Social Media Engagement in 2022: 8 Things You Need To Know

For marketers, social media is a great tool; harnessing its influence can be a strong tactic for growing your business. At the same time, social media evolves as easily as the changing of seasons. Knowing how best to strategize social media tactics can seem unclear and even a bit daunting.

As we press on through an odd and challenging year and a half for brands and businesses, experts are finding new methods for balancing the traditional with the innovative. Lately, few places have seemed more like the Wild West than social media; it’s always changing. Standards and metrics shift constantly, making reaching your target audience a continual challenge. Objectives for how to boost quality engagement with followers also reshape over time as new demographics arise and values reflect the changing times.

Here to identify this shifting landscape is Seez, a Raleigh marketing firm that monitors, navigates, and advises upon these shifting landscapes for its clients. Marketing Associate Taylor Schindler shares the top eight things you need to know about social media for your business in 2022 and beyond.

Consumers Will Want More Transparency and Authenticity

As brands and consumers encounter a rising number of opportunities to interact with one another, addressing the demand for connection grows more vital every day. The nuanced values that consumers incorporate into their purchase behavior are complex and expanding; as a result, they’re more selective about where they want to channel their purchase power. By prioritizing authenticity and openness, it is possible for businesses to establish a meaningful connection, making the decision to support your brand an easy one.

One example is to personalize your post imagery. Rather than a lengthy feed of stock images—which do have some practical purposes for certain occasions—use real pictures of real people who work for you and with you, as they perform best with raising engagement.

Visitors to your page want to engage with content they can relate to, which includes feeling connected with the people behind the brand. An important component of developing a genuine brand is incorporating as much of the heart behind your work as possible, be it through your projects, your products, or your people.

Livestreaming on the Rise

Livestreaming, or filming video in real-time like on Instagram stories or Snapchat, feeds into the increasing demand for authenticity in brands. Like personalizing your brand imagery with your own employees or unique offerings, livestreaming is also an opportunity to stand out. By putting a face and voice to your business, you show that real people with shared values and interests to their customers contribute to what makes your brand so great.

Additionally, livestreaming is supposed to be dynamic and fun. If you want to bring your viewers and followers along for a glimpse into an exciting new project, offering them the chance to watch live from the studio can feel like exclusive, VIP content.

Merging Social With E-Commerce

If you know where your target market goes, follow them. Commercial activity has rapidly shifted to social media. One evaluation showed that 55 percent of people have bought something from a social platform. Be it diapers, fitness products, or home décor, brands are taking advantage of this new sales platform.

As a result, e-commerce will continue to expand its presence where its consumers spend significant time. Consider learning more about how to develop advertisements to target your audiences based on when they’re likely to be logged in. You can even set up your own social media e-commerce shops directly on Facebook and Instagram.

Traditional Platforms Still Perform Best

While the more recent media players like TikTok may seem to be sweeping competitors in popularity, the more traditional social media channels have certain advantages that keep them at the pinnacle, namely, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn. These companies continue to stay popular, have longer tenure in their market, and have predated the unique challenges that newcomers face today.

Speaking of LinkedIn, one Seez marketer’s tip is to get conversational and vulnerable on LinkedIn. Though it’s known to be a professional platform, the posts with a human touch attract the most user engagement. Whatever human element you bring to your content, just be sure to tie it back to a message that’s relevant to your brand.

Video Content Will Continue To Dominate

It’s tough to overemphasize the value of creating authentic connections. Video content is king in achieving this. A Cisco study showed that by 2022, 82 percent of all online content will be video. Therefore, businesses have every reason to capitalize on this trend.

LinkedIn content with imagery is 30 percent more likely to attract engagement, and users are 20 percent more likely to share a post that includes a video. Instagram video content attracts more engagement than any other type of content on the platform.

The bottom line is that you don’t need a fancy editing studio and a massive budget to incorporate video content. Simply brainstorm themes and ideas that relate to your brand and show your customers who you are.

Akin to video as a content medium is audio, one of the fastest-growing types of media for information sharing. Podcasts will only continue to grow. According to Forbes, an estimated 100 million people listened to at least one podcast per month in 2020, and “the percentage of monthly podcast listeners among 12- to 34-year-olds has grown from 27 percent in 2017 to 49 percent in 2020.”

Consider podcasts as another platform to develop content, as you can then cross-promote that content on your other platforms.

Consumers Still Want Ephemeral Content

For success in reaching most audiences now, you need to include content as evaporative as your viewers’ attention spans. Quick, consistent, and continuous content circulation is the name of the game. Post regularly and include variety, mixing standard posts with expirable content like Instagram stories or Snapchat stories. Engagement grows when brands show personability and flexibility in their content.

Leverage Thought Leaders

Create content around your own experts and industry pros to join the conversations in which your business engages. Try letting the experts on your team, your “thought leadership,” do social media takeovers for a day; tap into their expertise for a quotable meme or a sound bite to share later for impactful content on your channels.

Join Groups and Engage

When growing social media engagement that goes both ways, give and take is the name of the game. Joining relevant industry groups opens connections to other players in your market. The more you initiate your own contributions to market-relevant conversations, the more visitors and engagement you’ll attract.

For more information on the authoring company, visit seeztoday.com.