2022 First Quarter Marketing Trends

March 25, 2022

Our first quarter marketing trend report has us reviewing the latest in marketing to determine what is most impactful and valuable when promoting a brand in 2022 – helping us navigate what areas of content should be utilized to better serve your business. These top trends include Video Marketing, Micro-Influencers, Social Commerce and Interactive Content.

 

Video Marketing 

Video content marketing has been a trend for years and continues to perform over other mediums. Research shows people prefer visual content to written text and are more likely to engage with video material. This is because our brains process visuals 60,000 times faster than written text. Using visual content can help increase engagement and brand awareness. In fact, visual content is 85% more likely to have individuals engage with your brand or purchase your product or service. That being said, the best way to optimize video content is to keep it short and to the point. Longer videos run the risk of not getting the main point across before the audience clicks off the video. 

 

Micro-influencers 

Influencer marketing has been a key trend in recent years and continues to be a valuable tactic to reach your audience genuinely. Moving into 2022, we can see influencer budgets growing and the need to stretch those budgets further. The use of Micro/nano influencers (25,000 followers and fewer) allows brands to connect with multiple audiences at a lower cost per influencer. Growing in popularity, smaller influencers have 7% higher engagement as opposed to larger influencers, which allows brands to work with multiple influencers who are more deeply connected to their audience. 

 

Social Commerce 

Social Commerce is the process of selling products directly through social media platforms. TikTok is the most popular app to see “shoppable posts” and has risen in popularity since 2021. These types of posts can be very useful to brands as it doesn’t require users to go to the website to make a purchase – they can simply click on the post to begin shopping. As well, brands are able to utilize social commerce in various ways – through their own accounts, as a social advertisement or in collaboration with influencers. The best platforms for social commerce are TikTok and Instagram as they have made the UX seamless for the consumer. 

 

Interactive Content 

The use of interactive content will be a key resource in 2022 to keep audiences engaged with brands while gaining customer insight. This can be in the form of online surveys, polls and even shoppable posts. This form of marketing will help brands stand out against others by producing engaging content. With the surge in digital marketing, all brands are posting consistently to reach their audience. Interactive content helps engage the audience and create brand awareness beyond just seeing a post. This will not only help brands differentiate themselves against competitors but create conversational marketing while gaining information on their customers. Interactive content aids in conversational marketing as it can be used to ask customers questions and begin online conversations around your posts and advertisements. This helps develop brand awareness as it allows personal connections and humanizes a brand, making the customer feel heard. 

 

That’s it for our first-quarter report. Come back next quarter to learn the hot new marketing trends developing in 2022.