intent.
A Pinterest Business study showed that ads on Pinterest had college ROI and cheaper conversion rates than ads on other social networks.

Google Search Trends also bear witness increasing search demand over the terminal ii years for ads on these networks. TikTok is leading the charge.

This chart shows that rumors of skillful results are spreading. And curiosity about advertising on the smaller networks goes beyond self-funded studies.

Our hypothesis? The smaller networks aren't every bit saturated with ads every bit Facebook and Instagram, so users may endure less from ads fatigue.

Many social pros also had to diversify their ads strategy in early on 2021 in response to the Apple iOS fourteen update. This was when Apple appear an "opt in to ads tracking" choice for all Apple users, blocking Facebook'southward power to target a vast chunk of its audience.

Well-nigh importantly though, TikTok, Pinterest and Snapchat all encourage advertisers to make their ads "fit in" with organic content that is already being posted by regular users.

The upshot is ads that are more than entertaining and less disruptive, increasing conversions and all-circular good vibes for businesses.

French beauty brand MAKE UP FOREVER ran an in-feed TikTok advertisement every bit part of a larger make awareness campaign. Information technology features a creator testing and reviewing a new foundation as they would on their own channel.

The entrada generated more than 11 million impressions and 10 million video views for the make across France.

To-Practise List:

Accept a closer look at your engagement across all platforms. Have you been underestimating Pinterest users? Neglecting the potential of your Snapchat audience?
Study the content people post on that network. See if you tin improve your brand'due south tone to fit in with the vibe there.
Experiment with creating ads on that network. Or test a new network, especially if you've discounted information technology as besides much effort for organic content in the by.

Before the pandemic, social commerce was a flashy opportunity for the most innovative businesses (mattress disruptors, eyeglass disruptors—basically you had to phone call yourself a disruptor before yous'd permit your customers shop on social).

Merely increased social media consumption combined with stay-at-home mandates created the perfect conditions for a social shopping explosion. Which is not going away.

eMarketer predicts social commerce will be an $fourscore billion industry by 2025. Information technology'due south riding the coattails of equally massive due east-commerce growth (an increase of 18% in 2020 alone).

81% of shoppers were already using social media to find new brands and research products before the pandemic. Many businesses have figured out that letting these users checkout in the aforementioned app simply makes sense.

Subsequently all, navigating to a website is an extra step, which is an actress potential leak in your conversion funnel. Particularly on mobile, where cart abandonment rates are high.

Virtually social networks accept in-app shopping solutions now, including live video, and are working to provide new features to meet rising demand. But Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest are the near popular. And TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube aren't far behind.

Instagram Explore page — Instagram added a "Shop" tab to the Explore page in 2020

To-Exercise Listing

Social commerce likely won't supercede e-commerce soon. But, depending on your business organization, you shouldn't be designing a retail feel without thinking about it.

If you sell products to people, set upwardly a Facebook Store and/or an Instagram Shop. Or, test out Product Pins on Pinterest.
There's some design flexibility in these shops, and so brand the customer experience as visually seamless with your brand as yous can.
Don't worry about getting your whole inventory upwardly. Focus on curating the items yous recollect your Instagram followers will similar all-time.
Experiment with shoppable posts, or even ads! This will allow customers to see your products in context—and and so place an society in merely a few taps.

four. No one will want to talk to your brand on the phone

Between lockdowns, halting global supply chains, and labor shortages, consumers have had more urgent questions for businesses than e'er earlier. And they've discovered they can get answers to those questions more conveniently using social media.

In a Nielsen survey deputed by Facebook, 64% of people said they would prefer to message rather than call a business organization. And according to Gartner, 60% of all customer service requests will be managed via digital channels by 2023.

Despite the rise in need, many organizations aren't ready to deliver effective customer support over social media still.

Hootsuite'south 2022 Customer Care Survey shows that 71% of organizations have either not started investing in social customer care yet, or they don't plan to invest at all.

Merely our more than recent Social Media Trends survey information suggests that the tide may be turning. 59% of respondents agreed that social customer care has increased in value for their organization.

To-Exercise Listing

Start thinking about a social media customer service strategy.
Create network-specific response templates for oft asked questions.
If you haven't already, endeavour using a chatbot to improve your response time.
Merge your customer service conversations in ane tool. (Naturally, we suggest Sparkcentral or Hootsuite Inbox.)
Train your social marketing team in customer support best practices. Amend yet, rent defended customer service agents for your social channels.

five. Long-grade video is a bosom, except on YouTube

According to video hosting software company Vidyard, 60% of all videos published on the internet in 2020 were under 2 minutes long.

Graph: Video length distribution across the internet — Source: Vidyard

This stat puts video length on social media platforms into perspective.

Two years ago, with the advent of IGTV and Facebook Watch (not to mention the supposed demise of Snapchat), there was a moment when nosotros all thought long-form video was the future.

YouTube, known for its long-form educational videos, was rewarding videos that passed the 10-infinitesimal mark. And Facebook wanted to compete in the same arena.

