Social media platforms to watch out for in 2022
The number of social media users in the UK increased by 2.3million and the role of social platforms in our lives has shifted fundamentally through the pandemic.
Social media has been an important comms channel for many years, but it is beginning to take centre stage for fundraising and service delivery, too.
Trends to look out for include the rise of live and on demand content, social fundraising, social commerce and bigger roles for audio and messaging in digital strategy.
What’s new on the social platforms in 2022
THE CLASSICS
Twitter is used by 25% of the UK population and continues to be a place where charities can connect with the journalists who hang out there and can help cut through the daily news cycle.
Facebook is used daily by 44% of the UK population. During COVID-19, Facebook’s charitable giving tools and groups have supported a significant shift to digital for individual giving and virtual events activity.
Nick Burne, CEO of Give Panel – a tool that supports Facebook fundraising – recently posted an image of 13 organisations raising £500,000 or £1,000,000 from a single Facebook fundraising event.
Social fundraising has started to emerge as part of the answer to the age-old question, ‘how do we attract younger donors?’ 31% of adults aged 18-24 have taken part in a social media fundraiser since the pandemic (compared to 18% of the general population).
2022 could be an explosive year for Facebook fundraising.
Instagram also offers donors a number of ways to give, including via increasingly popular live streams. At the start of the pandemic, Instagram live usage jumped 70%. While this has slowed as lockdowns decrease, the way we consume social content has changed. Expect more successful Instagram live fundraisers in 2022.
The other huge opportunity on Instagram in 2022 is social commerce. Almost a quarter of UK shoppers (23%) now use social media to discover new products. Instagram’s recent shop updates have made it a frontrunner in the race to dominate social commerce – as many as 70% of consumers head to Instagram to discover a product.
EMERGING PLATFORMS
The other potential frontrunner for social commerce platform of the year in 2022 is Pinterest. The platform has launched a number of new features including an expanded partnership with the e-commerce tool Shopify, extended advertising options such as retargeting, and in-depth reporting on view vs click metrics.
TikTok shouldn’t really be in the emerging section – it’s arrived.
TikTok themselves say “everyone is here: Gen X, Gen Z, Millennials and Baby Boomers”. But when you break it down, 26% of TikTok users in the UK are aged between 18 and 24 years, making them the largest user demographic.
The three reasons to be on TikTok in 2022 are to target Gen Z audiences, to upskill your content creators on the popular short video format that has spilled over to Instagram, and to be ready for the possible extension of the TikTok philanthropy programme.
Being on TikTok is future proofing your work.
Despite being the second most popular social media network, YouTube is often a sideshow when it should be one of the classics.
On-demand websites are fast replacing traditional broadcasting and with the ability to fundraise on the platform being tested in some regions, 2022 could see YouTube go large for UK charities.
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PLATFORMS TO WATCH
In 2021 Clubhouse was big news for a while. The initial hype over the platform has passed, but they continue to roll out new features such as in-app messaging service, backchannel.
The rise of Clubhouse and copycat features like Twitter’s Spaces demonstrated that having an audio strategy could be important in 2022.
Discord started as a chat platform for gamers to talk to each other when playing in different locations. 70% of users are now from the non-gaming community and the app has doubled in size to more than 120 million users during the pandemic.
Caffeine is a social broadcasting platform and has piqued the interest of celebs who want to broadcast directly to their audiences. With virtual events likely to be here to stay in 2022, this is one to watch.
Messaging is likely to continue to be big in 2022 and is an opportunity for charities. Services like Telegram and Signal offer broadcasting options and with increasingly sophisticated bots around to help manage and personalise messaging interactions, even text messaging is making a comeback!
Being curious about social trends and the platforms driving them is vital during a time of rapid change. But when it comes to deciding which platforms your charity should be on in 2022, the answer will always be – where your audiences are.
