As more brands take businesses online, social media management and marketing strategies and campaigns need to be more dynamic and competitive than ever. On top of that, social media platforms roll out brand-new features every year or month even.
And with rollout after rollout, comes the need to update social media strategy. Online trends saw many developments in social media with Clubhouse shaking up its bigger competitors in the space.
On the other hand, the second quarter also saw an equal, if not greater, sharing of exciting updates. In this quarter, Apple dropped a security update with iOS14 that would mess up the data tracking.
Now, because of these sudden updates, it is imperative that you junk outdated strategies. You also should not be playing catch-up with new trends and tools at the last minute.
Digital requires you to be agile and always prepared to update your social media marketing efforts two or even three steps ahead of the competition to stay on top of the online marketing landscape.
Apart from the usual blogs about social media marketing, here is a social media strategy guide for 2022.
Boosting your social media strategies for 2022
From the key trends down to the tools and steps, you need to take, gear up for social media marketing in 2022 with the help of the list below.
1. New Social Media Features
- Facebook’s Shop Ads. A new feature that pushes targeted ads to audiences who are most likely to make a purchase from a brand. Shop Ads bases its targeting on the already established shopping behavior of customers.
- Augmented Reality (AR) dynamic ads. Even without a physical store, you can provide customers the ability to “try out” products virtually. This feature should be most taken advantage of by beauty companies whose customers often have to test colors and shades prior to purchasing.
- Audio feature for Reels. This allows users to search for videos by song. Through this feature, users can type in a song title in the search bar, and the platform will pull up a 30-second sequence of all Reels that used the specific song searched for. Also, the feature lets you save trending musical hits for brand-new content.
- New display ads for Instagram Shopping. Display ads are in the form of a single picture or an image carousel, and users only have to click on the ads to read and learn more about the products.
TikTok
- Review event details for LIVE events and promotional features. Check all details before publishing a live event to all your viewers. Once the event details are ready, you can promote a brand’s event through in-app messages and a video with a live countdown sticker.
- Live Q&As. TikTok audiences can ask questions during live streams. Check out questions about products on a separate panel, and viewers can also use various TikTok Q&A tools that will showcase all the questions and answers to everyone.
- Moderator feature. Moderate a live event or assign moderators for a live stream before it starts. Moderators have access to features that will mute, block, and filter spam or abusive comments from users so that viewers only see relevant content.
- Refreshed branding. Features changes for in-app fonts, colors, and images. The platform uses the font style Chirp, and the app colors are high contrast and have a lighter blue color. For the images, they now have full displays and they might even remove rounded borders on the uploaded photos in the future. Marketers like you should be on the lookout for these visual updates, as they may signal more ways for you to make your content stand out.
- Paid Boost. Allows users to promote posts, even more, especially the ones that are already receiving lots of engagement from audiences.
- Event Ads. Promote Livestream events through Custom Streaming, and find out the total engagement impact of your events through Event Analytics. LinkedIn’s Event Ads help make event promotions using even highlights such as the registration link, date, and time of the events. Stream events using Custom Streaming, where you can start live streams via Zoom, OBs, WebEx, and Microsoft Teams.
- Event Analytics tool. Helps check out the reach, engagements, and types of brands and businesses that your event attendees are affiliated with.
Aside from these new platform trends that you can use in your social media strategy, let’s zoom in as well on the iOS update we mentioned earlier. Specifically, the iOS14 security update strengthened Apple’s efforts to bolster user privacy.
2. Apple’s App Tracking Transparency Framework in a nutshell
As part of the updates for iOS 14.5, the App Tracking Transparency framework was introduced. Considered a huge step for user privacy, the feature lets app creators request permission from users before their apps can track data from their devices.
Why it matters and how you can manage
Data tracking helps display targeted third-party ads using the device location, email lists, and other personal data that you can get from users who access your app. With data tracking, reach audiences better with the analytics that your app provides. But now that users have the chance to deny app tracking permissions, you may have to shell out more money to gain information for targeted ads.
The best way to avoid having users click on the “Deny” button is to ensure customer privacy.
Here are steps on how to protect customer data privacy while making sure that your social marketing efforts do not go to waste.
- Provide a purpose string in your app’s system. This is part of the App Tracking Transparency framework, which helps explain why you are tracking certain information from your user. In this way, users will understand how you are using the information and therefore, increase your chances of allowing data tracking permissions.
- Strengthen your app’s data protection and security. You can easily lose customer trust if a phone’s security software tags your apps as “harmful” or even alerts them that your phone has viruses. Keep apps updated with good security safeguards, and do not be afraid to invest money for it since it will help your business in the long run.
- Educate yourself about customer data privacy protection. Hackers get faster and smarter, so keep up with them. Learn about data security laws and new trends on data protection. Also, partner with a premium mobile app development company that advocates for data privacy as well.
Social media marketing tools you should have in 2022
Having social marketing tools takes you one step above competitors. They can help you strategize, research, and schedule posts. Plus, they engage hundreds or even thousands of audiences that you have. In this list, try the best tools for your social media strategy.
Buzzsumo
Buzzsumo provides helpful insights that you can use to make high-performing content, evaluate their performance, and contact the best influencers to promote your content.
Quuu
Quuu lets you directly connect to popular social media platforms, and you can easily choose categories that matter for each platform.
Canva
Create beautiful visuals for all your content to make creative ideas come to life through images, videos, presentations, and more. The tool also lets you accomplish creative collaborative work, and has sharing, printing, and scheduling features as well.
