The Digital Marketing Trends Your Brand Should Follow for 2022

When you thought we’d reached the peak of being digital, marketing is just getting started! It keeps getting better and better at catering to every personal need. Consequently, businesses will have to make sure that they can keep up.

It can be difficult to find out all the digital marketing trends as there’s always so much happening online. You can’t just try them all out, right? Fortunately, this article will get you to speed with all the hottest and latest digital marketing!

We won’t waste any time so that we will go through all the top digital marketing trends. After that, this article will elaborate on what you need to start this type of campaign for your business. The best part is that even small businesses and startups can try them!

The top digital marketing trends

1. Personalized content
2. Short-form videos
3. Influencer marketing
4. Livestream shopping
5. Supply Chain Buffering
6. Cryptocurrency and marketing
7. Metaverse marketing

#1. Personalized content

Marketing was a more generalized method back then because you couldn’t cater to each specific need. Now, digital marketing requires you do just that1

Traditional marketing methods like billboards stay in a certain area, hopefully reaching the target demographic. Sadly, this took too long and didn’t provide accurate results.

On the other hand, digital marketing lets you appear only to your desired audience. Social media sites like Facebook can do that based on your given requirements.

For example, you could tell the social network to show your ads to people with specific interests or ages. Meanwhile, it provides real-time data about your audience.

As you gain more information about your customers, you can think of new ways to promote your business. This allows you to improve your current marketing strategy or launch a new one.

The cycle continues as you gain new customers and increase sales. As mentioned, small businesses and startups can use this marketing strategy too.

That’s because Facebook is free. You have to pay for ads, but you decide how much money you allocate. It recommends spending at least a dollar for the daily budget.

This means you get to promote your content to potentially millions of people worldwide for just $1.00! Still, this amount might be more effective if you temper your expectations.

Startups may want to promote to people around their city with this amount. As the business grows, it could increase the ad spend for better results.

#2. Short-form videos

If you’re familiar with TikTok, you’ve seen this type of content. These are the 15-second clips you see of people dancing or promoting a new trend.

It has grown significantly over the years as it beat Google as the number one most visited website globally. As a result, many websites started to adopt short-form videos.

For example, YouTube refers to its bite-sized clips as Shorts. Facebook has Stories on top of your News Feed. Yet, TikTok eventually expanded the duration limit to 60 seconds.

In response to its growing popularity, it announced that content creators can now make videos that last three minutes or 180 seconds. Still, this short format is likely to remain.

That’s because smartphones and similar devices distract many people nowadays. It’s become such a widespread phenomenon that educators are starting to take notice.

As an upcoming digital marketer, you should know how to adapt to this change. You can also promote your business with short-form videos without spending too much money.

Except for digital marketers, most people may not take TikTok seriously because of the silly dances. It’s now one of the most effective ways of promoting products and services to people in their 20s.

That’s why more brands are starting to consider TikTok marketing as a viable strategy. Since you read about posting ads on social media, you might be thinking of doing the same with this.

Tiktok allows ads, but posting short-form videos is the best way to reach new customers. People have gotten used to skipping ads that they may zone out once yours shows up.

If you create interesting content, people will spread it for you. Even better, posting this type of marketing material is free! Still, it deserves your effort as one of the key digital marketing trends.

Your TikTok content must be short and sweet, so each one provides maximum results. Click here if you’d like to know more about this type of digital marketing.

Read More: Content Marketing Vs. Brand Journalism

#3. Influencer marketing

You can take this personalized method of promoting your brand to the next level by working with influencers. These are regular folks who post content regularly on websites.

They usually post videos on YouTube and TikTok to amass millions of followers. Many brands hire these people to mention them as sponsors in their videos.

For example, the influencer may talk about a particular brand before starting their actual content. If they become successful enough, they might become brand ambassadors who make entire videos dedicated to a sponsor.

Start by being clear on how they will promote your brand. You want the online influencer to have a segment for your brand. Prepare an outline of what they will say for your video marketing.

For example, specify the features you want them to emphasize. You may ask them to mention your company catchphrase. Also, explain the things they shouldn’t mention, such as competitors.

Note that this article mentioned “outline,” not “script.” The goal is to have content that personally resonates with people. Your exact words may not seem like they truly came from the influencer’s thoughts.

People can be surprisingly quick to notice this. Once they do, those people may negatively impression your brand. As a result, this part of your digital marketing may fail.

After this, you must find content creators who match your brand image. For example, women usually appear in ads for perfume. What’s more, you should find a content creator that already has many followers.

Otherwise, you’re unlikely to gain new customers and sales by working with them. Once you find someone, it’s up to you to discuss your marketing plan with them.

If they agree, you can expect more customers to get interested in your brand. This works even better if you get influencers with millions of followers.

