News & Insights

2022 Marketing Trends

Who said 2021 could go by that quick? Each year seems like it goes by faster than the last. What’s even crazier is how the anticipated 2021 marketing trends turned out to be so different from what actually occurred; some being down-right opposite. The trends below are things we have been observing, and those that are expected to become a dominant force in 2022.

Long Form Content Makes a Comeback

Not that long ago everyone in marketing was talking about short and easily digestible content. As quickly as it came, it’s gone. Or at least on its way out.

If we take a trip down memory lane, we know that we’ve seen a lot of social media apps develop short video content. Instagram had its reels, YouTube created YouTube Shorts, and TikTok became king of the short clips. However, we’ve started to see a shift back to longer-form content. TikTok, for example, originally started by allowing only 15-second clips, extended it to 60 seconds, and just recently all the way to 3 minutes. That might now seem like it’s not that long, but in the world of social media, it’s an eternity.

This trend toward longer content is a double-edged sword. On one hand, having the ability to say, write or create more information in your content helps relieve the time constraints previously imposed. However, we’ve created an entire system to support our shorter-form content. We’ll now have to break our learned habit, at least until the next new trend.

Social Media and Ecommerce

Social media is the new shopping mall. We’ve talk extensively about this before in one of our blogs. This is not a new trend, but more of a slow burn we’re now seeing turn into a wildfire. 2022 is the year that these social media companies fully integrate ecommerce into their platforms. Once again, TikTok, the hot new app, is making big moves in this area. It recently partnered with Shopify to start TikTok Shopping. This will give online merchants back-end tools to manage their accounts as a seller on TikTok.

TikTok also aims to be a fully integrated experience. This means TikTok will handle both shipping, fulfillment and point-of-purchase. The company will connect with online merchants to promote their products on their platform. TikTok is making a big push in the ecommerce industry. If successful, you’ll see other top platforms rush to catch up.

Data Privacy

Consumers wanting more privacy may be one of the larger reasons social media companies are entering into the retail space. For a long time, online platforms have collected and sold your data as their main source of revenue. Now that’s all changing.

This is also a trend we’ve seen coming. We wrote a blog detailing the exact problem now happening. Data privacy is becoming an increasingly important issue. People are looking for companies to take responsibility for their actions. Users are fed up with data leaks and abuse of their information. In the future, we’ll see companies pivot their revenue models out of necessity. People aren’t willing to share their private information anymore, and companies such as Apple are tweaking their devices to protect them. It’s “innovate or die” in 2022 for tech giants. We’ll see who heeds the warnings.