What will be the biggest video trend in 2022?

2022 just making its first steps and no one would say that anything particularly important happened yet that can affect the whole video marketing game. However, we can tell you already what is going to be the biggest video trend in 2022. Moreover, we know who and what influences that trend.

But let’s get into some premises behind this state of video marketing and our own way of getting things nowadays. The average human attention span is getting shorter as social media dominates and becomes the power that dictates forms of content.

Times have changed: we are simply used to this new shape of perceiving information – fast and short like lightning, quirky, engaging, and fun. This is also affecting the way we “serve” content these days, and, what is more important, the way it will be developing in the near future.

Brands, creators, and companies will be posting even more unique content, but it is going to share just one thing: all of it will be extremely short.

Admit that in order to produce hard-hitting, top-notch videos that engage people you have to use a short form. It complicates the fact that you have to get to the point as fast as possible. A decade ago any marketer would say that 15 seconds isn’t enough to explain the concept or just make a person interested in the topic of a video.

Today any marketer would say that 15 seconds is completely enough to make people fascinated: this is almost the best possible length. People buy on emotion for a reason, forgive us this little pun. However, the shorter the video the better your chances to communicate directly to people’s emotions.

Besides,short-form video during the last few years has come in a variety of different ways: reels, shorts, live streams, snaps, teasers, stories, branded content, etc. Once TikTok appeared on the stage, we got more and more shapes of short videos.

Illustration by Tka4enko

The answer is as short as a video: TikTok. Yes, this is the tendency that has been around for a while now, but with each year its expansion is growing, having its effects even on other big players – such as Instagram or Facebook.

“Businesses that want to be successful using TikTok will have to be clever in the types of short-form videos they create for the platform. It’s unique and will require effort to craft effective videos.”

Todd Ramlin, Manager at Cable Compare

Illustration by GEORGE MIKIASHVILI

TikTok statistics

In order to understand why TikTok have such a great influence on video marketing in general, we have to glance at statistics on this platform:

• TikTok has 1 billion monthly active users;
• TikTok’s market penetration is immense: 4.8 billion internet users, 20.83% use Bytedance’s video-sharing service;
• The application has been downloaded 3 billion times and was the most downloaded non-game app in the first 6 months of 2021, hitting 383 million installs from January to June 2021 alone;
• TikTok sees no competitors. There are more monthly users on TikTok than on Twitter, Telegram, Reddit, and Pinterest. Instagram is even.
• One of the main things that tell a lot about any platform these days is the user’s growth. TikTok’s had a 1157.76% increase between January 2018 and July 2020;

• Engagement is the indicator that shows the influence of the platform – due to the fact that people literally spend more time on the platform than anywhere else around the internet, absorbing its values and sharing them. In this regard, TikTok is the most engaging social media app, with an average session length of 10.85 minutes.
• Influencers TikTok creators have up to 100 million followers and earn up to $5 million a year. Popular categories for content are entertainment, dance, pranks, fitness/sports, and DIY.
• TikTok was the most positively reviewed app in the US in 2020, with 88% positive reviews.
• TikTok was valued at $50 billion by investors in 2020.
• Entertainment is the most popular category on TikTok by Hashtag Views which is great for promotion – this category could include basically anything.
• TikTok took second place in the list of most downloaded iPhone apps for 2020.
• One more time TikTok beats every single competitor – micro-influencers had engagement rates of 17.96% on TikTok, 3.86% on Instagram, and 1.63% on YouTube. At the other extreme, mega-influencers had engagement rates of 4.96% on TikTok, 1.21% on Instagram, and 0.37% on YouTube.
• According to official TikTok statistics, its users keep returning to the app during the day. 90% of users use the app multiple times per day.

So, what is the point?

With such an amazing influence in the world, TikTok dictates what is going to be popular next. Since the many sources with video marketing statistics show that 86 to 90 percent of marketing professionals use video as a marketing tool, listening to this trend with short videos intently is extremely important.

People demand more video content and they rarely need to consume long-form videos. Here’s the thing: short-form video has the highest ROI of any social media marketing strategy. Almost 45% of social media marketers advise brands to invest even more in this trend in 2022.

Do we have a universal length that will fit everyone? Ehhh… no. Each social media is like the universe itself with its own rules. For instance, TikTok used to allow up to 60 seconds and now that has gone up to 3 minutes. Twitter allows 2:20 minutes. On Reels and Triller, there is a 60 seconds limit. However, the only universe that sets rules on other territories is TikTok.

What kind of trends will touch short videos?

Okay. The biggest trend is short videos, but what kind of functions will they have? Just fun? Commerce? Education? We have answers to this big question, too. Bear with us.

