Social Commerce

Ah, social commerce! Who would’ve ever thought that one day, you could buy anything from vintage shoes to handmade earrings without ever swiping out of Instagram?!

With social commerce, the whole shopping experience – from finding the product on your feed to the checkout and payment – takes place right on a social media platform. Currently, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest are the only social platforms that allow for social commerce.

On Instagram, you could come across a super cute pair of flower-print clogs, hit “shop now” and have them ordered right there in the app. The reason why social commerce is so popular is that shopping ON social media makes the experience much more interactive than a normal online shopping spree.

There’s also way less friction, meaning people won’t be put off buying from your site due to too many redirected pages: see it, click it, buy it!

Just like Shakira’s hips, numbers don’t lie; in 2021 alone retail e-commerce sales reached about 4.9 trillion US dollars (4 trillion British pounds). This number is predicted to grow by 50% over the next 4 years.

Also, 81% of shoppers research products on Instagram and Facebook, and shopping is a top priority for 48% of Pinterest users. It seems now is a better time than any for your brand to jump on the social commerce trend and rope in as many new customers as possible!

Live Videos 

Everyone be quiet, I’m going live! Live videos are the movement of the social media world.

They are where we can step out of our accustomed pre-recorded zone on socials and see what people are up to in real-time, without the luxury of editing and re-takes. They’re unfiltered, raw and real, which is why people love them so much!

Currently, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter and Linkedln have made live videos available on their platforms; the number of brands adjusting their content strategies accordingly is constantly increasing. If your target audience is mainly Gen Z, our blog on How To Use Instagram And TikTok Live Videos To Grow Your Business will tell you all you need to know!

In terms of content marketing, live videos may not have a direct effect on your bottom line, but they can definitely increase brand awareness and engagement. We definitely recommend implementing live videos – whether that’s on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook or Twitter – to your content strategy.

It’s a super-easy way to express your brand’s personality, showcase the fun side of your brand, spread word about new products and simply get to know your audience. Not to mention it’s relatively simple to get lots of views on TikTok live since TikTok allows live videos to come up on your FYP as you’re swiping through.

Some quick ideas on ways your brand can use live videos are:

• Teaching a skill
• Holding a seminar about your industry
• Hosting exclusive interviews with leaders and influencers
• Giving a behind-the-scenes glimpse of your company
• Testing out your products

Influencer Marketing

If you don’t already know, Influencer marketing is a way that brands can promote their products or services through endorsements or recommendations from content creators/influencers that already have a relatively large following on social. We think it’s genius, and even if you are a smaller brand, you can always reach out to micro-influencers (10k+) to help promote your brand. Every shot you don’t take is one you miss! 93% of the big brand marketers have used influencer marketing in their campaigns, and it’s now considered a key advertising strategy.

Don’t believe us? The stats say that 49% of consumers depend on influencer recommendations and 40% had bought something after seeing it on Twitter, Instagram or TikTok.

Dunkin’ Donuts is a great example of a brand that uses influencer marketing super well. Dunkin’ has 3.1M TikTok followers and 22.3M likes. One huge factor of their success is their strategic influencer marketing. In 2021 they started a long-term sponsorship with Charli D’Amelio, who sports a whopping 141.7M TikTok followers and 10.9B likes…

Their #CharliXDunkinContest and the release of “The Carli” drink led to a 57% increase in app downloads on launch day and a 45% increase in cold brew sales the next day. If that doesn’t influence you to go and cop your own influencers, we don’t know what will!

So there it is! Our top social media trends for brands in 2022. We hope we inspired you to go and start a live video, add shoppable posts to your Instagram page and go influencer searching; these are the best things you can do to boost your brand right now!