Everything You Need to Know about Social Media in 2022: Part Two

Here at KPS3, we try not to take life too seriously. Sure, our clients, the work we produce for them, the joy we feel when we help a client realize one of their biggest goals—that’s serious business. But in life? We keep it honest. We actually have a Slack channel called “show and tell” where team members have the opportunity to have a moment, highlighting wins, losses, and learnings that could support the team as a whole.

Similarly, you can think of social media as an opportunity for your business to take the spotlight in this same way. Your audience is engaging with your content and offering standing ovations, chanting, “Encore!” and are there to send you virtual hugs and feedback. Social media is your moment. And you have the platform to make every moment yours.

If you ask any of us at KPS3 why we use different platforms for each client, we can tell you this: Specific social media platforms are dependent on who our client’s target audience is, what our client’s brand identity is, and what our overarching goal for the client is. If we see an opportunity that is unique to a client’s needs, then hell yeah, we're jumping on that bandwagon and sharing it to the channel, where it will thrive.

So, when do we use Pinterest and Facebook? Let’s get into it.

Pinterest

Not every client needs Pinterest. However, Pinterest is incredibly useful in driving traffic to your website, which builds brand awareness. Think of Pinterest like you would Google: a visual search engine. Yes, the Pinterest algorithm is highly complex, but Pinterest didn’t leave us in the dark. It has indicated that these ranking factors—domain quality, pinner quality, pin quality, and topic relevance—are incredibly vital when it comes to increasing your visibility on the app, allowing us the opportunity to optimize our content for each.

Here are some things to keep in mind:

Domain Quality
Pinterest determines the quality of your domain by the number of Pins that are driving viewers to your website and how many Pins are directly being made from your website by users.

Consider this when trying to boost your domain quality:

• Ensure your Pinterest is a business account.
• Claim your website on your Pinterest account. Fortunately, you can claim more than one website. This allows you the opportunity to see how much foot traffic is garnered from Pinterest to multiple websites.

Pinner Quality

This is how Pinterest determines your success as a user.

Consider this when trying to boost your Pinner quality:

• Consistently use the app to Pin original content and engage with others’ content.
• Pin high-quality content (see Pin quality for more information on this).
• Leverage your Pinner quality with new features.
• Look at your analytics and determine what Pins are performing and what Pins aren’t. Pivot in the direction that increases user engagement.

Pin Quality

This is how Pinterest determines the quality of your content.

Consider this when trying to boost your Pin quality:

• Use vertical, high-quality, high-resolution images.
• Use text overlay.
• Make your brand the focal point of all your content.
• Include your logo in each pin. Avoid the bottom right corner because that’s where product icons live.
• Include links to your website (when it’s appropriate and as often as you can).
• Use keywords in all of your captions, descriptions, and titles.

Topic Relevance
This is how relevant your content is to what people search for.

Consider this when trying to boost your topic relevance:

• Do a keyword search and use them in all of your captions, descriptions, and titles.
• Use Pinterest analytics to determine these keywords

Using these best practices in your social media strategy will increase your ranking on Pinterest. Because Pinterest doesn’t organize content chronologically, be strategic about what you post, how you describe it (aka, keywords!), and how your target audiences will engage with it.

Facebook

Yes, people still use Facebook. To be honest, it’s a great way of targeting specific audiences. More users on Facebook are leaning on video to engage with others. With this, it’s important to note what type of videos are performing well on Facebook:

1. Images account for 72.5% of Facebook content
2. Videos account for 16.5% of Facebook content.
3. Facebook Live accounts for 0.7% of Facebook content.
   1. It should be noted, however, that Facebook Live has the highest organic traffic rate out of all three.

Experiment with imagery, video, and Facebook Live. Determine which medium is suitable for your business and plan accordingly. To better prepare for 2022 on Facebook, introduce video content on your page and keep an eye out for potential customer service features.

As much as we’ve seen Facebook change over the years, we’ve seen its users change, too. Many people turn to Facebook as a customer service platform rather than calling businesses to report or fix a problem. You should consider a third-party social media management software to manage these responses in a timely manner.

With the recent creation of the Metaverse, we can expect to expand the way we communicate online. Predictions forecast artificial intelligence and the way we connect digitally to be endless.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn has proven to be a powerful platform for businesses to use when engaging with employees, potential partners, and other companies. Based on the 2021 happenings on LinkedIn, here are some things we can predict that will happen in 2022:

1. Improving the customer experience has been noted by LinkedIn as something they’d like to focus on in the next year. Keep in mind that additional features could allow more conversations between consumers and businesses. Aligning your brand values with those of your customers should be at the focal point of your key messaging. Use these new features to influence your strategic plan.
2. Artificial intelligence is here to stay. LinkedIn has referenced artificial intelligence as a goal they’d like to implement into their 2022 plan. Stay up-to-date with potential artificial intelligence features LinkedIn develops as we move into the new year.
3. Create content that performs well on LinkedIn. As we know, this site is an opportunity to build valuable B2B connections. More than 50% of all social traffic comes from LinkedIn. Here are some tips and tricks for content that performs best on LinkedIn.
   1. If you have a blog, use LinkedIn to maximize traffic to your website, include a descriptive caption that teases the reader.
   2. Engage with other businesses and share their content. Though LinkedIn can be a place to celebrate your accomplishments and celebrate others. Sharing others' content shows viewers that you don't use LinkedIn as your portfolio.
   3. Consider using video in your LinkedIn strategy to engage your audience better. More and more, social media audiences prefer intriguing visuals.

Creating a comprehensive social media plan for 2022 is vital. If you haven’t already created the accounts necessary for your business, now's the time. Make it a goal to build brand awareness, get to know our target audiences, and map out your next steps in the upcoming year. Familiarize yourself with your analytics and pivot in the direction that seems to be working best for you. Plan ahead, but also plan as you go. You got this.

Did you get ahead of yourself and miss Part One? No worries, you can check it out here!