9 social media trends that dominating in 2022

The fourth quarter is always a good period in online marketing land. Very busy, but above all a time to look back at the developments of the past year and to look ahead to the next year. In recent years, I have described a list of social media trends for the coming year for Frank watching. This year we will simply keep that tradition alive.

But first I would like to look back with you for an eventful and interesting year. Around the same period, our list of 10 social media trends for 2021 came online last year. Which of those trends did indeed materialize, and on which points where I possibly completely wrong? Several conclusions, without discussing every point in detail.

• Which social media trends came out and which did not?
• And now the social media trends for 2022.

1. TikTok as the challenger.

2. Creative content at the top of the agenda.

3. Focus companies also on stories.

4. Private is the new default.

5. Social media platforms as publishers.

6. Social media in gaming.

7. Big influencers in a corner.

8. AR goes mainstream in social media.

9. Localization of content and campaigns.

Which social media trends came out and which did not?

Shift to e-commerce.

The line had already started in 2019 and has certainly continued in 2020. Social media is increasingly becoming an e-commerce channel for brands. Although not a purely last-click channel, the networks (in 2019-20 with LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest in the lead) will continue to launch new features that link content (influencer & brand) and the user’s purchasing behavior.

For example, Pinterest announced a scaling up of shop functions in September, and it also proved to have a major influence on the purchase intention for home products. We can therefore say that this trend has continued.

Stories are the new benchmark.

Unfortunately, we have to be a little more careful about the emergence of this trend. On the user side, the trend has become a complete reality. Stories are bigger than ever and the social networks have full focus on them. Even YouTube introduced a story’s function. However, as is often the case, companies are lagging. Without a doubt, there is more and more focus on stories, but at the same time it recently turned out that the largest spend still runs via the Facebook timeline. Time for marketers to scale up considerably.

Anxiety slows down the growth.

Yes. Definitely yes. Facebook in particular has been hit hard in 2019. Not so much by GDPR, but more by various scandals. This has slowed adoption and growth within brands. In the meantime, it seems to be recovering reasonably well, but there was a lot of doubt sown last year. Will 2020 be the year of recovery, or will it be another giant next to Facebook under scrutiny next year?

The revival of groups.

What began to appear in 2018 is increasingly becoming reality. Social media as a channel will become more closed and private. Small groups form the basis for social media in the coming years.

Commercialization of direct messaging.

This has already become reality for Facebook Messenger. Various commercial options are already available for this. And, it took a while, but WhatsApp also recently announced that it will now really (in 2021) come with WhatsApp ads.

Voice makes its appearance.

A trend that, in my opinion, has not gotten off the ground this year is the role of voice in social media. Although podcasts are on the rise and you will also experience that more and more use is being made of voice recordings within WhatsApp, it has not gone as fast as I expected. So the use is certainly increasing, but not at the rate as is happening in the US, for example. The expectation is that by 2022 the share of voice in the search will already be 50 percent. Impressive!

Blockchain in social advertising.

Last year I also described the possible role of blockchain in making the (social) advertising world more transparent. It is certainly likely that it will play a role in the future, but this was not the case in 2020. I do not expect many developments in this area in 2020, but who knows, we may be overtaken by reality.

And now the social media trends for 2021.

Enough about the past. The gaze is moving forward again! I want to start with several developments that, in my opinion, we should no longer label as trends. Purely because they already play a central role. I am talking about developments such as chatbots on social media, the use of video as a content form, the mobile-first philosophy, and the use of vertical content formats. I think these developments have already been discussed sufficiently.

But what are we looking forward to? These are the 9 important social media trends for which we expect strong development in 2022.