#4. Livestream shopping

This next digital marketing trend may not be prominent in your country yet. Livestream marketing came from China, elevating influencer marketing to a new level.

This involves an online influencer going through a store while followers watch them. This person may start with a tour of the place. Then they may highlight certain products.

Meanwhile, people can ask questions about the products. This serves as an interactive shopping tour on the internet. It’s like you have someone guiding you through an online store!

Using this allows you to present your brand to resonate much closer with customers. Yet, you might be reluctant to try this digital marketing strategy.

Don’t worry because more countries outside China will soon adopt the trend. For example, Walmart launched its first Livestream shopping session on November 28, 2021.

The Philippines now has Shoppertainment Live leading this digital marketing trend. If you haven’t seen this in your country, perhaps you’d like to be a pioneer!

It works like influencer marketing, but you’ll make the online personality record live streams instead. Fortunately, you can find many of them adopting this type of online content.

You might want to be on the lookout for people with Discord servers. It’s a live chat service that helps video game players communicate with others while playing.

Now, people use it for purposes outside gaming. That’s why you can find online influencers connecting with followers using this platform. It’s also a new type of digital marketing trend called Discord marketing.

#5. Supply chain buffering

This may look like a hifalutin term, but it just means updating customers about your current supplies. This doesn’t look like it belongs in a digital marketing trend list, doesn’t it?

Imagine that you’ve established your digital marketing strategies with flying colors. Social media marketing, email marketing, you name it, and your brand is producing tremendous results.

One day, you encounter issues with getting the materials for your products. Maybe your distributor ran into some trouble as many truckers left during the Great Resignation.

You didn’t tell your customers about the supply problems in this scenario. Eventually, customers become irate as they take too long to receive their orders.

They end up leaving nasty comments about your brand on social media. Then, they head to your competitors. As a result, you fail to convert digital users, and you’ll have trouble gaining new ones.

If you inform people about the global supply issues, they will understand. After all, many businesses announced delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

We have the Ukraine-Russia conflict causing even more problems with the global supply chain. This makes it more important to inform customers about supply issues early.

#6. Cryptocurrency and marketing

The world is adopting digital currency deeper each day. That’s because blockchain technology may soon be the key to bringing the next level of the internet called Web 3.0.

You can see this with social media networks. Twitter lets people receive bitcoin payments from others. Facebook will soon allow users to display non-fungible tokens or NFTs.

What’s more, crypto networks are becoming a new way to provide digital content. For example, the Theta token (THETA) improves the way people use video streaming services.

Major companies such as Google and Samsung support THETA. Moreover, you now have physical stores like Funko selling digital figurines as NFTs.

This one is near the bottom of the list because of the steep learning curve. You will have to learn new tech and marketing tools that you may have never seen before.

Still, you will have to because the world is going digital. As a business owner, it’s your task to discover how your brand can thrive along with these recent changes.

#7. Metaverse marketing

This may seem more like science fiction than product promotion. Yet, a quick Google search will show that companies and countries are now adapting to this concept.

The Metaverse involves merging our real world with virtual ones. This will let people have new ways to experience products and services. Take Ikea as an example.

Its mobile app lets you have a taste of the Metaverse with the help of augmented reality (AR) technology. The app lets you test how furniture would look in your home.

Open it and point your phone’s camera to a location. It will let you view a sofa or table as if it’s in your room. This lets you see if it will fit the interior or not.

As a result, customers won’t have to bring a new couch home only to find it doesn’t fit their living room. Imagine that concept, but go beyond mobile devices.

That’s what the Metaverse is. Digital marketers are starting to notice because it will soon become one of the most important marketing tools.

This is at the bottom of the list because this takes even more effort to learn. Still, it’s doable because you have so many free online sources that can help you, such as the Inquirer USA!

The latest digital marketing trends won’t be forever

The marketing landscape is shifting faster than ever due to technology. This means that these new digital marketing trends might be outdated by next year.

Let’s take Livestream shopping as an example. Back then, the closest strategy we had was conversational marketing. It’s when companies use ChatBots to answer customer concerns quickly.

Eventually, conversational marketing became ineffective as people preferred speaking to a real person instead. That’s why it continued to advance until we had Livestream marketing.

Google Ads and artificial intelligence were trendy buzzwords in the past until they became a regular part of life. This is why digital marketers always need to find new ways to adapt.

Final Thoughts

The latest digital marketing trends can help your brand adapt to the ever-changing world of business. Competition has always been part of this industry.

This means you must always be on the lookout for the latest in digital advertising. Find the new trends sprouting across the globe, and see if they fit your brand.

Fortunately, Inquirer USA can help with your marketing efforts. This website can keep you up-to-date with the latest in business, finance, and everything else!