People are harder to impress than they were six months ago. They’ve seen the formats. They know the hooks. The content that’s stopping the scroll right now is doing it by being slightly more honest than expected.

Here’s what that looks like in practice. 

Trend One – “Plan A, B, C”

A slideshow or short video that lays out different futures, options, or versions of a decision side by side. The appeal is that it mirrors how people actually think – simultaneously, in parallel, with a lot of “but what if” running in the background. The format lets them see that externalised without it being a 400-word caption.

It travels well across industries. The structure holds. Only the subject matter changes.

How to use it

Small businesses: Three versions of someone’s problem – ignoring it, having a go themselves, bringing in someone who does this for a living. The third option should be obvious from the framing alone.

Service providers: The actual decision your client is sitting with right now. Plan A is what they’re currently doing. Plan C is what they’re paying you for. Plan B is the thing they tell themselves is fine but isn’t.

Coaches and consultants: Surface the paths they’re genuinely weighing. The one they’re afraid to say out loud. The safe one. The one they actually want. Name all three and watch the comments section do the rest.

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Trend Two – “My Camera Roll Is Getting Full”

A format built around the visual evidence of growth – first client, first sale, the team photo from when it was just you and someone you met at a networking event, the screenshot you really should have deleted. It works because the arc is emotional without being manufactured. The images carry it.

Worth knowing: there are two versions. The nostalgic one earns warmth. The evidence version earns trust. Different registers, different results. Decide which one you’re going for before you start.

How to use it

Consultancies and service businesses: Pull the actual working assets – the messy first draft, the brief that changed everything, the version that became the thing the client now shows off. The polished case study is on your website. This is different.

Photographers and creative businesses: The format was essentially designed for you. The only mistake is overthinking it.

B2B and professional services: Go with the evidence version. First project, most recent project. First testimonial, most recent one. The camera roll as a proof stack rather than a nostalgia trip.

@propertywithdeanaEvery payout is a reminder of the risks taken, the sacrifices made, and the days I showed up when I didn’t feel like it. Keep going. The results always look impossible until they’re your reality🙏🏽♬ original sound – pr.khriz✝︎🇵🇷

Trend Three – “Lens Wipe”

A transition where a hand, object, or movement passes across the lens and cuts to a new scene. Before and after. The problem and the solved version of it. The viewer gets the reveal without needing sound, captions, or a voiceover explaining what just happened.

It works because the anticipation is built into the mechanics. The wipe creates the pause. The cut pays it off. And because it doesn’t need audio, it keeps performing when the phone is face-down on a desk.

How to use it

Property and interiors: Before the renovation, after the renovation. That’s it. The format does everything else.

Health, beauty, and wellness: The transition is the argument. Let the visual make it.

Professional services: Less obvious, which is exactly the point. What does a client’s situation look like before you get involved? What does it look like six weeks later? Strategy, operations, design – the contrast exists. The trick is deciding how to film it.

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Trend Four – “We Can Stay Here…”

A two-part comparison. Here is where we are. Here is where we could be instead. The gap between them is where the content lives. It performs best when option A is recognisable enough to be slightly uncomfortable, and option B is specific enough to be genuinely desirable rather than vaguely aspirational.

The format is often used as inspiration content. That’s the wrong application. The businesses getting traction with it are using it to name a real decision, not decorate one.

How to use it

Small and growing businesses: Option A is where your client is right now – doing the thing that’s technically working but not really going anywhere. Option B is concrete and specific. The gap sells itself. Don’t explain it.

Travel and hospitality: Genuinely effortless. Do it before everyone else in your sector does.

Financial advisers and business consultants: What does a year of the current approach actually look like versus a year of a different one? Concrete figures if you have them. Vague optimism without them is the thing to avoid.

@karolinevollstad or we can go up 🌟🌟🌟 #studytok #studymotivation #studymindset #wecangoup #academicvalidation ♬ original sound – MCedits49

Trend Five – “Basic Need”

The mechanic is simple: something that is objectively a preference gets presented as a non-negotiable survival requirement. Completely straight face throughout. It lands because the exaggeration is accurate – most people have things they feel this way about, they’ve just been too sensible to say so.

The businesses that use this well are the ones whose services sit right at the line between “technically optional” and “genuinely makes the week function.” Which is most of them.

How to use it

Fitness coaches and wellness businesses: The thing that makes Tuesday tolerable. Keep it deadpan. The funnier version is always the understated one.

