The New Year is here, which means it’s time to share my social media marketing strategies for 2022.

What am I adding to my social media marketing strategies, what am I abandoning, and what I am carrying in from 2021 and improving on?

2021 was an odd year for me on social media because I was not consistent until November…basically the end of the year. I was posting often at the beginning of the summer, but I was struggling with my mental health and balancing everything I had taken on and my social media suffered because of that. I am okay with that though because your mental well-being is the most important thing! Remember that.

Now, I feel a lot better and am ready to continue being consistent without getting burnt out.

While I wasn’t consistent, I did have strategies I was following.

Here are my social media strategies from 2021.

The main social media platform that I focused on in 2021 was Instagram. I did put time into Pinterest as well, but there have been a lot of changes with Pinterest and its algorithm, and due to that, I’ve shifted away from Pinterest.

I love to create content and get creative with post designs, so 2021 was the year I tested my creativity in how share social media marketing tips. At that time, I offered generic social media marketing tips that were geared at social media managers, like me, and then towards the end of the year, I niched down to what I offer down: book marketing and social media marketing tips for authors.

I posted 3x per week, one of those posts being a reel or video and the others being static or carousel posts, and posted to Stories at least 2x per day every weekday.

I didn’t find my footing in video content until a couple weeks before December, but I will talk about video content later in this blog post.

At least once a week, I spent time following new people who fit with my audience at the time, and I set aside 10-15 minutes before I posted to engage with the people I was following and new followers.

I had a very simple social media strategy for Instagram 2021, which can be broken down into this:

• Post consistently 3x a week
• Post 2x a day to Stories every week day
• Engage with people every day for at least 15 minutes
• Follow 10-15 new people every week
• Research 10 main hashtags to use on every post, and then tailor the rest to the post (use a mix of popular and niche tags)

Let’s take a look at my Instagram numbers:

Once again, I was consistent for maybe 3-4 months of the entire year, so my goal and expectation is that I will wildly surpass my Instagram numbers from last year. I didn’t keep great tabs on my Instagram in 2021 because until recently, Instagram metrics didn’t let you go back too far. However, I do know that I gained roughly 400 followers in 2021. Currently, I have 1,174 followers. I can breakdown the last few months though, thanks to Instagram’s new Insights tab:

Now that we’ve taken a look over my Instagram stats and tactics for 2021, or the last half of 2021, let’s dive right into my social media strategies for 2022.

My Social Media Marketing Strategies for 2022.

The platforms I am going to focus on this year are Instagram, TikTok, and my blogs, and I am going to prioritize creating video content.

2022 is going to be the year of building authentic relationships with your peers and audience, which influences every single one of my social media strategies. Let’s take a look at them now for each individual platform.

Instagram

• Post 4x per week
• Share more personal talking clips on Stories & post 3x a day
• Collab with industry experts on posts
• Create 75% video content
• Spend 30 minutes engaging every day
• Follow 20 new accounts every week
• Repurpose blog posts into 3-5 static/carousel posts & then those into Reels
• Repurpose Reels on TikTok (and vice versa)
• Stay 2 weeks ahead on content creation
• Stick to my content pillars: Inspiration, Education, Business & Books
• Write long-form captions and always include a CTA

TikTok

• Post 1-2x a day every day
• Post 3x/a day for 1 month every 3 months
• Engage for 15 minutes every day
• Follow 15 new accounts every week
• Stay 1 week ahead on content creation
• Stick to my content pillars: Inspiration, Education, Business & Book-Related Humour
• Repurpose blog posts into 3-5 TikToks
• Repurpose TikToks on Reels (and vice versa)
• Post to Stories 2x per day
• Keep TikTok fun and don’t stress too much about content creation for it
• Spend Mondays finding new trending sounds and songs to use

Blogging

• Post 2x a month on each blog
• Utilize Headline Analyzer for each blog post title
• Research trending keywords online before creating blog posts every Monday
• Include 10-15 graphics per blog post
• Use blog posts as a way to position myself as an expert in the industry
• Write blog posts that are at least 1,200 words

As you can see, a lot of my strategies revolve around relationship building and creating content frequently and consistently.

What am I adding?

• A larger focus on building authentic relationships by collaborating with fellow industry experts and engaging daily with my audience.
• Focusing on creating quality, long-form content that is engaging and directs my audience towards a specific action.
• Prioritizing video content on both platforms.
• Repurposing content so I save time and energy.

What am I abandoning?

I’m not really abandoning any strategies, however, I am abandoning the following practices I’ve been doing on social media for years due to platform updates and changes:

• Creating only static posts.
• Mindlessly scrolling and engaging, but rather engaging with intention.
• Limiting my screentime on social media and becoming more intentional with it.

What am I improving on?

• The time I spend engaging with industry experts and my audience.
• My place in the book marketing and social media management community (I want to be more active and communicate with more industry experts).
• Posting more video content rather than just static and carousel posts.
• Showing up more personally and authentically on Stories.
• Staying ahead of content creation so I don’t feel overwhelmed.
• Reflecting more frequently on my social media stats.

Despite my lacklustre year on social media in 2021, I am excited and hopeful for 2022 because I have been taking courses and thinking about where I want my social media platforms to be in the next year. All of this has helped me develop the strategies you see above.

A social media strategy can’t be copied and pasted for everyone. It needs to be personalized and reflect the account owner’s goals for their brand and platform. That’s why this post is talking about my strategy. Not yours. Yours will most likely look a lot different from mine.

If you want to grow brand awareness, you need to show up more frequently and engage with your audience.

If you want to sell more of your products, you need to create content surrounding your products and increase your brand awareness. You need to also learn what tactics sell to your audience. Do they respond to inbound or outbound marketing?

Hopefully, looking at my strategy will help you understand what you need to do in 2022.

If you are an author who needs some help managing your social media accounts and developing a strategy that will help you achieve your goals or help market an upcoming book release, click one of the links below to browse my services!

Best of luck in 2022 🙂