One. Social Media Growth.
There are 520 million new people actively using social media over the past 12 months. And we’re not seeing a pandemic peak and a normalisation – we’re seeing consistent growth.
Two. Biggest growing channels.
TikTok is the biggest winner (of course!). However, Pinterest have boomed during the pandemic, as well as Reddit. TikTok in particular have had 30% growth of their user base over the past four months.
Three. Social commerce and the growth of the influencer.
Social commerce is growing and growing, and will be a big driver of change in 2022. Not just from the perspective of more companies selling through social, but also how companies advertise. Rather than simply advertising in the traditional sense – influencers (big or small), will be looking to monetise the audiences they’ve created. Social just won’t be about ads any more – people will be the ads themselves.
Four. Live streaming.
Social Media firms often look to what is happening in the East, before transplanting it to the West. Live streaming is now a $90B industry, and expect to see more of it.
Five. The argument for audience overlap.
Taking Instagram users as the sample, then 84.3% are on Facebook too. 54.6% are on Twitter, and 30.2% are on Linkedin. Andy made the argument that while you need to make a strategic choice on platform priorities – it’s a fallacy to think that most people don’t use a number of social media platforms. The result: if you have the resource, being ‘everywhere’ has advantages in providing multiple touch points from company to audience.
Six. Three things worth taking a look at in the next year:
- Twitter audio spaces – although don’t sign up just for it!
- Instagram reels are being pushed heavily, so have incentivised reach
- 3 minute TikToks (and 5 minute TikToks are being trialled, too!)
- Newsletters on Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook – see this as a funnel to your other marketing activity!
Seven. Instagram have shared how the discovery of Reels content works. Content will be pushed if:
- The video is watched all the way through
- People like it
- People say it was entertaining or funny
- People use the audio in their own videos
Eight. Yeah, no surprise… but…
The word ‘entertaining’ is interesting in those priorities. Not much of our content is ‘entertaining’. It might be informative, but… funny? Not really.
So – how can we make our content entertaining – there is a challenge!
Nine. More takeaways.
- Social media platforms are growing across the board and demographics are becoming more balanced
- TikTok’s growth shows no sign of slowing
- Usage of live-streaming will continue to grow as a way to drive engagement
- Testing new features always holds the potential of additional reach
- The future of social will be driven by the creators and smaller niche orientated communities
- As organisations, we need to challenge our beliefs – the landscape changes rapidly