Service businesses of almost any kind: Whatever it is you do that people didn’t know they needed until they had it – and then couldn’t imagine doing without. That thing. Delivered with the same energy as food, water, shelter.

Accountants and operations consultants: Handing the thing over to someone who will actually handle it. The relief of that. Said once, plainly, and left to land.

@thestyleclub1My basic needs 🧘🏽‍♀️🥲♬ original sound – The Style Club

Trend Six – “Stretched Word Slides”

A carousel where a word is revealed across multiple slides – split, stretched, or partially hidden until the final frame. The viewer swipes to complete it. That swipe is the mechanic. Every swipe signals to the algorithm that the post is holding attention, which is why accounts with modest followings are seeing this format perform well above expectation.

The reveal has to be earned. A word that could have been said in the caption fails. The word that names the thing your audience wanted named – that’s the one.

How to use it

Service businesses: The outcome, not the service. Freedom. Clarity. Growth. The service is how they get there. The reveal is what they’re actually after.

Coaches and consultants: Specificity wins here. A generic aspiration is forgettable. The word that makes someone stop and think “how did they know that’s what I’ve been trying to say” – that’s the save, the share, the DM.

Anyone building a list: A reveal that lands gets screenshotted. Think about what’s attached to it and where it leads.

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Trend Seven – “Let’s Not Talk About It”

Two people agree to let something go. One of them adds one more thing. The format works because everyone has been both people in that conversation, usually in the same week.

For businesses, the use case is the opinion you’ve been hedging. The industry observation everyone’s noticed and nobody’s said plainly. The client pattern that comes up in every project debrief without ever making it into a proposal. The format is permission to say it.

How to use it

Service providers and consultants: The thing that makes a project harder than it needs to be. Said with genuine warmth rather than passive aggression – the audience will clock the difference immediately.

Founders: The decision you technically made three months ago and are still relitigating at 11pm. The thing you told your team was settled.

Anyone with a clear point of view on their industry: This is the format for it. The more specific the observation, the better it performs.

@bellavarelis Coffee & yap @Josh Carroll ♬ take my breath away – favsoundds

The formats doing well this month all have one thing in common: they require the viewer to do something. Swipe to finish the word. Watch for the reveal. Stay to find out which option wins. That small moment of investment is what the algorithm treats as a signal the post is worth showing to more people.

None of them require a studio, a script, or a full production day. They require having something worth saying and a format that lets the audience feel like they found it themselves.

Pick the one that fits the post you were already planning. Apply the format. That decision – right format, content you already have – is usually the only difference between a post that performs and one that doesn’t.

Most product launches on LinkedIn follow the same pattern. Big post on the day. A flurry of likes from people who already know you. Then nothing. LinkedIn has now published a framework explaining why that approach misses most of the people who could buy from you – and what to do instead.

Why a Single Launch Post Misses Most of Your Buyers

B2B purchasing decisions take time. A long time. The average buying journey spans 211 days and involves ten or more people – not just the person you are connected to on LinkedIn, but the colleagues they need to bring with them before anything gets signed.

LinkedIn calls the ones you cannot see “hidden buyers.” These are the people in legal, finance, and procurement who influence the final decision but never engage with your content. Your launch post reaches people already paying attention. The hidden buyers were forming their shortlist long before you made the announcement.

This is the part that matters: research cited in the framework shows 86% of B2B buyers start with a shortlist of names they already trust, and 81% buy from that list. If your name is not on it before the evaluation starts, the launch post does not change that.

What LinkedIn’s Three-Phase B2B Launch Framework Is

LinkedIn’s framework – published by its product marketing lead Robert Yanik in May 2026 – breaks a product launch into three phases: Ramp, Launch, and Nurture.

Ramp happens before any announcement. The job is getting your name known to the people who will eventually evaluate you – weeks before they are in evaluation mode. Video content is recommended here, generating three times more engagement than static posts and making viewers 1.6 times more likely to take action.

Launch is the announcement itself. The framework recommends concentrating reach at this moment using multiple voices – not just the company page, but the founder, the team, and any relevant collaborators posting in their own name. Employee networks reach 12 times further than company pages. One voice makes a corporate announcement. Several credible voices make it feel like market consensus.

Nurture continues after the launch, keeping the conversation going with people who already showed interest. Staying visible at this stage lifts overall campaign performance by 30%, according to LinkedIn’s own data.

Why LinkedIn Is Saying This Now

LinkedIn is the largest single paid advertising channel for B2B businesses. More budget is flowing to the platform than at any previous point. A framework that recommends three sustained phases of activity is also a framework that recommends three sustained phases of spend.