Businesses rushed to make "idiot box series" for their social platforms. Will Smith fifty-fifty narrated an IGTV show for National Geographic. It seemed like Facebook might non just be taking on YouTube, but cable Television networks every bit well.

Simply and then TikTok arrived in Due north America. In response, Instagram launched Reels in late 2020, and the rest is history.

Fast forward to fall 2021.

Instagram has deprecated IGTV. No one talks about Facebook Picket anymore. And even YouTube, the last bastion of long-form video on social media, has introduced a new format. You guessed information technology: YouTube Shorts.

The success of Reels and TikTok follows the success of Stories (some other short-form video format), which saw rapid user uptake from 2018 to 2020.

Unfortunately, Facebook hasn't updated the 500 meg user count for Stories since the release of Reels in 2020, then we tin can't really tell if it has grown. But attempts to copy the disappearing brusque-form video format on Twitter and LinkedIn failed in 2021. RIP Fleets and LinkedIn Stories.

if y'all see a Armada no you didn't https://t.co/4rKI7f45PL

— Twitter (@Twitter) Baronial 3, 2021

This suggests that social media users won't sentinel simply any short-class videos. They have to be entertaining and engaging too. Also, perhaps disappearing content isn't as large a draw as it used to be.

Whatever the reason, Hootsuite'south 2022 Social Media Trends survey shows that businesses prefer short-class video too.

Nearly 40% of respondents said that they utilize brusque-course video to sell products/services.

To-Practice Listing:

If your goal is to reach new followers, experiment with TikTok videos.
If your goal is to re-engage your existing Instagram audience, experiment with Reels.
If yous accept success with brusque-form videos on ane platform, try it on others. And take note of the results. Every bit always, you'll desire to interpret videos for each channel. No TikTok watermarks on Reels, delight!

6. Y'all will outsource (at least some of) your date tactics to a Creator

The creator economic system has been around for about a decade. But it boomed during the pandemic as people looked for ways to diversify their income (due to unemployment, or a sudden influx of spare time, or both).

Simply we're not but talking virtually millionaire YouTube stars. It'south at present considered common for regular folks to monetize their hobbies, create a second income stream, or detect freelance work through social media besides.

Hence the rise of the term "Creator."

"Creator" encompasses both professional influencer marketers and amateur content creators — basically anyone who writes, edits, designs, and films content to publish on social media with an entrepreneurial motivation.

As of 2021, 50 million people consider themselves to exist creators on social networks. And businesses are fix to spend $15 billion on influencer marketing by 2022.

In the U.S. alone, 72.5% of marketers are projected to brand utilize of influencer marketing past 2022.

Graph: Share of U.S. Marketers using social media and influencer marketing, 2019 - 2022 — Source: eMarketer

Social networks are both driving and responding to this boom by calculation many new native monetization tools, such as:

TikTok's Creator Marketplace
Instagram's Collabs
Instagram's Branded Content Ads
Facebook's Brand Collabs Manager
YouTube Brand Connect
Twitter's paid Super Follows

These tools are all geared to become content creators paid, so they can keep adding value for brands and users on their chosen platforms.

Plus, they help the networks hang on to their slice of that $15 billion pie. That is until i of the thousands of 3rd-political party "creator monetization" apps that have sprung up in the final few years finally cracks the code.

To-Practice List: Whatever your niche (plant fanatics, goth Harry Potter fans, ASMR receptionists, etc.), there is a creator with an already established fan base waiting to partner with you. And they'll practise a better job of creating authentic, long-term customer relationships than any make account could ever promise to!

Define the audition yous want to reach (and which platform they're on).
Browse creator marketplaces to make a shortlist of people who have clout with that audience.
Get ready to pay fair rates. Even the about micro of creators know their worth and won't be willing to piece of work for free.

7. Y'all need to acquire paid ad (fifty-fifty if you don't practise ads all the same)

Honestly, this social media trend has been around for a few years. Only information technology's however worth mentioning, peculiarly given what we found in Hootsuite'southward 2022 Social Media Trends survey.

43% of respondents said "the decline of organic attain and the need to increase paid advertising budgets" was their biggest challenge on social media. This is second only to consistently coming up with ideas for content.

Simply that was for respondents overall. Modest to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) listed the decline of organic reach as their #one challenge.

This makes sense. The reject of organic reach has been well-documented for years, especially on Facebook and Instagram. And virtually SMBs have express funds to put towards "pay-to-play" tactics.

The pandemic caused some ups and downs for social advertising. Businesses reduced their spending on ads. And the ones that continued to spend complained nigh depression returns on over-saturated networks.

Plus, Apple allowed users to opt out of Facebook tracking. This caused Facebook advertisers to reinvent how they did their advertisement targeting.

Simply the fact remains that the average organic reach for a Facebook mail service is five.two%.

That means but 5% of your followers may ever encounter your posts if you lot don't put any paid budget behind them.

Certain, you tin can aggrandize your social media strategy to other networks where it's still possible to go viral without spending a dime. (*Ahem* TikTok.) But chances are you're non going to go out the audiences you worked and then hard to grow.

