#BizTrends2022: 5 powerful video trends = 5 big opportunities. Are you ready?

Here are our five trends to help you supercharge your digital marketing strategy in the new year. Each one is a powerful opportunity to build into campaigns and social strategies.

1. Short Form

This content type really took off in early 2020! Short form is iconically fast-paced, energetic, sometimes comedic and paired with trending music. Following its popularity on TikTok, platforms like Instagram and YouTube built out their own space for short form content called Reels and #Shorts. In 2021 Pinterest announced ‘Idea Pins’ globally and backed it up with a $20m creator campaign featuring Jennifer Lopez, Megan Thee Stallion and Storm Reid.

Dominating platforms continue to support creators for their dedication to creating original shorts with creator funding campaigns. Hubspot also called out short form as the second-highest ROI for B2C marketers in 2021!

With short form continuing to dominate into 2022, consider how you will build it into your social strategy. Think about how your planned TV ad could be spliced to become an effective and fun short.

2. Video as a purchase driver

Using video as a tool to persuade online purchases is not particularly new, however, there are some interesting trends happening within the space on a social media level. After multiple lockdowns throughout 2020-2021, South Africa saw an accelerated e-commerce adoption with more individuals becoming comfortable with online shopping across various device types.

A trend in video as a purchase driver is social selling. Instagram and Facebook shopping has been available for some time but are now backed by the option to tag your products in video content too. Brands and individual shops can now ‘embed’ their products in stylised or seemingly natural videos across social media and viewers can simply tap to add the products to cart.

In 2022 we will see more shopping via social platforms so brands can expect to see sales via social media. Consider adding your product videos to social as well as produce content featuring products in a natural way.

3. Monetisation while live

Instagram, Facebook and YouTube Live have also all been around for quite some time, however the nature of these real-time based events are changing! YouTube added some impressive monetisation options to Live including enabling ads (pre, mid, display and overlay) as well as ‘super chat’ and ‘super stickers.’ These functions are further rewarding creators to go live on the platform and also allowing their fans to ‘tip’ them via the various options available.

Instagram followed suit by introducing ‘Badges’ in live which is currently only available to US creators/business’ with over 10k followers.

With over 79% of social media users in 2021 voting that live video equated to the ‘most authentic interactions on social media’ it will definitely be a trending tool among businesses and creators alike. Brands are having a harder time than ever landing on their target audience’s news feed without paying for it.

With live events, you can grab attention and be prioritised by the algorithm as it is an event happening in real-time.

4. Video and SEO

YouTube has encouraged search-optimised videos for a long time so this is not new news for us at Special Effects Media SA. The online video sharing platform is also a video search engine owned by Google.

In 2022 we will see more brands focusing on their video SEO strategies. It only makes sense that with the increase in demand for video-based content there will also be an expected increase in supply calling for better video SEO optimization to ensure that your brand stands out!

There are some really simple and effective ways to contribute to bettering your video SEO score. Closed captions, subtitles and clear audio all contribute to bettering your video SEO score as bots scour your content for information to assess the relevance of your videos. As search engine algorithms become more intelligent, optimising your video content will be central to your video marketing strategy.

5. Meta: interactive video

Facebook announced its rebrand to Meta in 2021. This is perceived to be the next chapter of social connection and will offer more enriched and immersive experiences for social users. It may not be something to build into your 2022 strategy but it is definitely important to consider having regular conversations with your team about how you would like to show up as a brand in the metaverse.

In 2020-2021 we saw filters include augmented reality, virtual tours in 360 degrees as well as virtual ‘try-ons’. So immersive video content has been around for some time and will only be developing further in 2022.