There is a second factor worth naming. Research shows 94% of buying groups now use AI tools to research suppliers before speaking to anyone in sales. AI does not form opinions from scratch – it surfaces existing information. A business with consistent, helpful content on LinkedIn shows up in that research. A business that posts occasionally and goes quiet does not.

LinkedIn is making a case for its platform and a case for AI visibility at the same time. Both happen to be true.

What This Means for Small Businesses on LinkedIn

The paid formats in the framework – reserved placements, premium video ads – are built for enterprise budgets. The thinking behind the framework is not.

Ramp, at small business scale, means posting about the problem your product or service solves before you announce anything. Four to six weeks before launch. In your own voice. Video where you can manage it. The goal is the same as the expensive version: make your name familiar to the right people before they start comparing options.

The multi-voice approach is available to any business at no cost. The founder posting, a team member posting, a collaborator posting – each in their own words, about the same upcoming launch. That is exactly what the framework recommends for enterprise campaigns, without the ad spend. Coordination costs nothing.

Post-launch, keep going. Most businesses go quiet once the announcement is out. The people evaluating you have not finished their process. Staying visible for the weeks after a launch is where most small businesses leave results on the table.

Should You Rethink How You Launch on LinkedIn?

Move the start date. That is the most useful thing to take from this framework. Whatever you are planning to announce, the LinkedIn activity that will do the most work starts four to six weeks before it goes live – not on the day.

Everything else follows from that: what to post, who should post it, and how to stay in the conversation after the announcement. That is a conversation worth having before your next launch.

LinkedIn has spent years building AI tools into every corner of its platform. Now it wants to penalise you for using them.

What Has LinkedIn Just Changed?

LinkedIn’s Global Editorial VP Laura Lorenzetti published a post this week setting out exactly what the platform is doing about AI-generated content. Three things are changing.

Reach restrictions on posts that appear AI-generated and lack any real perspective. If a post reads like it was assembled rather than written, LinkedIn will limit how far it travels. Your existing followers may still see it. Everyone else will not.

New detection systems targeting automated comments and AI-generated responses posted at scale. This includes replies that simply restate the original post without adding anything – the LinkedIn equivalent of nodding along in a meeting you stopped paying attention to twenty minutes ago.

Additional filters so users can choose to see content only from verified profiles. LinkedIn has over 100 million verified members, and this filter now applies across profile views, job applications, and feed content. As AI bot profiles have multiplied, verification has quietly shifted from a credibility signal to a visibility one.

The detection system is not being trialled. In initial testing, LinkedIn is correctly identifying generic content 94% of the time. Members are already seeing fewer AI-generated posts in their feeds, and LinkedIn has said it expects that to continue.

Why Is LinkedIn Doing This?

LinkedIn has spent two years embedding AI tools into every part of the platform – profile creation, post generation, job applications, candidate vetting. There is a “Rewrite with AI” button sitting directly in the post composer. The platform put it there.

Now it is limiting the reach of content produced by doing exactly that.

This is not a contradiction LinkedIn has missed. It is a tension every major platform is navigating right now. AI tools drive product engagement and subscription revenue. AI slop destroys feed quality and drives away the professional audience that makes LinkedIn worth advertising on. LinkedIn is trying to have both, which means encouraging AI use on one hand and policing the results on the other.

The business case for the crackdown is simple. LinkedIn sells premium subscriptions and advertising on the promise of a high-value professional audience. If the feed fills with content nobody wrote, that promise collapses. Engagement falls, premium members leave, advertisers follow. This is not about authenticity. It is about protecting a revenue model.

What Does It Mean for Your Content?

If you have been using AI to generate posts in bulk or automate comments, those posts are already being deprioritised. A 94% detection rate means the algorithm has very likely already found yours.

The businesses that benefit from this shift are the ones who were approaching it sensibly from the start. Using AI to structure an argument you have already formed, sharpen a draft you have already written, or tidy up language before you post – that is a legitimate use of the tool and it will not get you penalised. Using AI to generate your thought leadership from scratch and posting it without adding anything of your own is now an efficient way to reach almost nobody.

Automated engagement tools are a specific target. LinkedIn has trained its systems to identify comments posted at scale with little human involvement, and responses that restate the original post without contributing anything new. If a tool you are paying for does either of those things, stop using it for this purpose. The reach penalty is already running.

