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.

Can you imagine what life would be like if every acquaintance you’d ever made turned up at your front door, demanding you listen to the latest thing they had to say? Quite apart from the catastrophic impact it would have on our biscuit stash, it would be madness at 24 fingers’ towers. 

Yet that’s what happens on social media every single time you hop onto a platform. Your feed is inundated with stuff: everything from group discussions to new items – not to mention ads, ads, everywhere. 

But how much of it is actually relevant or of interest to viewers? You probably scroll past a reasonable chunk of posts – and the same is true for every other person on the platform, which means businesses have to work their socks off to be seen. 

Luckily, the clever chaps at Instagram are working on a solution, dubbed Favorites. 

This feature would allow you to ‘favourite’ (we’re really not sure it should be used as a verb, but there you go) up to 30 accounts, prioritising their posts above all others, lifting them from the swirling mass chucked up by Instagram’s algorithm. 

Facebook, which owns Instagram, has something similar called Close Friends, and both features could prove to be both interesting and handy for business owners looking to make sure their brand cuts through all that noise. 

It would help bring potential customers’ attention to products and services they’re interested in buying, and also make feeds clearer and easier to browse. 

Before we all get too excited and start looking for the Favourites label, Facebook said: “This feature is an internal prototype that’s still in development and not testing externally.” 

We’ve heard that one before, but we reckon if word about Favourites has leaked out, chances are it’s not that far from being tested, even on a small scale. 

As always, we’ll keep our finger firmly on the pulse of social media’s shenanigans, and when we hear more, you’ll be 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.

We love it when the social media giants play with their toys, and Facebook-owned Instagram is the latest platform to fiddle around with its features – so to speak. From 30th August, some users will no longer be able to use the swipe up call to action on Stories, because it’s being replaced with a Link Sticker. 

We know, we know, not every change is either welcome or required, but bear with us and we’ll talk you through what the changes could mean. 

First of all, not everyone had the swipe-up facility, it was only available to verified businesses and creators or those who met the required follower count limit (eg the much-hallowed 10,000). 

Second, we reckon the Link Sticker will give Stories creators more control. You can change the size and style and – most niftily – you can stick your Link Sticker anywhere you like in the Story. 

The goodies keep on coming too, because unlike with the swipe up system, the Link Sticker allows users to react and reply to posts that carry it, boosting your engagement with a click. 

The Link Stickers will join others for donations, music and polls that already exist on the Stories platform, but don’t worry if you don’t get access to them straight away. 

Instagram is, understandably, concerned that if it hands them out to the world and his wife, there’ll be someone who spoils it for everyone by using Link Stickers to spread misinformation and whatnot. Back of the class for that ‘orrible lot. 

If the platform does decide to go the whole hog and share them universally, it could be the first step toward creating even more access to link-sharing in Stories, and the business possibilities for that would be well… almost limitless. 

For now, we’ll keep an eye on Instagram and its Link Stickers, and let you know whether they boost traffic and engagement. 

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.

Audrey Hepburn once said: “As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands: one for helping yourself, the other for helping others”. We at 24 fingers towers agree, so you can imagine how thrilled we are that our Emma Goode has been appointed by Facebook as an Official Trainer for the UK’s #SheMeansBusiness campaign.

Supporting our team as well as our wide network of clients and colleagues is fundamental to who we are as a business and we grab every opportunity to extend that helping hand as far as possible. 

Facebook’s #SheMeansBusiness campaign, supported by Enterprise Nation, delivers social media training to female-led businesses to help them grow online. Since launching in 2016, it has trained one million women in 38 markets. 

It showcases established business leaders and up-and-coming female entrepreneurs telling their stories about building resilience both for yourself and your business during changing times. 

“I am excited to deliver a vibrant calendar of virtual training and events throughout the year and meet trailblazers who are pushing boundaries and redefining what’s possible for women in business,” Emma said.  

Check out the #SheMeansBusiness campaign page and we’ll keep you up to date with the latest updates.

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.

Blur vs Oasis. Microsoft vs Apple. Coke vs Pepsi. They are among some of the greatest rivalries the world has ever known. Now you can add Instagram Reels Insights vs TikTok. 

Trust the kids to show the old hands how to make the most of the rapidly evolving social media landscape. Instagram has been playing catch-up with its Chinese-owned rival for months, rolling out feature after feature to woo users and business owners. 

The Reels feature was great for in-app shopping, but when it came to breaking down who was doing what, where and when, Instagram users were left twiddling their thumbs and shuffling their feet, while TikTokers lapped up data about their types of traffic sources, performance by geographic location and videos’ average watch time. 