No matter what your budget, someone on your social marketing team is going to have to at to the lowest degree larn how to boost. And everyone is going to have to larn the nuts of audience targeting.

To-Do Listing:

Keep using organic social media content to increment brand sensation, deliver customer service, and encourage audience appointment, charming people along the buying journey. Refer to the handy Venn diagram beneath for more information.
Experiment with promoting your pinnacle posts to reach new potential customers.
If you're fix to level up your ads game, consider investing in a solution similar Hootsuite Social Advertising. It allows you to publish ads to Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn and rails their functioning in the same dashboard.

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During the COVID-nineteen pandemic, many businesses jumped on board the social listening train for the first time. They liked beingness able to respond in real-time to questions and conversations with their customers during a wellness crisis.

But every bit the pandemic progressed (and was buffeted past ongoing political upheaval, labor shortages, and increased resentment towards corporations), even more businesses learned that social listening could help them sympathize their customers' changing preferences and avert PR mishaps.

This tendency is backed past data from Hootsuite'due south 2022 Social Media Trends survey. About respondents said that they either somewhat or strongly agree that social listening has increased in value for their organisation over the by 12 months.

We also see that Google search need for keywords like "social listening" and "social listening tools" is upwardly 22% year-over-twelvemonth. This means that more people are on the hunt to either find out what social listening is or buy a tool for their business organisation.

To-Practise List

Prepare three search streams in your preferred social media management tool (if you don't take one nonetheless, endeavor Hootsuite for gratuitous for xxx days) for the post-obit:
- - Your make mentions, branded hashtags, products, and spokespeople
  - Your competitors' make mentions, branded hashtags, products, and spokespeople
  - Keywords and hashtags important to your manufacture as a whole
Picket our super-informative intro to social listening video:

Brand certain that the people who make decisions have access to what you learn. Whether y'all're running a one-adult female bloom shop or accept a team of two hundred marketers, social listening will surface problems and opportunities that tin impact the whole concern.

Try Streams in Hootsuite

Clubhouse launched in April 2020 but grew steeply in popularity in early 2021.

Twitter launched its social audio platform, Spaces, quickly afterward. And Facebook is also reportedly trying to enter the imperceptible live audio format.

These events had many social marketing teams, including Hootsuite's, scrambling to decide whether information technology was worth investing in a social audio strategy. And every bit our 2022 Social Media Trends survey shows, the majority of businesses seem to call up it is worth it.

When asked specifically how they were planning to invest, results were fairly mixed beyond the board. But the most popular option was "hosting/leading audio live streams equally thought leaders."

(Side note: props to everyone who'southward been assigned the job of creating a company podcast. Blink twice if you lot want united states to send help.)

Let'southward break down the data even further.

Our survey found that it was nearly ofttimes VPs and mid- to big-size companies who planned to invest in social audio and thought leadership, besides as companies that were already very confident about proving social media's render on investment (i.eastward., companies that use highly sophisticated social marketing tactics).

This makes sense. Thought leadership is seen as a peachy opportunity for social audio content considering it enables one or two people to speak to a big crowd. For those who have the boldness and the budget, it'south a big opportunity to build trust in your brand and straight connect with potential customers.

That said, because of the skill and time involved, social audio is not a particularly inexpensive form of content marketing. This is 1 of the reasons we predict small businesses will be slower to adopt information technology. Y'all've got to have the cash to brand an investment upfront on a format that hasn't proved ROI for anyone yet.

Lastly, Clubhouse has stated that ads won't ever be a part of its business model.

This is either a pro or a con for businesses, depending on how yous look at it. Either way, the lack of ads means integrating your brand into Clubhouse will take some imagination.

And the path to ROI will be a long and winding one, which may oftentimes include redirecting listeners to your other social media channels.

To-Practise List:

You lot don't have to choose one particular social audio platform over some other. But you should first thinking about how your business concern can accept advantage of social audio in general, now.
Once you've got an thought of the value you could bring to listeners, start thinking about specific platforms. For example, try using Spaces to engage your existing community on Twitter. Attempt Clubhouse to connect with new followers.
Tap the thought leaders (hopefully good, charismatic humans with plenty of improv experience) in your company to host a talk on behalf of your brand. And make sure you hire a pro moderator who tin can help minimize the risk of trolls and unwelcome questions.
If no one fits the idea leader bill in your company, consider partnering with an influencer who matches your brand values to host a talk on your behalf.

That's information technology! These are the 9 social media trends nosotros think you demand to know to stay on elevation of your game in 2022. Which ones did you see coming? And which ones surprised you lot? Go out us a comment below to let usa know.

You lot've read the social media trends. Now let Hootsuite help you lot stay ahead of them.

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From a unmarried dashboard you lot tin can easily:

Create, edit and schedule posts to every network
Detect out what your best times to postal service are based on your unique, historical data
Track relevant keywords, topics, and accounts
Reply to comments and direct messages with a universal inbox
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With files from Paige Cooper.