Social and digital media are ever-changing topics that continue to grow as technology becomes more and more advanced. 2022 will be no different, and it is worth making note of what to expect this year.
2021 brought in big changes and huge results, including Facebook rebranding to Meta, Tik Tok taking the center stage, Instagram changing its focus, Twitter perfecting its user base, and LinkedIn trying to stay caught up in the mix. This article will go more in-depth on each one, to see what patterns and strategies will stick coming into the next year.
Facebook has experienced significant change over the last year and took 2021 as an opportunity to introduce a brand-new topic of conversation, the Metaverse. Facebook’s central focus over the next few years is moving towards artificial intelligence, as well as continuing to be one of the world’s largest advertising platforms. Facebook is one of the older platforms compared to their competitors, they have to work towards attracting younger users, and not just cater to the 45+ age demographic. Facebook’s Business Suite is also going to continue to develop further throughout 2022, which will aid digital marketers all over the globe. Facebook is far from done with what they want to accomplish, and 2022 should prove to be a distinguishing year for how they choose to expand next.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Tik Tok, the world’s latest and greatest social media platform, exceeded more than 1 billion monthly active users. It is currently projected that Tik Tok could overtake Instagram’s entire space in 2022. Brands will have to adapt their strategies to Tik Tok, which is mainly video content if they want to survive the surge of younger users who now primarily use this app. 2022 should be another year of exponential growth for Tik Tok, due to the fact that isn’t a heavily advertised platform yet. Tik Tok is full of very famous content creators, and large brands could get ahead of the curve if they begin sponsoring these influencers and adapting their strategies to this platform.
Due to the significant number of users who have moved over to Tik Tok, Instagram experiences a rough 2021. Their main focus for 2022 will be to retain their users that have left and give creators more power and ways to be compensated for their efforts. Instagram plans to allow its creators to monetize their activities within the app by more than just branded content. This could include content going viral or subscription-type methods. Instagram has also brought more attention to shopping features, and this will be another one of their focuses moving forward into this year.
Twitter is a platform like no other and experienced a 14% increase in daily users from January 2020-January 2021. Twitter launched a new part of its platform in 2021, Twitter Blue, and is a subscription-type service that provides creators with premium access to things such as Tweet Editing. Twitter also launched Twitter Spaces, which allows users to have live audio conversations on Twitter. Users host these conversations in an audio chat room, the “Space”, and others can participate. While these ideas are still relatively new, Twitter seems to be focused on perfecting its craft and appealing to its already very strong user demographic in 2022.
Finally, LinkedIn, similar to Instagram, experienced a rough patch in 2021. LinkedIn still prides itself on the professional experience and has done well with providing free courses and other business-related items that appeal to users. With that being said, they are consistently a step behind other platforms and will need to take this to focus on how to differentiate themselves from their competitors throughout 2022.
Social media usage has collectively sky-rocketed throughout the pandemic and will continue to do so over the next year. Other platforms such as Twitch and Discord continue to fuel the gaming sphere and will prove to be considerable competitors to other platforms in the future. 2022 will prove to be an innovative and change-driven year for all major platforms, as they continue to try to win the time of millions of users all over the world. If you want to keep your brand up to date and at the forefront of consumers, you should locate your target audience, advertise heavily on their platform of choice, and then still advertise on other platforms to continue to gain exposure. In doing so, you will be best prepared to tackle social media marketing in 2022.