Now, the Facebook-owned site has enhanced its Reels tool with Insights, allowing users to access crucial information such as Accounts Reached, Saves and Shares for their Reels, as well as being able to share the number of Peak Concurrent Viewers watching their Live videos. 

Even better, in Instagram’s Account Insights section, there will be all kinds of goodies to analyse, including the kinds of accounts users are reaching, and which content formats produce the most engagement. 

The rivalry between the two platforms has been great for business users and the development of Instagram Reels Insights is no exception, but it won’t be the last. Expect more changes as TikTok announced it is set to partner with specific brands in a trial of in-app sales.

Will Instagram follow suit, or beat them to the punch? Stay tuned to our blog posts to find out. 

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.

There are some things that, no matter how hard you knock them down, they just keep coming back, again and again and again. Social media platform bebo is one. Sixteen years after it originally launched, it’s making a comeback in February, and this time it means business…

In case you have no clue what we’re on about, here’s a history lesson: Bebo was the brainchild of husband and wife Michael and Xochi Birch, who sprang it on an unsuspecting internet public in January 2005. The snappy little name was an acronym for “blog early, blog often” and it was soon a smash in the UK and Ireland.

As it reached around 80 million users in 2008, the Birch’s sold it to AOL for a cool $850 million (did they get it in tens and twenties, we wonder?) and scampered off into the sunset, a pair of happy bunnies.

Unfortunately, AOL’s timing was a bit rubbish, as their purchase coincided with the spectacular rise of a then-rather insignificant firm called Facebook… While the story of that platform is history, Bebo’s was still being written.

AOL flogged it to Criterion Capital Partners for a paltry $10 million, and in 2013, Bebo filed for bankruptcy. Cue the Birches, riding in like shining knights, snapped up their damsel-in-distress company for a single dollar (a bargain if ever we saw one) and launched it again under the snappy tagline: “Probably Not for Boring People”.

But, Bebo still couldn’t make the grade against the likes of Facebook and Twitter, so it turned to streaming software and then to esports tournaments, before being bought by Amazon’s Twitch in 2019 for $25 million and was switched off not long after.

But now it’s back in private beta and safely in the hands of the Birches – though if you do have an old account and you manage to get an invitation to take a snoop around, there’s no point looking for it, as everything’s been deleted.

Understandably, the online world was abuzz at the news, and it will be interesting to see how this version of Bebo fares in the growing social media pond that’s already packed some with big fish… We’ll keep an eye on it and let you 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.

“Thank God it’s Kerrrissssmaaaas” sang Freddie Mercury, and ho-ho-so say all of us! Yes, we can barely see our keyboards for the tinsel and we’re sweating like there’s no tomorrow in our festive jumpers but hey, after the wringer of a year that was 2020, we’re celebrating. HARD. 

But before the figgy pudding gets cold and Emma leads us all in a rendition of All I Want for Christmas (shove OVER Mariah), let’s take a moment to look back at the past 12 months and the changes for social media in 2020.

LinkedIn, often seen as the Scrooge of the social media world because it refuses to kick up its legs and show its undies, finally embraced the concept of polls. It clearly had to go and lie down for a bit, because it took months for the platform to unveil its next new feature, LinkedIn Stories.

A bit like your granddad trying to bust a move to Eminem after a really heavy Sunday dinner, LinkedIn’s version of everyone else’s here-today-gone-tomorrow videos aims to prove business owners are Real People too. We’ll have to wait and see if it goes all a bit TikTok… 

Facebook was the Bob Cratchit of 2020 (albeit a staggeringly wealthy and well-fed version) working its little socks off. First came Facebook Shops, which allows customised stores to be created on the platform, then it generously rolled out a feature enabling biz owners to create Instagram ads WITHOUT requiring a Facebook page. Why you wouldn’t want the latter is beyond us, but there you go. 

Facebook closed out 2020 by unveiling Vanish Mode, hopping on what must be a creaking bandwagon for video content that automatically deletes itself (also known as ephemeral, which is quite hard to say after four egg nogs). Talk about nicking LinkedIn’s thunder… 

But Facebook was also hard at work (in its fingerless gloves and luxuriously heated data centres) adding new features to the ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Future, better known as Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp. 

Instagram gained a new follower feature , a keyword search AND livestreaming capability while Facebook increasingly played matchmaker by pushing it and Messenger ever closer together… 

Not one to be left out, WhatsApp went from a place to chat, swap images and parents to become madly competitive, to another way for users to buy stuff, with an additional shopping function. 

