3 Content Marketing Trends to Watch in 2022
2022 is here, and it wants us to take notice.
Why? Because more so than ever before, people are spending time online. In fact, Safar Digital (2022) is now reporting that more than 86.5% of Australians are online with the average daily usage time per person now exceeding more than 3 hours.
The crux of it? That ever since the beginning of the pandemic, Australian internet usage has been on a sharp rise. What’s more, it’s doing so in a business landscape that’s completely ruled by the way businesses choose to interact with customers online.
So – how can you make the most of your captive audience?
The 2022 content marketing trends we’re seeing emerge aren’t entirely new. In fact, they taking existing approaches and revamp them for the contemporary, entirely digital setting.
Are you ready to make the most of your content in 2022 and beyond? Let’s check them out!here wan
Trend 1: Better Content Experience Through Planning
Our first 2022 content marketing trend seems obvious. I mean, everyone wants a better user experience when they’re online, right? That’s a given.
It is, but when you consider the ever-changing digital landscape of COVID-era content, it becomes clear that effective content is content that adapts to the needs and realities of the time.
A huge number of these changes are subtle, while others encompass entirely new means of achieving incredible results and satisfying the target audience.
In 2022, successful content strategies will likely take on a more cohesive structure, with each individual element fulfilling an overarching goal. These goals might change quarterly, monthly or even fortnightly depending on the changing needs and interests of your audience.
What’s important is that you keep agile. Be sure to regularly revisit your goals in terms of exciting user experience, covering questions such as:
- What problems does your audience have, currently?
- What can you offer to fix these?
- How can you communicate this via effective use of digital content?
By doing so, you’ll focus – instead of firming on your own goals – on the goals and experience of your audience. By spending more time in that stage of planning, you’ll then have the opportunity to reflect, revise, and hire your team of content creators (we’re here for you when you need it!).
Trend 2: Augmented Reality
Of all the 2022 content trends, we reckon this is the one to watch.
Augmented Reality – or VR as it’s known – is something that’s been increasingly on content makers’ radars. When you think of AR, you probably think of the headsets (see the hero image on this page). However, you might also think of games like Pokemon Go, or any other video-based platform in which real-life footage is overlaid by digital images.
In a sense, AR is exactly that: an environment in which objects that reside in the real world are enhanced by computer-generated graphics and/or information.
Creating new and exciting experiences when it comes to content is what gets brands noticed. AR helps you do that by constantly shifting technologies to align with real-time user experience.
But how are brands using AR video and animation? Here are some examples:
- Real Estate companies using AR to showcase homes to remote buyers
- Designers allowing clients to immerse themselves in new products and services even before they’ve launched
- Arts companies utilising AR to add new, exciting digital dimensions to their concert offerings
Trend 3: Empathetic Content Marketing
Our final 2022 content marketing trend revolves around something that seems incredibly obvious (until it’s not): humanising your content and creating it from a perspective of empathy.
Recent world events have shifted video and animated content production into the realm of empathy. While your business’ previous content strategies may have erred on the side of sales, we’re now seeing a general shift to branded content that tells a (human) story rather than pushing for the hard sell.
Some great examples of empathy-filled content include the classic example of Dove’s Real Beauty Sketches below, a video that pre-empted the huge shift in this direction that we now see in 2022.
So – what is it that’s going to get you ahead of the content curve in 2022?
When it comes to 2022 content marketing trends for video and animated content, our nationwide team at Pickle Pictures is here to help you bring out the best in your business.