10 New Rules For Social Media That Marketers Should Know In 2022
The new rules of social media to create winning strategies in 2022
Since the pandemic hit in 2020, we have witnessed the shift in the way brands leveraged the power of social media to connect and engage with their audience. Social media content strategies became more about engaging and building relations, and less about products. There were new rules, and these were unsaid but understood. Brands that played by the rules, won fair and square. Brands that stuck to their ways, saw an increasing dip in reach and engagement, and an increase in the number of follows.
2022 marks second year anniversary of the post-pandemic world. And as the popularity of social media continues to grow (3.7 billion monthly social media users), brands aren’t just wondering how will they engage and reach more users this year. They are also asking, “What are the new rules of social media that will give them an edge in this landscape?”
In this blog, I have compiled ten new research-backed rules that you can adhere to in 2022.
Also Read: The Complete Social Media Handbook : Template
New Social Media Rules To Win In 2022
Let’s cut to the chase and start talking about the rules, the trends and the way to become successful on social media.
1. Don’t ignore Tik Tok
It is undeniable that TikTok has experienced rapid growth. At the start of 2021, the term ‘TikTok’ was mentioned 61% more than it was a year earlier, and it was the first non-Facebook app to reach 3 million global downloads.
If we look at the trends and map it to the growth of Tik-Tok, it might look like it’s just a passing fad. But I think, it will be extremely wrong to ignore the current control that the platform exercises on the market. TikTok is in the market and it is setting the content rules for all marketers to follow.
2. Change your primary and flaky social media objectives
Till now, marketers have tied their strategies to align with NSM. Last year I was one of them. The three major KPI(s) that the wider population of the industry was targeting, were: (a) Increasing brand awareness (b) Increasing conversion (c) Product positioning
But the goals will be different this year. A major reason behind this is that all the three goals mentioned above are tied to acquisition of new audience. This became increasingly difficult in 2021. Social media became an obstacle, instead of becoming a medium in reaching these goals. 2022’s new social media rules
This year, marketers are targeting: (a) Brand Awareness (b) Brand Loyalty (c) Customer service and retention. They will be focused on creating communities around their brands and stay in touch with their audience as much as possible. This agenda is driven by the arrival of passion economy and the concept of 100 True Fans.
3. Include AR in your campaign and content strategy
AR and VR have been there for quite some time now. However, brands are now trying to leverage their prowess to help consumers try out products before buying them. This year, we will see an increase in such efforts.
As a marketer, you can try to use augmented reality in your campaigns. This will help you gain the edge over your competitors that you so desire.
4. Promote social commerce and young entrepreneurs
Despite the fact that social commerce is not new, it will continue to dominate social media in the new year. People prefer to have experiences at the places they already frequent. Keeping this in mind, shoppable experiences will be offered by more brands across all platforms.
We can expect to indulge in shop buttons, livestreams, ads, and creator based reviews. This will all play a part in smart social media strategies.
5. Humanise your brand
The current social media audience craves relations based on well-intent and authenticity. This ultimately leads to brand loyalty, increased engagement and audience retention.
The only way social media managers and marketers can do this, is by humanising their brand. We could take Dunzo’s and Zomato’s example in this case.
Remember that your audience is expecting to look at more than your product on their feeds. They are constantly evaluating how aligned are you to your purpose, mission and (a new entry) social mission. As a marketer, you should use this opportunity to create content around brand’s personality and perspective. What more? You can even be bullish in your stance.
6. Content is the new snack
We have seen the mass adoption of TikTok, Reels and Shorts. Different platforms with almost the same strategy- short duration-video content that is easy to feed on.
Snackable content form a major base of the new rules of social media for 2022. Not just the creation, but also the consumption of such content will continue to grow. I suggest, you jump on this and get started ASAP, if you haven’t done so already.
A few things that you can do to get ahead of these rules are:
- Change your carousel posts to image and audio based videos.
- Give out cheat sheets from your domain in reels.
- Repost reels to strengthen your UGC game.
- Make tutorials related to your industry.
Also Read: Easy To Create Snackable Social Media Content
7. Influencer fatigue = Community
The pandemic definitely saw a steep rise in the popularity of influencers and original content. “Everyday influencers” also known as micro and nano influencers were at the forefront of this.