TikTok, arguably the Mr Fezziwig of social media (also known as Fozzy Bear in the Muppet Christmas Carol, the BEST version of Dickens’ classic), also made a splash this year. Not only did the Chinese-owned platform survive the attention of US President Donald Trump by the skin of its teeth, it also proved to be fairly nifty for businesses. 

While TikTok could be a candidate for Tiny Tim, we bestow that honour on Twitter, which not only began slapping warnings all over Trump’s increasingly deranged posts after he lost to Joe Biden, it also introduced the world to Fleets. They’re another way to post short-form video content, and may well come in handy for venting over Christmas as they last just 24 hours. 

So that’s it – our review of 2020 in social media. All that remains is for all of us at 24 fingers to raise a VDC and wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Gor’ bless us every one!

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 and the Organisation for Responsible Businesses. If you’re feeling all fingers and thumbs with your online marketing, use our hands (and hearts and minds) to get extra digits on your bottom line. Book your free strategy call here.

It’s finally December, and after a 2020 that has put us all through the wringer, many people are decking their halls with boughs of holly and throwing tinsel around like there’s no tomorrow. 

Here at 24 fingers towers, we’re every bit as keen to get into the Christmas spirit, but before we can start necking egg nog and nicking mince pies (Ed’s note: no snogging under the mistletoe this year please), there’s just a little more work to be done, including speaking at this year’s Festive Freelance Fair, held by our friends at the Freelancer Club. 

That said, it hardly feels like work when it means we get to talk about the thing we love the most – social media – and help people to boot. 

The Freelancer Club’s virtual Festive Freelance Fair takes place on 15th December, and we’re delighted to say our Emma Goode will be among the industry leaders taking part, presenting The Top 10 Things Every Freelancer Should Do To Grow Their Social Media. 

“I can’t wait for this event,” said Emma. “I’m so excited to offer advice about getting the best out of social media to the freelance community. It’s the backbone of the UK economy and has been hard hit by Covid, but I’m sure we can help freelance businesses bounce back and be fighting fit like never before.”

“The Festive Freelance Fair is a much-needed celebration of all things freelance following a tremendously difficult year for so many self-employed and startups alike,” said founder Matt Dowling.  “We’re thrilled to provide such insightful speakers with a platform to inspire a broad range of freelancers and help facilitate connections on both sides. It may have been a rocky 2020 but we’re ending it on a high!”

Tickets for the Freelancer Festive Fair are free but limited for Freelancer Club’s followers, customers and members. Don’t miss out – register to join the event and listen to Emma’s presentation here.

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 and the Organisation for Responsible Businesses. If you’re feeling all fingers and thumbs with your online marketing, use our hands (and hearts and minds) to get extra digits on your bottom line. Book your free strategy call here.

Humans have become pretty good at making life easier for ourselves, going right back to the discovery of fire (🔥) to the digital age, in which machines cater to our (almost) every whim. 

We’re quite the amazing species, when you think about it. Yet astonishingly, it’s taken until now for Instagram to allow us to use keywords to search for stuff.

Previously, we had to blunder around using hashtags as a search method which, as anyone who has ever tried to find anything on Instagram can be like trying to do brain surgery while wearing boxing gloves, because the platform would only look for answers among a user’s name or bio. 

It was inefficient and frustrating. But hurrah! English-speaking people in the UK and Ireland can now use keywords to dig up content, even if it isn’t tagged with the keyword you’re using.  

It’s a smart move by Facebook, which owns Instagram, but if early tests are anything to go by, don’t start hanging out the flags just yet… 

It’s not immediately obvious how the Instagram keyword search identifies what a post is about, and some searches have yielded mixed results. A spokesperson said the tool assesses “a number of factors,” such as the “type of content, captions, when it was posted,” and uses machine learning to “find the highest quality content that’s relevant to you. 

The Instagram keyword search is “limited to general interest topics and keywords that are within Instagram’s community guidelines,” they added. 

So, you can use keywords to search Instagram posts, but for the moment it’s a very limited – and somewhat frustrating – exercise. We can tell you puppies, pasta and flowers work, but you’ll get nowhere with slightly more controversial keywords, such as vaccine or Trump. 

24 fingers crossed, it won’t be long before the boffins at Instagram work their magic and broaden it out a bit. 

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 and the Organisation for Responsible Businesses. If you’re feeling all fingers and thumbs with your online marketing, use our hands (and hearts and minds) to get extra digits on your bottom line. Book your free strategy call here.