1. First of all, short videos don’t look like ads. And that’s actually a big advantage for brands – to sell without selling. So, short videos and TikTok especially (with reels in YouTube, Instagram) will have a major impact on the buying decisions among the audience.

“Viral content on TikTok will continue to drive commerce trends. TikTok has increased potential for the creation of viral content as it’s more geared toward content discovery, giving TikTok creators the power to reach enormous audiences with their engaging, trending content. Most TikTok content doesn’t look like an ad, making it all the more powerful at fuelling trends through brand challenges and influencer-generated content. We predict the #tiktokmademebuyit trend will grow bigger in the next year, as the platform continues to invest in seamless commerce features such as its partnership with Shopify.”

Adam Shapiro, Head of Product Marketing and Strategic Partnerships

2. Short videos will be NFTs. Yes, we wrote about that a lot, and probably will write even more next year – NFT is a great trend itself that one way or another has a lot to do with videos and visual content.

“Brands and social platforms are reaching out to creators to help them break into this space (and better understand it). Take TikTok, for example, they recently launched “Own the Moment”, an NFT project that lets fans own viral moments from top creators. TikTok understands that the creators on their platform are more powerful to their audience than their own brand name.

Social platforms, brands, organizations; they’re all building infrastructure to let creators sell NFTs because they understand how important this will be to their long-term plans. Peter Yang—another crypto expert who writes a newsletter called Creator Economy—agrees; “Web 3 lets creators own the upside from their work instead of giving up revenue share to the middleman.”

Hannah Cameron, content at #paid

3. There will be even more videos because the number of creators is growing. It means more influencers and the expansion of the influencing culture. Which means more brand possibilities.

“1 billion people will self-identify as creators in the next 5 years. Social media is becoming even more democratized – TikTok’s algorithm makes it easy for unknown users to grow tremendously overnight and gain millions of followers.

This combined with its easy-to-use platform that simplifies the production of creating content into one app, allows more everyday users to become internet sensations. As other platforms attempt to catch up, there becomes even more optionality for brands to identify the perfect creators to partner with and pay for content, expanding the industry as a whole.”

Rachael Cihlar, VP of Mavrck’s Influencer Marketing Center of Excellence

4. TikTok will continue to serve content for other platforms, including such as Instagram, Facebook or Pinterest. For the brands, it is an amazing opportunity to use the same format of videos for different mediums.

“With regard to specific platforms and content trends, over the past year, TikTok matured from an emergent channel to an established influencer marketing tool. Our survey data saw TikTok ranking as the third most important social media platform for both brands and influencers, behind Instagram and Instagram Stories.

TikTok’s rise has contributed to an increase in short-form video content on Instagram: 73% of influencer respondents noted that they shared more videos to Instagram in 2021 than in 2020—a trend we foresee continuing in the year to come.” 

Catherine Kulke, Senior Content Marketing Manager

5. The vertical video trend will be back in-game. For many marketers it is a good thing – having vertical video as a trend means that as a part of a brand you don’t have to optimize your video for every device – naturally, vertical video can be used on both desktop and mobiles.”

6. Another trend perfectly aligns with the short video trend. It is ephemeral content, such as stories. People love to be updated about their favourite influencers, especially when it comes to important opinions.

“Ephemeral content increases the engagement rate by being available for viewing for a limited amount of time (24 hours). By publishing stories regularly, you can get your followers to be more aware of your updates, and more likely to watch your new content.”

Olivia Tan, co-founder of CocoFax

Illustration by Kemal Sanli

Short-form video trends to join in the near future

1. Brand Challenges.

People live this form of entertaining content. When short-form videos became popular in the first place, the main reason was viral content based on challenges – most of them were just fine.

2. Product Teasers.

The best way to promote products is to use short-form videos. What are the benefits? It is trendy, doesn’t require any big budgets, it has the potential to go viral.

3. More user-generated content.

Yeah, this is the best way to engage people and make them ambassadors of your brand. It doesn’t have to be some influencers – make your audience involved.

4. Quick educational content.

That could be a real thing – to address some question that is related to your audience pains and offer a solution in a light, fun form.

Illustration by Ruslan Babkin

Summary

The demand for video content is increasing incredibly quickly. According to Business Insider, only in 2020, the first pandemic year, the number of people watching digital videos in the US reached 244.4 million. This number not only changed, but it also increased more during the last year, having reached almost 300 million viewers.

The young audience is most of the people that watch videos. To tell you more, these people identify themselves as “digital video viewers”.

If you want to use this trend and make the brand top of your niche, we know how to help you. Contact us in order to get a great video for any of your marketing purposes. Our team knows perfectly how to bring any video to a trending format.