6 major trends in social media and digital marketing in 2022!

The author of this article combines the current social media operation environment with relevant cases and data statistics to conduct a detailed analysis of the six major development trends of social media and digital marketing .

1. Intensifying competition

Across nearly all major social platforms, video is the top driver of online traffic.

— Adam Mosseri (Instagram executive)

The success of the video format is due to three main reasons:

1. Based on user participation data, algorithm technology optimizes video recommendations, making it easier for users to get a "sense of satisfaction".
2. Videos are more competitive in the attention economy: compared to static graphic information, users prefer sensory experiences with richer elements and more dynamic content.
3. For brands, video format has higher acceptance and inclusiveness. Reading text and graphic information requires users to have certain literacy skills, while audio and video are more easily adopted by users and have lower thresholds for use and creation.

According to Wordstream statistics, social video has a market share 1,200% higher than text and image information. "Video" is developing rapidly. Traditional media and technology companies are entering the video industry with the support of various cutting-edge technologies, and the competition in the field is fierce.

Take TikTok as an example. TikTok has accumulated more than 3 billion downloads and 1 billion monthly active users worldwide, and has penetrated into the daily lives of one-third of the world's social media users. This scale of user base is something that Facebook and Instagram took nearly 10 years to achieve.

Film and television giants with rich content IP resources have also become one of the main participants in the competition for video streaming . Following Warner HBO Max, Disney Disney+, and NBC Universal Peacock, Viacom CBS changed its name to Paramount Global and reshaped its streaming platform CBS All Access, naming it "Paramount+", providing a series of video programs such as TV series, movies, animation, and comedies. Paramount executives said they will leverage the company's global capital to lead Paramount+ to new heights in streaming media.

In addition, visual social platforms such as pictures and texts have successively entered the video industry to achieve platform transformation and upgrading. Take Instagram as an example. The social media that started out by sharing static pictures has now taken the lead in developing video functions and continuously optimizing the video creation technology of the Instagram Video module. For example, it combines IGTV and live streaming to create an uninterrupted video experience, in order to achieve a composite social software that is easier for users to reach and more entertaining.

As the number of videos watched by users on social media continues to rise, the existing video production and evaluation system is gradually being disintegrated, and new video forms that are followed by users are emerging: first, short videos have more competitive advantages . According to Colormatics data, 68% of social media users prefer to watch commercial videos that are less than 1 minute long.

It usually only takes a few seconds to win the user's attention, so how to split long content into short-term content and capture the user's increasingly scarce attention in a very short period of time is a difficult problem that creators, brands, etc. need to think about in the future. The good news is that social platforms such as TikTok and Instagram have made a lot of efforts in developing technology for producing short videos. Creators can use common tools such as music, filters, composition templates, labels, etc. to customize the creation of short videos.

Secondly, the "silent + subtitles" video viewing method has gradually become the mainstream. According to the MASSMEDIA report, about 85% of Facebook users choose to turn off the sound when watching videos. This is more convenient for users and will not disturb people around them, while also not affecting viewers' understanding of the content of the video.

2. In-depth integration between opinion leaders and brands

As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads across the globe, restrictions on social distance have caused mediated life, centered around social media, to become the main form of daily life. This has also made brands realize that digital marketing will become normalized, and social media has become the best choice for product promotion and production and sales. According to Influencer Marketing Hub, the global market size of opinion leaders was approximately US$13 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach US$84.89 billion in 2028.

In addition, brands have begun to establish closer, deeper and longer-term collaborations with opinion leaders. Compared with one-off cooperation, brands have begun to focus on the user cultivation value of opinion leaders . This change stems from the opinion leaders' deep understanding of their target users, which enables them to accurately capture the attention of target users and achieve precise brand delivery.

On the other hand, the role of opinion leaders is also changing. Many of them join brand companies after the cooperation, realizing deep bundling of value . For example, InStyle magazine hired Tefi, a popular comedian on social media, to run the magazine's TikTok account. The resulting composite role of “opinion leader-brand consultant” helps brands learn the marketing code of reaching users from opinion leaders and create more timely and effective social content. In the long run, this is indeed a forward-looking and in-depth cooperation model.

The strategy of “opinion leaders + social video + brand” has achieved great results. According to the MASSMEDIA report, 84% of consumers said they would choose whether to buy a product based on a brand’s promotional video.

3. The product landscape around the creator economy is expanding

Also affected by the epidemic, the creator economy has been developing rapidly since the beginning of the epidemic. According to data from The Influencer Marketing Factory, there are more than 50 million social media creators worldwide, and the existing creator economy market size has exceeded US$104.2 billion.

Creator economy refers to an economic model in which independent content creators publish content on social media and make profits from the content. Unlike the opinion leaders mentioned above, not all creators are influential. However, what they have in common with opinion leaders is that they are rooted among users and create attractive social content based on an understanding of user preferences.