The practical adjustment for small businesses is not complicated. Fewer posts, more substance. One post a week built around a genuine opinion, a real client situation, or something you have actually learned will travel further than five AI-assembled takes on industry news. LinkedIn has built its algorithm to make that true, and is now making it more true with every update.

Is Your Profile Ready for How LinkedIn Works Now?

Get verified if you are not already, and treat it as a visibility decision rather than a vanity one. As the verified filter becomes standard, an unverified profile is increasingly a reach problem.

Then look at your profile as a piece of content in its own right. LinkedIn is now the number one domain cited in ChatGPT responses to professional queries. When someone asks an AI tool who to hire for marketing, or which agency handles social media for small businesses, the AI is reading LinkedIn profiles to form its answer. A profile written in jargon, left half-finished, or last updated when a different prime minister was in office is not doing that job.

The businesses showing up well in AI-assisted search are the ones that have always done the basics well. Clear positioning, consistent posting, content that reflects something real. There is no new trick here. LinkedIn has just raised the cost of ignoring the old ones.

Should You Act Now or Sit Tight?

Act now. The system is live, the reach restrictions are running, and waiting to see how this develops is itself a decision – one that costs you ground while you make it.

If LinkedIn is part of how you find and win business, the era of low-effort content has closed. Four posts a month with something real in them will outperform twenty-four that do not. LinkedIn has just made that arithmetic very hard to argue with.

Most small businesses treat paid advertising like a tap. Turn it on when you need sales. Turn it off when the campaign ends. Repeat until confused about why it never quite delivers.

That’s not a strategy. That’s hope with a budget.

What Is Always-On Advertising?

Always-on advertising means keeping a baseline of paid activity running continuously, rather than launching campaigns in bursts and going dark in between.

It doesn’t mean spending a fortune every month. It means maintaining enough presence that your ad platforms are constantly learning, your audiences are being built, and your brand is showing up while your competitors are on a self-imposed break.

The opposite – the burst model – looks efficient on paper. You spend when you need to, you stop when you don’t. In practice, every time you switch off and start again, you’re asking the algorithm to begin its learning process from scratch. You pay more to reach worse-matched audiences, your costs spike during the periods when you most need them not to, and you wonder why the campaign that worked six months ago isn’t working now.

It worked six months ago because it had six months of data. This one has a fortnight.

Why Ad Platforms Reward Consistency

Pinterest – which has 631 million monthly active users and processes 80 billion searches a month – published guidance this month making exactly this case. Brands running shopping campaigns for six months or more see around 33% higher return on ad spend than those running campaigns for fewer than three months. Campaigns using Performance+ catalogue tools deliver around 20% lower cost per action, partly because the system has had time to learn what works.

Pinterest’s motivation here is not entirely altruistic. More always-on spending means more revenue for Pinterest. But the underlying logic holds across every major ad platform – Meta, Google, LinkedIn, TikTok. The algorithm gets better the longer it runs. Your cost per result drops as the learning phase ends. The data you build during quieter periods becomes the engine for your peak performance.

Every platform is telling you the same thing. The ones that listen compete on performance. The ones that don’t compete on spend.

How to Split Your Paid Advertising Budget

You don’t need to pour everything into always-on activity. A sensible starting framework looks roughly like this:

Around 75% of your budget keeps evergreen campaigns running. These drive discovery and sales every day, covering your core products or services and staying live regardless of season.

Around 15% goes into audience growth – activity designed to bring new people into your ecosystem so that when you do push harder at key moments, you’re retargeting a warm audience rather than cold traffic.

The remaining 10% is your peak burst. Black Friday. Christmas. Your industry’s equivalent of January. That 10% does the heavy lifting it’s supposed to do because the other 90% has been working for months.

Ten percent on peak moments feels counterintuitive when you’re used to spending everything during peak moments. But peak performance isn’t built in peak season. It’s built in the 24 weeks before it.

Why Always-On Advertising Matters for Small Businesses

If you’re running campaigns around launches, promotions, or seasonal moments and switching off the rest of the time, you’re making every campaign harder and more expensive than it needs to be.

The fix is not complicated. Identify your core offer – the thing that’s relevant to your audience year-round. Build a modest always-on campaign around it. Keep the budget low if you need to. The point is continuity, not scale. Then layer your promotional or seasonal activity on top of that foundation, rather than expecting it to do all the work from a standing start.

Should You Start an Always-On Campaign Now?

