2022 was an exciting year for social media. If I were to summarize it instinctively, I’d say I remember Instagram updates galore, TikTok’s rise to fame, and Elon Musk. No need for any extra words to understand that. As reliable as my selective memory is, I felt marketers needed some actual social media trends that happened in 2022.
So I present to you the ’22 Social Media Recap — a report containing no less than 53 stats, social media trends, and insights collected from experts. We’ve partnered up with our cool friends from Wishpond to make it happen.
Contents
We examined brands’ social media activity in 2022: the amount of content published, scheduling trends, the type of content, platform specifics, and so much more.
We’ve made extra sure to explore the behind-the-scenes of social media marketing. So we rolled our sleeves, took a peek under the hood, and analyzed reviewing processes, team sizes, and how they vary depending on the brand’s social media following.
Oh, all the data was collected from Planable users and their use of social media through the platform. A total of over 3.2 million posts created by over 42K users were analyzed.
37% of created posts were for Facebook
It might not be something marketers brag about, but Facebook is still dominating the world of social media marketing. That is only true in terms of quantity, though. We’ll probably see a different story by the end of 2023 as the other platforms are catching up fast. Instagram posts grew by 92% in 2022, Twitter by 128%, and Google Business Profile by 225%.
We create on Monday & publish on Friday
As it turns out, social media managers create most posts on Monday and Tuesday and schedule them for Wednesday or Friday. It makes sense. But it’s also beautiful to see in a chart.
URL Thumbnail & Videos are still on the rise
Single-image posts were the most frequent type of content published in 2022. And by frequent we mean 57% frequent. Their popularity is undeniable.
When comparing 2022 with 2021, we spotted some new trends. Both video posts and URL thumbnail posts increased by 2.4 percentage points. Most of us probably expected to see the rise of video. But URL thumbnail? That was a surprise.
Speaking of media, here are some insights on the restaurant industry from Joseph Hall, Brand Manager | The Deck Group
“In the restaurant industry, pictures of staff, rather than pictures of food, seemed to outperform everything else. Before, we posted generic pictures of food and the restaurant’s interior.
We didn’t see it garner engagement or reactions.
Since we started featuring staff members, it has attracted the local community’s attention again.”
The average post was 351 characters long
LinkedIn is the place where we choose to share the most words. Interesting to see that the number of characters is so similar on Facebook and Instagram. I assume the content is quite different.
79% of posts contained at least one emoji
We love emojis. Almost 80% of our posts contain at least one emoji and the most popular one?
“👉”
As in:
Could that be an effect of the authenticity movement? Brands have been advised to leave professionalism aside to make room for raw, authentic moments. Here are Sophie Miller’s thoughts on 2022:
The biggest social media lesson I’ve learned personally and seen across platforms in 2022 is that authenticity (excuse the buzzword!) is absolute key.
Not only are pretty much all trend forecasts pointing to the future of successful social media marketing being all about personality, vulnerability, and relatability – but as Gen Z grow up and continue to dominate the internet, keeping it real is something they really value and look for in who they choose to support and raise to the top.
Being authentic online can be tricky because you don’t want it to be forced. The best way I make sure my content and Pretty Little Marketer’s content align authentically with me is to ask myself, “does this sound like me?”. Would my friends and family recognize I wrote this? Is this bringing my offline-self online? Am I representing my values and who I am as a person?
If the answers are yes – great! If not, how can you inject a little more you into it? Is it your favorite emojis? Perhaps some of your everyday slang or a cheeky dash of your witty banter to wrap up?
It’s all about just being you!
Sophie Miller, Founder | Pretty Little Marketer
Almost 14 people involved in managing pages with >500K fans
I know a lot of social media marketers wear a lot of hats and juggle an excessive amount of social media pages. If you’re trying to make a case for hiring more social media marketers, use this. It should help you get that new colleague.
Fun tip: we created this Job Title Quiz for social media managers to have a good laugh.
Marketers prefer Wednesday and Thursday for TikTok
If skeptical before, this year, marketers have started to bring their content and brands on TikTok. An exciting trend is that Wednesday and Thursday are the most popular days to publish on TikTok.
If you’re still adjusting, here is some cool advice from Hannah Copeland, Senior Social Media Specialist @ Envato.
To be a successful brand on TikTok, you have to let your social media team go rogue!
TikTok users speak in a unique language made up of trends and inside jokes, which means that company TikTok accounts need to push brand boundaries in order to entertain and engage this particular platform’s audience.
Envato’s TikTok had 5,500 followers when I started managing the account in June of 2022. With a refreshed strategy and content plan, the account now stands at 392,000 followers just 6 months later – that’s an almost 7000% uplift in followers. The only way this growth was able to happen was by being empowered and trusted by my leaders to make niche content that didn’t require approvals.
Be original, be adventurous, and explain the trend once it’s already live.
Some last thoughts
2022 was a journey for sure. If you haven’t downloaded the full report yet, here are two more excellent pieces of advice.
The first comes from Fab Giovanetti, Headteacher and founder @ Alt Marketing School. Real-time, contextual marketing is as successful as ever:
This is a small example, but it still makes me laugh. It was a recent post we shared adapting White Lotus stills to social media manager frustrations and adding pop culture to the mix.
View this post on Instagram
Being on top of trending movies, tv-series and pop culture can truly help shake things up.
I think what really worked for us was to spot a trend very early on and then think about how we could adapt that based on some of the frustrations and pains of social media managers and marketers.
We had 41 saves and 33 shares from this, which is insane for the kind of post it is!
Matt Sarson, CMO @ Visitor Analytics, told us about how participating and covering events was a successful tactic for them:
We attended and shared thoughts on various talks at Metadata’s Demand 22 event. The result was many interactions with Metadata & their speakers, and lots of new connections with potential partners.
I also posted a brief write-up of Ryan Neu’s, CEO Vendr, excellent presentation at Web Summit 22 (Lisbon). I attended the talk and shared my interpretation on social media. This post received 6,997 impressions, 103 likes, and was shared 5 times (mainly by members of the Vendr team).
Make sure you read the entire report to get all the social media trends in 2022👇
Miruna Dragomir, CMO @Planable, ex Social Media Comms Manager @Oracle & ex Marketing Coordinator @Uber. 9 years of experience in social media and marketing. Built Planable’s brand and reputation and helped grow it from 50 customers to over 6.5K. Social media fanatic, tech geek & a sucker for learning.