When it comes to visuals, having a great tool like Canva is not enough. You must combine its use with the best practices for visual content in social media.
Buffer
Do more than just planning and publishing your brand’s content. Have access to insightful social marketing analytics and great customer engagement tools. This tool lets you pick the relevant comments through helpful labels, which could easily help you improve or maintain your brand’s services.
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a social media campaign tool that does it all. In your Hootsuite dashboard, you can plan, schedule, and research more quality content for your social media platforms. In addition, it offers courses and certifications to get you ahead as a social media marketer.
Sprout Social
Sprout Social has engagement, publishing and scheduling, and analytics tools. On top of that, it has insight tools that lets you easily check out the trends across social media platforms.
Bitly
With Bitly, shorten links and make them more credible. Integrate Bitly with any social media marketing tool so it is less of a hassle. Plus, Bitly’s custom links are encrypted with HTTPs which ensures customer data privacy.
Facebook Audience insights
Facebook Audience Insights help you learn more about targeted customers. With Audience Insights, you gain access to anonymous information about your customers’ demographics, location, language, purchases activity, and even page likes.
Brandwatch Analytics
Go for an intelligence platform to make content that resonates well with customers. Brandwatch detects all the leading consumer trends and also addresses threats to your brand.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is not just for websites, but also for social media platforms. This tool provides complete information about your platforms and your users, and you can also integrate it with other marketing tools that will help you earn the results that you want.
There are also many premium social media tools available for your use. Make sure to do your research, so you can choose the best ones that fit your requirements and capabilities.
An Optimized Social Media Strategy Process
Crafting a social media campaign is not an easy task and you may only think of all the things that could go wrong. But with a smooth social marketing process, you can be assured that you have less to worry about. Build social platforms for success using this strategy process, inspired by Propelrr’s scalable digital marketing framework.
Conduct a social media audit
To know how you can improve your social media campaign, first look at existing data. Check out how customers interact with content. Find out which content stands out the most, and which platforms are getting the most interactions. In this way, you will know which aspects of your campaign need improvement.
Establish your social media goals
Without a clear set of goals, you cannot be able to craft the best social media strategy. Your goals serve as the blueprint of your campaign efforts. But you have to remember that your social marketing goals should also align with your brand’s business objectives. Make goals that do not just reach your customers, but also raise brand awareness.
Set your benchmarks
Benchmarking is a good method to evaluate which social marketing efforts need improvement. With benchmarking, make an objective evaluation of your marketing activities and track its progress. Have a look at activities’ effects on your customer’s behavior and use that information to identify which activities need to be removed or changed for the better.
Do market research
Research is critical in any digital marketing campaign. If you want your social media strategy to work, do not forget to do your research. Recognize trends for a brand’s products and services, and how customers view the brand. Check out competitors and the edge of your brand against them.
Conduct social listening
If you have a social media platform, your users are bound to post negative and positive comments. Use the comments to figure out which aspects of your social media campaign actually work. Avail of social listening services as well to help you keep track of how other people across blogs, forums, and other online communities view your brand.
Audit your competitors
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Your competitors have rich information on what social media strategies work or not. Use their social media strategy in comparison to your own marketing strategies.
Craft your brand’s social media persona
There are lots of brands out there that stand out because of their online presence. Hence is why a brand persona is crucial because it instantly helps a brand stand out and resonate with an audience. Target customers’ demographics, pain points, and motivation in making your social media persona.
Identify tactical approaches
Make specific tactics to meet social media goals. For example, use a brand persona to connect with the target audience and use it as a basis for market research.
Determine your content buckets
Content buckets or categories can be a brand’s treasure trove for achieving brand recognition. Identify content buckets that establish a connection with a target market. Also, make it a part of a social media strategy checklist to carefully plot content buckets.
Craft the themes for your content
As a brand, you would want to stand out but still maintain your business goals and values through your content. Do this by carefully planning content themes in your social marketing calendar. This will allow you to craft unique, compelling, and consistent content for your brand.
Create mood boards
Using themes, create mood boards for content. Mood boards foster creative inspiration among content creators. Also, mood boards are good visual previews for comparing color schemes, images, and the overall feel of your social media content.
Measure and track your social media performance
Successfully trying a social media strategy is not the end of campaign efforts. Go back to research. Evaluate a social media strategy’s performance and use it as a future reference for new marketing strategies.
Key takeaways
Social media strategies can and should change frequently. Do not fall in love with a process so much that you do not risk switching things up until it is too late. Updates on digital platforms happen instantly, so make sure to always be flexible and adaptable.
Ultimately, in this new age of digital marketing, you can always bank on success so long as you bear in mind these key things:
- A dynamic digital marketer = a great social media campaign. Social media continues to roll out features and having a great social media strategy that lessens the chance of failure means needing to be willing to adjust and keep up with the trends as well. Be on the lookout for great features that can highlight your brand, even more, is a good way to keep your customers engaged.
- Prioritize user privacy without compromising your marketing efforts. Ensuring customer privacy is important because it gains a customer’s trust. No one wants to be involved in a brand that can easily be hacked. Protect customer privacy but at the same time, find ways that will not negatively affect your marketing campaigns.
- The best way to create a social media strategy that works? Start early. Before you know it, it will be 2023. Do not wait for December to plan what new techniques or tools you’ll be using for next year. Keep customers excited for new content on your social media platforms even before the year ends.
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