Yes. If you’re planning a push for Q4 – Christmas, Black Friday, whatever your peak looks like – the learning phase you start today is the performance you get in November. A campaign that launches in October is still finding its feet when the expensive weeks arrive.

You don’t need a big budget to begin. You need a live campaign, some creative to test, and enough patience to let the data build. The brands that win peak season started in May.

Stop Googling ‘How to Create Lead Magnets’ – Here’s What Actually Works

Picture this: It’s 9:47 PM on a Tuesday. You’re hunched over your laptop, squinting at a half-finished Canva design that’s supposed to be your “game-changing lead magnet.” You’ve been at this for three hours. Your coffee’s gone cold. Your partner’s given you that look twice already.

Sound familiar? You’re not alone. Most business owners have a graveyard of abandoned lead magnets lurking in their Downloads folder – PDF tombstones marking the spot where good intentions met the reality of actually having to create something people want to download.

Here’s the thing nobody tells you: the lead magnet itself isn’t the hard part. It’s everything else – the strategy, the automation, the testing, the endless tweaking that comes after. This post will show you what actually converts, which tools won’t make you want to throw your laptop out the window, and why 24 out of every 25 business owners eventually decide life’s too short for DIY marketing.

The Lead Magnet Graveyard: Why Most Fail Before They Start

Let’s have a moment of honesty, shall we? That “Ultimate Guide to [Insert Your Industry Here]” you’ve been planning? The one that’s been sitting in your to-do list for approximately 247 days? It’s probably not going to set the world on fire.

Not because you’re not brilliant at what you do (you absolutely are), but because you’re guessing at what people want instead of actually asking them. It’s like planning a dinner party menu based on what you reckon your guests might fancy, rather than checking if anyone’s vegetarian first.

Here’s what the smart ones do:

They start with a simple question: “What’s the one thing you wish someone would just sort for you?” Then they build everything around those actual responses. Revolutionary concept, we know.

The survey-first approach works because:

• You get real language from real customers (not marketing-speak you invented at 2 AM)
• You can spot patterns across multiple responses
• You build your email list while doing market research
• You stop playing guessing games with your audience’s brain

One client tried this approach and discovered their audience couldn’t care less about “productivity hacks” – they wanted “ways to get stuff done without feeling like a hamster on a wheel.” That one insight changed everything and tripled their sign-ups in a month.

The Tools That Won’t Drive You Mental (Plus Reality Checks)

If you’re determined to go down the DIY rabbit hole (and we respect your optimism), here are the tools that might save your sanity:

For surveys: Think SurveyMonkey’s cooler, more organised sibling. Drag-and-drop forms that don’t look like they were designed in 1999. Connects to everything else without requiring a computer science degree. Have a Formaloo free trial on us.

For content: ChatGPT Feed it your survey data and watch it spot patterns you’d miss after staring at responses for 24 hours straight. It’ll write your lead magnet content, email sequences, and probably your shopping list if you ask nicely.

For design: Canva Templates for everything from restaurant guides to rocket science checklists (probably). Change your brand colours across 47 pages with one click. Makes you feel like a design wizard even if you think Comic Sans is “quite nice actually.”

The reality check nobody mentions: Even with these magical tools, you’re looking at a solid weekend to create something decent. Then there’s the automation setup, email sequences, testing different versions, analysing results…

We’re not trying to scare you off (okay, maybe a little), but that “quick Saturday morning project” has a habit of turning into a month-long odyssey through the land of forgotten password resets and “why isn’t this working?” Google searches.

The Automation That Stops You Becoming a Digital Admin Assistant

Here’s where things get properly exciting – or properly overwhelming, depending on your relationship with technology.

The dream: Someone downloads your lead magnet, gets automatically added to your email list, receives a perfectly crafted welcome sequence, and you never have to manually touch a spreadsheet again.

The reality: Setting this up requires connecting approximately 47 different pieces of software, each with their own login credentials you’ll definitely forget.

The basic automation chain:

1. Download happens → Details hit Google Sheets
2. Google Sheets → Email platform gets updated
3. Email platform → Welcome sequence begins
4. You → Get on with actual business stuff

Tools that make this possible: Zapier or Pabbly Connect act as digital matchmakers, introducing your various software tools and helping them play nicely together.

What this looks like when it works: We at 24 fingers HQ automate over 1,800 tasks in a month. Every lead magnet download triggers a cascade of perfectly timed emails, data logging, and follow-ups, which reduced 24 hours a week on admin to about 24 minutes.