Creators usually need to spend a lot of time on social media to capture hot spots, learn social language, cultivate personal style (for example, sense of humor is an important indicator), understand user portraits, etc., especially for accurate assessment of target users. Top creators in each niche field have often become experts in that field or community.

Collaborating with content creators, empowering social media in reverse, and building a public platform to connect creators and users have become the focus of various social media companies.

Social media platforms will give creators exposure, encourage the publication of multiple social content, and develop numerous commercial plug-ins to create a more convenient creative environment, helping creators to manage content and realize value. For example, Instagram developed Reels and Badges tools to help creators create more visually rich video content. In addition, social media platforms encourage collaboration among creators to achieve two-way traffic. For example, TikTok's Duet feature and Instagram's Collab feature developed last year both support collaborative creation by multiple creators.

4. Fighting for the C position requires a Generation Z perspective

As the first generation to use mobile devices, born between 1995 and 2009, mobile phones and other mobile devices have become the social and cultural genes that Generation Z users carry with them anytime and anywhere. According to a public report by Millennial Marketing (The Power of Gen Z Influence), 41% of the world's population is from the Generation Z group. In the United States alone, they generated $143 billion in consumption, and this figure will rise again after they enter the labor market.

Advertisements based on traditional media have difficulty attracting the attention of Generation Z. The social influence of a brand and the authenticity of its social content are particularly important to Generation Z. In addition, compared with lengthy texts, Generation Z prefers visual information and values ​​the originality and creativity of content.

When creating social content, brands now place "authenticity" on an equal footing with "entertainment." Targeting Generation Z has become a must for brands’ digital marketing. During the 2021 Met Gala dinner, Vogue invited the most outstanding young representatives of Generation Z to host the red carpet dinner, which received a warm response on the Internet.

5. Virtual shopping around “experience”

Social commerce is the perfect combination of business model and social media. It completely reshapes people's traditional shopping experience and converts social media users into online shopping consumers.

Taking Meta (Facebook) as an example, Meta continues to increase its investment in live e-commerce business on Facebook and Instagram platforms. TikTok also uses viral videos to continuously release short videos on the platform about product introductions, reviews, product inventory, etc.

According to Statista data, social shopping consumption generated $475 billion in taxes in the United States in 2020, and the tax revenue is expected to increase by 28.4% from 2021 to 2028.

Boosted by the wave of the metaverse, major platforms continue to work hard to stimulate social shopping, racking their brains to extend the time users stay on the platform and create a more realistic, immersive and lifelike virtual shopping experience.

Social media such as TikTok and Snapchat, as well as shopping platforms such as Farfetch, have all used VR and AR technology to create innovative online shopping experiences such as virtual showrooms, combination of virtual and real, and 3D surround .

Specifically, Farfetch has developed product 3D surround function and user voice control function, and users can use AR function to achieve virtual try-on . Prada uses camera-based body recognition technology and combines it with AR technology to help users achieve a more tailored fitting experience. Snapchat focuses on developing deep integration of API lenses and AR technology, and incorporating more social incentives (for example, connected lenses technology can help users interact). According to Maropost data, the AR and VR markets are expected to grow to US$209 billion by the end of 2022.

Especially in the beauty industry, virtual makeup trial technology has become mature. L'Oreal, Estee Lauder, Gucci, Sephora and others all provide online makeup trial services. For lip products, you can not only clearly browse the color number, but also identify the texture. Last February, Chanel launched the "LipScanner" application, which also added the function of identifying color numbers in real scenes.

6. “Anthropomorphism” has become an important strategic approach to brand IP creation

Clearly conveying the correct brand concept and establishing close relationships with consumers are the principles that brands need to adhere to in the social media era.

Especially when facing Generation Z, a consumer group that supports brands with social responsibility and integrity, some brands have begun to leverage the value of their senior brand leaders by giving them a certain amount of exposure on social media, shaping positive brand value and achieving brand extension.

In short, make consumers perceive the brand as a living, communicative, and trustworthy "person" rather than just a product.

Sweetgreen, Wendy's, and Duolingo are examples of successful companies in this regard. They use social media and the voices of internal executives to convey brand culture and corporate image, and design mascots to win the favor of consumers.

In addition, brand social media accounts establish transparent relationships with consumers and create a more authentic shopping environment by pinning valuable consumer reviews and designing question-and-answer modules.

Virtual human technology gives brands more vivid and specific personalized characteristics. It is not uncommon for brands to establish cooperation with virtual people.

For example, Calvin Klein’s marketing video “Get Real” created for virtual idol Lil Miquela and real-life Victoria’s Secret model Bella Hadid has accumulated more than 400,000 views. Another popular virtual idol, Imma, has also collaborated with the IKEA brand to record a virtual person's daily life.

It is not difficult for us to find that virtual people have great potential in helping to personalize brands. On the other hand, we also realize that the boundary between virtual and real is gradually blurring, and the future is still full of unlimited space for technological imagination and application exploration.

Author: He Yuting

Source public account: Dewai No. 5