However, this market is now on the verge of getting matured. The main reason behind this is the lack of authenticity of most of these influencers. It’s out there they charge a lot for brand partnerships and a lot of time would not have tried the product they are vouching for. Result? Decreased conversions bought through influencer collaboration.
With the consumers becoming smarter than ever in 2022, I expect a decline in influencer collaborations. Specially the ones where they are hard-selling the products. This is all because of influencer fatigue, that is plaguing the social media at a very fast rate. Brands and marketers will realise this and turn to either hard-core social commerce or community based promotions.
8. Engage with GenZ
The new rules of social media dictates that brands should now focus on giving back, taking a stand and helping their audience find deeper meanings. Brands also need to bring in the force of community and make it easier for their audience to build relations. This change is governed by the increasing population of Gen Z on social media platforms. [Gen Z (for India) refers to anyone born between 1997 and 2012.]
Gen Z is the first generation to consume true digital natives. They believe in fostering relations over following the herd mentality. They are the realists, the creators and the first generation to maintain highest activity on social media. In point 4, I mentioned about social commerce. The reason behind the increase in social commerce can also be credited to the young entrepreneurs and buyers belonging to GenZ.
In 2022, brands need to start seeing GenZ as the driving force behind engagement and content consumption. Stating the new social media rules of 2022 once again, remember to communicate using natives and digital media, share content that adds value and really be there for your audience.
9. Be authentic and transparent
Social media platforms have been under heat since the Cambridge Analytica fiasco for capturing data points, spreading fake news and manipulating users into taking an undesired decisions. The distrust surrounding social media has only grown since then.
The aftermath is that social media users are now more skeptical of posts and “fake news” than ever before. But, this is not all bad. If you actually look at it, this gives brands, creators and organisations, a chance to be real, authentic, human and compassionate online.
As a marketer or social media manager, make it the most important social media rule for 2022 to use the platforms that to build trust. Offer transparency into the challenges that your industry faces, share about your CSR and the reason why you support the initiative, be “empathy first”, be bullish about the cause that you care about and humanize your brand.
10. Metaverse is the new force, and may the force be with you
Digital worlds, virtual currencies and new social platforms are now being developed and taking shape in metaverse. This is because the largely uncharted territory of metaverse is slowly going to become more mainstream. (If you need to know about metaverse, you can read it here- bharatmetaverse.com)
In 2022, new social media rules will favour the advertising of non-fungible tokens (NFT). Brands that are early adopters of this, will mint their loyalty assets and become more valuable. As a marketer, you can use this revolution to fuel your content strategy. Host free-LIVE sessions on metaverse platform, or maybe tie up with different stages for securing a real estate for your content in a metaverse event.
Also Read: The Complete Social Media Handbook : Template
Bonus: The New Social Media Rules of 2022 Won’t Favour These Content Formats
1. Ephemeral Content
Ephemeral content or disappearing content such as Instagram/FB stories showed an immense decline in reach in the year 2021. It’s a prediction that such content type would continue to show decline because of the new algorithmic changes.
This can also be seen in the way marketers have decided to frame their content strategy. HubSpot says that 67% of B2B and 41% of B2C marketers will not be investing time in creating ephemeral content.
Advice:
It’s always difficult to create high-quality, engaging content. Keeping the algorithm changes aside, a lot of marketers believe that putting in effort to create content that will disappear in 24 hours, doesn’t make sense. But this totally depends on business to business. If only you find a low ROI through ephemeral content that you should kick it out of your strategy.
2. Interviews and Expert Discussions
Interviews, podcasts or expert led discussion are a thing of past now. Though time consuming, they used to be immensely effective for increasing brand awareness. However, the content saturation in such field is going to be a major reason that these won’t work as effectively as you expect them to, in 2022.
Conclusion
With this blog, I have tried to highlight the new social media rules of 2022. But again, these rules may favour your content strategy or may prove to be a disaster. To be ahead of this, you should look at each of these rules as a moving piece that you can add to your Social Media Handbook to reach your goals.
In my advice, I suggest that you set actionable goals and measure them against the rules mentioned above. This will help you in staying ahead of the curve. And if you need more advice, please feel free to reach out to me. Best of luck in 2022!
About the writer:
I am a marketer and strategist with 5+ years of work experience in the field of marketing. I love being a marketer as it helps me see the bigger picture and analyse the minute pixels that leads to such beautiful creation. You can read more about me on my website.