The testing advantage: You can automatically test different subject lines, landing pages, and email sequences. One of our recent tests showed a 70% improvement just by changing “tips to reduce stress” to “for people who hate the hustle.” Boom.

But here’s the thing – and we’re being brutally honest here – setting this up properly takes time, patience, and the kind of technical troubleshooting that makes grown adults cry into their keyboards.

Your Lead Magnet Action Plan (Or Our Alternative Suggestion)

Right, decision time. You’ve read this far, which puts you in one of two camps:

Camp A: “I’m definitely doing this myself” Fair play. Here’s your roadmap:

• Week 1: Create survey, share everywhere, collect 20+ responses
• Week 2: Analyse with ChatGPT, create lead magnet content
• Week 3: Design in Canva, set up automation
• Week 4: Launch, test, optimise, question life choices

Camp B: “This sounds like work” You’re not wrong. Between strategy, creation, design, automation, testing, and optimisation, you’re looking at 24+ hours minimum. And that’s if everything works first time (spoiler: it won’t).

Quick wins if you’re going DIY:

• Add one question to existing forms about biggest challenges
• Set up a basic “thank you” email for current downloads
• Test two different headlines on your current opt-in

The plot twist: While you’re wrestling with Zapier at midnight, your competitors are focusing on what they do best – running their actual business. Just saying.

Your audience is already telling you what they want through comments, questions, and behaviours. A proper lead magnet just gives them a way to put their hand up and say “yes, help me with this exact thing.”

The businesses winning aren’t the ones with perfect lead magnets – they’re the ones who listen fast and respond faster.

Had Enough of DIY Marketing?

If you know what needs doing but can’t face another evening spent wrestling with Canva or trying to figure out email automation, we get it.

Book a complimentary Growth Strategy Session where we’ll audit what’s working (and what isn’t), identify the biggest opportunities to get you more leads, and what to do if you need an extra pair of hands.

Honest advice from our award-winning team on how to add extra digits to your bottom line (without you having to become a marketing expert).

We can hardly believe it’s time to look ahead to the social media trends of 2022 as 2021 draws to a close. It’s been a busy 12 months, from lockdowns at the start and Freedom Day in the middle, to Omicron at the end. 

During it all, countless small and medium-sized businesses hitched a ride on the e-commerce rocket, fuelled – of course – by social media. 

That trend, at least, doesn’t look set to change any time soon, as over 50% of customers in a recent survey said they wanted local businesses to use social media more, with 58% keen to hear about offers via their favourite platforms. 

That’s great news for business owners, but what else can we expect for the coming 12 months? Let’s take a look at what we think will be the social media trends for 2022… 

Social selling – what is it and does it work?

Social selling is a buzz phrase for good, old-fashioned customer service, and it’s all about building a relationship and trust with your customers. 

Social selling is a growth sector, particularly for businesses or entrepreneurs looking to elevate their brand presence, and Instagram is the social selling marketplace. 

If you’re planning to launch a new business in 2022, it’s crucial you connect your online store and your social media presence to create an unrivalled marketing tool. Talk to us about how to become a master social media marketer.  

Craft your content to entice and excite potential customers, then engage personally with them to create a rapport and watch those conversions skyrocket. 

Make it easy for customers to communicate online 

We’ve all lost minutes (in some cases hours) of our lives hanging around on customer service phone lines while trying not to listen to the worst muzak in the world. 

E-commerce has the potential to change all that. In 2022, consumers will be looking for direct, online communication methods for support and after-sales service. 

It’s up to you to make it as easy as possible for your clients to get in touch, whether via a WhatsApp number, sliding into your DMs on Twitter, or messaging you on Facebook. 

Ensure your customer experience is as stress-free as possible and, if it’s appropriate, don’t forget to add a dash of fun. 

TikTok: one of the biggest social media trends for 2022

In the past couple of years, we’ve watched TikTok blossom from a teenager’s toy to becoming a fully fledged business platform. It’s added profiles, ads and a creator marketplace. 

Search demand for TikTok grew by 173% in 2021, compared to 22% for Instagram Reels and a 33% slump for Stories. 

A recent survey found 24% of respondents thought TikTok was the most effective for reaching their business goals, a massive 700% increase on 2020 figures. If you don’t have a TikTok presence, make 2022 the year you get one. 

Short videos will be king in 2022

The king is dead, long live the king. If YouTube is the home of the longer-form video, 2022 will see the rise and rise of bite-sized video content popping up across a range of platforms. 

