By Sarah Dawley, Head of Content, Hootsuite

As 2022 looms large, businesses will be looking to hit the ground running when it comes to attracting customers, building revenue and delivering innovative new ideas.

In an increasingly digitally-driven world, social media and digital marketing will inevitably play a part in nearly every business strategy, as businesses look to future-proof operations and connect with today’s tech-savvy customers.

Backed by global data and expert insights, Hootsuite’s Social Trends 2022 report draws a roadmap for businesses to help them exceed expectations and outperform competitors.

Here are the biggest trends in social identified in our report that businesses should take note of for 2022:

The social advertising trend

Consumers are holding brands to higher standards when it comes to creativity in social advertising—they are challenging marketers to get more creative and enrich user experience, especially on booming channels like TikTok, which has just hit one billion users in record time. When it comes to brand marketing, even TikTok itself advises, “Don’t make ads. Make TikToks”, and Pinterest asks advertisers to “Stop interrupting, start inspiring”.

From a consumer point of view, research shows that they may actually respond better to non-traditional advertising on channels like TikTok, Snapchat, and Pinterest, with a study by Kantar and TikTok finding that consumers ranked TikTok ads as more inspiring and enjoyable than ads on other platforms.

Neither social networks nor their users want the social media experience to be ruined by irrelevant or dull ads. Understanding audience mindset is key to successful advertising on these networks.

In 2022, businesses will also spend more money and effort on social advertising, despite historically low budgets as a result of the pandemic. Although Gartner’s annual CMO Spend Survey found that marketing budgets are the lowest they have ever been, Hootsuite’s Social Trends report found that 51.4% of marketers plan to increase their paid social spend in 2022. They plan to invest that money in tried and tested channels like Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram, but also in challenger platforms TikTok, Pinterest, and Snapchat.

As consumer expectations change, marketers are shifting resources to areas where they can make the biggest impact—which means that in 2022, businesses should be experimenting with new channels and looking to hire people who understand the likes of social media analytics and video content. It’s also important to seek out strategic opportunities across new channels, without abandoning the old faithfuls like Facebook, as customers will still expect to see a presence there.

The social commerce trend

As a result of the lockdown, 84% of consumers turned to online shopping and within the first 90 days of the pandemic, e-commerce saw 10 years’ worth of growth. Nearly two years later, this initial boom in online shopping is only set to keep growing. A huge part of this surge is social commerce.

Once a potential avenue for innovative retailers, the social commerce industry is now worth more than half a trillion US dollars, with TikTok becoming the latest social media platform to take on social shopping. Social commerce has become the backbone of modern retail, and younger generations, in particular, are turning to social networks more than search engines to research and evaluate brands. In fact, Hootsuite found that 53.2% of global internet users aged 16-24 use social networks as a primary source of information when researching brands.

Social commerce presents a massive opportunity for small businesses and big brands alike to re-imagine how consumers experience their brand. Social media is now the brand’s voice and a core platform on which retailers can engage with, sell to, and serve customers. And while the brick-and-mortar shop isn’t dead, it’s key that businesses reimagine how consumers interact with their brands, creating bolder, social-first customer experiences that drive sales and test the limits of the online shopping experience.

The customer care trend

Like many other business operations, over the course of the pandemic, customer service has become increasingly digitalised. Amid staff shortages, lockdowns and a surge in customer enquiries across every sector, customer service has had to innovate, and quickly.

While many organisations have been using social media channels like Twitter for years to connect with customers, social customer care has become a must-have channel, not only to help combat the effects of the pandemic, but to also meet customer expectations. Customers, particularly younger digital natives, now expect to be able to contact their favourite brands over social media. A Nielsen and Facebook survey, for example, found that 64% of people said they now prefer to message rather than call a business, and according to Gartner, 60% of all customer service requests will be managed via digital channels by 2023.

Businesses are waking up to the realisation that social media is going to play a crucial part in customer care moving forward, with Hootsuite finding that 59% of respondents to its Social Trends survey agree that social customer care has increased in value for their organisation. It also found that the more confident organisations are in their use of social media to achieve other business goals, the more likely they are to see the value of social customer care.

The optimising of ‘social ROI’ trend

Before the pandemic, linking the impact of social media to business outcomes was a headache for marketers and business leaders. But after a huge swell in reliance on social over the past two years, things seem to have fallen into place. Now, as businesses depend more heavily on social channels to keep in touch with customers, from managing service requests to making sales, there is much more confidence and understanding about how social media’s impact can be measured. According to Hootsuite’s Social Trends report, 83% of marketers, particularly in larger companies, are more confident than ever in quantifying the ROI of their social media practices.

To optimise this social ROI, there are three things businesses can do: encourage employee advocacy, deepen customer insights and integrate paid and organic social strategies.

Employee social advocacy – where employees are empowered to share a business’s posts across their own social networks – helps employees feel more connected to both the business and each other. Customers will feel this collaboration too, gaining trust in a brand whose own employees are supporting it. This strategy also provides a significant amount of data.

Indeed, Hootsuite found that brands that were confident in being able to measure their social ROI were also more likely to use social to gather insights about their customers. So, businesses that invest in tools like social listening technology will be able to track, analyse, and learn more about their customers, from their customers – and be able to build sharper strategies as a result.

Finally, by combining paid and organic social efforts, businesses can enjoy the benefits of both and create a more holistic and effective social strategy. For example, paid ads can attract new customers while organic channels are crucial to building online communities.

The brand community trend

Digital communities–the likes of Twitch for gamers and Peloton for cycling enthusiasts–have skyrocketed during the pandemic, helping consumers stay connected with like-minded people across the world. These communities have become central to consumers’ online experiences, with a report by Facebook and NYU’s Governance Lab finding that 77% percent of people said that the most important group they are part of is based online.

At the same time, these online communities benefit businesses in a variety of ways, shining a light on customer trends and perspectives, building customer loyalty and helping to attract new business.

Nowhere is the popularity of digital communities more apparent than on social media. Over a billion users regularly engage with groups on Facebook, TikTok has a group for every interest, and Twitter has begun testing a dedicated feature where users can connect and share in discussions called Communities.

While large global brands have the resources to create and build up their digital communities, such as existing brand collateral and dedicated digital teams, SMEs don’t necessarily have that luxury. This is where social media presents a huge opportunity for brands and businesses across the board to cultivate an online community, without having to start from scratch – and digital creators are key to success here.

Indeed, businesses that partner with specialist digital creators can connect with new audiences and earn their trust. Over 50 million people around the world now consider themselves creators, and the creator industry is already estimated to have a value of over 100 billion dollars.

So, rather than trying to build a community from the ground up, the smartest brand strategy for businesses in 2022 will be to tap into existing creator communities to learn more about their customers, simplify content creation, and build brand awareness.

The age of social media

Social media has never played a more central role to businesses. In 2022, businesses that can put social front and centre and leverage it for everything from their brand strategy to customer care will be the ones to reap the benefits of stronger brand reputation and greater customer interaction, trust and loyalty – now and in the future