From the growth of short-form video content to the boom of live social media experiences, here’s what we’re forecasting in 2022.

#1: The Popularity of Short Video Content Will Grow

We’ve written a lot of content about video marketing in 2021, but we’ve only scratched the surface of how effective short video content (under a minute long) can be.

With the emergence and success of platforms like TikTok, it’s clear audiences—especially younger ones—prefer to consume bite-sized content. As a result, we believe we’ll see a higher percentage of the video marketing budget invested in short-form videos in 2022.

#2: Content Will Still Be King

This one might be hard to measure, but we truly believe that the importance of content will remain as strong as ever in 2022. It always seems like the focus on content is going to wane, as if some new and shiny tactic is going to pop up to replace it. But the fact is, content is everything. All the new strategies and tactics that pop up are just different forms of content (TikTok and short video content, for example).

The demand for digestible content keeps growing. In a world increasingly digitized by the prolonged pandemic and the emergence of the metaverse, the content will remain king for marketers and businesses in 2022.

#3: The Concept of the “Metaverse” Will Go Mainstream

Speaking of the metaverse…

You can poke fun at Facebook’s rebrand to “Meta” all you want, but there’s no doubt it’s a harbinger of things to come. The concept of a metaverse—essentially a digital universe—burst onto the scene in 2021 (thanks in part to the explosion of NFTs) and will soon make its entrance to the business world.

Generally, the earliest adopters of new (and sometimes confusing) technology are the biggest winners, and we believe that will be true of businesses and companies who find a way to make the metaverse concept work for them in 2022.

#4: Experiences Might Be Part of Marketing Strategies Again

We’re going out on a limb here because this one is entirely dependent on how the global pandemic plays out in 2022, but we’re going to take the optimistic approach. We hope the world is a better and more open place in 2022, and in that scenario, experiential marketing might just make a big comeback.

There’s no denying that it’s fun to immerse yourself in a product, service or brand before you buy it. And from a marketing perspective, it’s easy to see why giving potential customers an experience to remember helps a brand’s cause when it comes to that potential customer’s purchase decision.

If the pandemic allows it, experiential marketing will be back with a bang.

#5: Live Social Media Content Will Boom

Going “live” on social media became a thing in 2021, and we believe it will gain an increased share within businesses marketing strategies in the coming year. Twitter Spaces (audio chatrooms on Twitter) gained huge popularity in niche markets, but we should see these types of ad hoc conversations go more mainstream for businesses in 2022.

The use cases are obvious. Imagine Google releases a new algorithm update that has hurt a large percentage of site rankings. If you’re an SEO expert and quickly start a Twitter Space to discuss the changes with anybody who wants to listen to you speak, that could lend immensely authoritative value to you and/or your company’s brand. We’ll see this happen more frequently and on a broader scale in 2022.