While ephemeral content – ahem – such as Twitter Fleets and LinkedIn Stories came and went in 2021, TikTok’s popularity fed consumer appetite for video snippets that were smart, eye-catching and informative. 

With almost 40% of businesses preferring short-form videos too, the stage is set for a boom in the ad form. Start brainstorming now for ideas or read on for more social media trends for 2022. 

Take social media trends for 2022 and make them yours 

Social media is awash with all kinds of content, and nothing makes us smile more than when we come across something really smart or original. 

That’s why, in 2022, keeping an eye on what’s trending on social media will be crucial for entrepreneurs and business owners, because they’re brilliant bandwagons to jump on. 

If a trend lighting up social media fits with your brand message, what better excuse to hop on and use it to amplify your business? It’s a fuss-free way to generate potentially viral content. 

Should I pay for social media ads?

It’s a very good question, and something we can help with if you’re not quite sure. Business-to-business (B2B) ads are a potential growth area for paid social media ads in 2022, and Facebook is still the daddy when it comes to getting the best return on investment. 

Partner up with an influencer in 2022

Relationships are the glue that binds society together and it’s no different in business. The pandemic years have demonstrated that the UK’s small and medium sized businesses are a resilient, innovative bunch, and even more so when we join forces. 

In 2022, that trend will expand as increasing numbers of businesses partner up with influencers to spread their brand message to the widest possible audience. 

For example, teaming up with a top TikTokker could open up a whole new customer base, or partnering with a local Instgrammer with a solid following could boost your brand no end. 

The creative and revenue possibilities are endless, and you don’t even have to pay for a Kardashian (thank goodness). 

So there you have it – our pick of the social media trends for 2022. As always, we’ll keep our fingers on all the platforms’ pulses. In the meantime, all that remains is for us to raise a glass and wish everyone a happy and prosperous New Year. 

We’re 24 fingers, a digital marketing agency and a proud member of the Brentwood Chamber of Commerce, Excel Business Networking Group, the Trusted Business Community, the Organisation for Responsible Businesses and the Rotary Club of Brentwood à Becket. We help companies who are all fingers and thumbs with their social media grow their business and brand. Book your free strategy call here.

You know the saying “always the bridesmaid, never the bride”? We wonder if Instagram feels a little like that at the moment. Just when it was enjoying a moment in the social media sun with the announcement of a slew of new features, including the ability to post from the desktop (HURRAH and we’ll get to that in a bit), along comes parent company Facebook to elbow it back into the shade. 

Congratulations – it’s a Meta! If you’ve no idea what we’re talking about, pull up a chair: Facebook ain’t Facebook any more – it’s rebranded to Meta, complete with a wibbly wobbly new logo that has no end and no beginning. 

Announcing @Meta — the Facebook company’s new name. Meta is helping to build the metaverse, a place where we’ll play and connect in 3D. Welcome to the next chapter of social connection. pic.twitter.com/ywSJPLsCoD

— Meta (@Meta) October 28, 2021

But don’t panic, the social media platform itself is still going to be called Facebook, but new corporate moniker Meta will be the stepping stone into a wider digital ecosphere. As Mark Zuckerberg explained in a founder’s letter: “The next platform will be even more immersive – an embodied internet where you’re in the experience, not just looking at it. 

“You’ll be able to do almost anything you can imagine – get together with friends and family, work, learn, play, shop, create – as well as completely new experiences that don’t really fit how we think about computers or phones today.”

According to Zuckerberg, we’re all going to be zooming about as holograms, from working in the office and ripping it up at a concert, to catching up with friends and family. “This will open up more opportunity no matter where you live,” he wrote. “You’ll be able to spend more time on what matters to you, cut down time in traffic, and reduce your carbon footprint.”

While we’ll have to wait and see what all of that really means for us ordinary mortals, let’s get back to Instagram. For years, many people have grumbled about only being able to access their Instagram feed but not post anything, and now the boffins have finally done something about it. 

The new capability is one of several goodies unveiled by the platform that have been created to boost creativity (and, no doubt give TikTok a run for its money). For example, Instagram has made it easier to co-author posts and Reels with other users under the Collab feature. 

There are also changes to the fundraiser prompts so you can launch one directly through Instagram and make it easier for people to donate. 

And there’s more. Reels is going to get some music features, such as Superbeat, which adds video effects based on a song beat, while 3D lyrics brings up the words in tune with the melody.

If you need a helping hand getting to grips with Instagram’s new features, get in touch and we’ll get you posting like a pro. 

We’re 24 fingers, a digital marketing agency and a proud member of the 42 Club, Brentwood Chamber of Commerce, Excel Business Networking Group, the Trusted Business Community, the Organisation for Responsible Businesses and the Rotary Club of Brentwood à Becket. We help companies who are all fingers and thumbs with their social media grow their business and brand. Book your free strategy call here.

“I would have gotten away with it, if it hadn’t been for those pesky kids”, said almost every Scooby Doo villain ever. Those clever boffins at Facebook might be muttering something similar into their chai lattes at the latest social media bombshell – they’re no longer the world’s number one downloaded app. 

According to 2020 data from analytics platform App Annie, that honour now belongs to Chinese upstart TikTok. It has one billion users worldwide, including more than 100 million in the United States alone. 

So, what is the secret behind TikTok’s sudden boom in popularity? Well, it has proved massively popular among younger users, with some truly eye-popping content doing the rounds. 

Like Facebook, it’s proved itself to be a relatively easy platform for businesses to post content and grow their brands among a receptive and fairly affluent audience using nifty engagement solutions and immersive formats. 

It’s also given even the oldest social media hands a chance to flex their creative muscles. Who knew razor-sharp editing could be so much fun? 

Add into the mix last month’s move allowing post videos up to three minutes in length, tripling the previous cap, and we reckon Facebook will have to do a bit of work to catch up – which means more goodies possibly coming our way. Naturally, when they drop, we’ll make sure you’re the first to know. 

We’re 24 fingers, a digital marketing agency and a proud member of the 42 Club, Brentwood Chamber of Commerce, Excel Business Networking Group, the Trusted Business Community, the Organisation for Responsible Businesses and the Rotary Club of Brentwood à Becket. We help companies who are all fingers and thumbs with their social media grow their business and brand. Book your free strategy call here.

Never let it be said we don’t appreciate the value of choice here at 24 fingers (just ask Emma about shoes) but – and we can barely believe we’re about to say this – there are times when having too many options is bad, especially when it comes to using social media platforms for marketing your brand.  

When it comes to advertising your business, it pays to be precise. There are lots of platforms that entrepreneurs can use to showcase their wares or services. However, like butter scraped over too much bread, trying to hit them all can be exhausting and do your bottom line no favours. Instead, try the following: 

Where are your people?

Any small business needs a marketing strategy and underpinning every single part of it is a deep knowledge of your customer. As well as their needs and pain points, you must also know which social media platform they spend their time on. 

If your market is Gen Z, then you should be hitting Instagram with both marketing barrels, because that’s where 73% of them hang out. On the other hand, 78% of baby boomers prefer Facebook. Target your marketing accordingly and you’ll save time, money and reap the sales rewards. 

How’s that content coming along then?

It’s all very well knowing where your ideal customers are if you don’t know what content they’re consuming. Do your younger audience members on Instagram want to wade through a blog post about the latest news in your sector, or will your older, Facebook-loving clients be keen on a funky video backed by a hard house soundtrack?

Alternatively, you can ask for feedback: 

• Look at your metrics to see who is consuming which content and on what platform
• Poll your customers and social media visitors to find out what they want to see/read
• Talk to your customers as they interact with you – direct questions work

Pick your platform carefully

So, you’ve established your ideal customer and found out what they want. Now all you have to do is match it to the appropriate platform – simples. 

One of the best starting points is a social media site you’re either familiar with or have had a positive experience with in the past. Use it as a test bed to try new ideas, then use your customer feedback to see how well this content performs on other outlets. 

A Facebook video could work well on YouTube and Instagram, for example, while a link to a blog post could engage on Linkedin and Twitter. Play around and see what happens. 

Act on your results

The great thing about social media is, even if you’re only operating on one or two platforms, they come with insightful analysis so you can see for yourself what’s happening with your content. 

Use those figures to more accurately target your audiences with content you know they’ll lap up and enjoy, and planning your next ad campaign will be a breeze, because you’ll know exactly where you need to be. 

If you’re still feeling more scattergun than surgical tool, drop us a line and we’ll help sharpen up that focus. 

We’re 24 fingers, a digital marketing agency and a proud member of the 42 Club, Brentwood Chamber of Commerce, Excel Business Networking Group, the Trusted Business Community, the Organisation for Responsible Businesses and the Rotary Club of Brentwood à Becket. We help companies who are all fingers and thumbs with their social media grow their business and brand. Book your free strategy call here.