It's easy to fall into old patterns when creating your yearly digital marketing strategy, which is understandable—after all, you've seen positive results, so why change anything?
The world of digital marketing is constantly evolving, meaning it's important for you and your business to stay on top of new trends and updates. If you don't, you and your brand risk being stuck in the past.
Here are four big changes the digital marketing experts at Informatics are tracking this year, and how they may affect your next marketing strategy:
Big changes in Facebook audience targeting
Facebook announced just before the beginning of the year that it will be removing detailed targeting options "that may relate to topics that people perceive as sensitive, such as options referencing causes, organizations, or public figures that relate to health, race or ethnicity, political affiliation, religion, or sexual orientation."
For example, if your business is creating a Facebook ad for a health organization, you can no longer target your ads based on topics like "World Diabetes Day" or other health causes.
With Facebook often setting the standard across social platforms, it’ll come to no surprise if others fall in line and stray away from similar targeting based on personal attributes.
Trying to adjust your Facebook advertising strategy for the current quarter? No worries. Ads created prior to January 19 will be able to have simple edits, such as changing your campaign name or spending limit, without impacting ad targeting until March 17. Create those ads now with your preferred targeting and you will still be able to make edits later.
B2B influencers
Although influencer marketing is often thought of as a strategy for B2C businesses, more recently B2B brands have found success with it as well. Using influencers in your B2B marketing strategy offers you access to networks and professional contacts you might not have been able to reach otherwise.
Inviting an influencer to be a guest writer on your blog or even take over your company’s Instagram page for a day can help you establish credibility in your industry and promote your business as a thought leader.
Privacy vs. advertising
According to Statista, internet users are growing increasingly concerned about their online privacy, with 53% of users around the globe saying they're more focused on their data security now than in 2019.
With growing trends in data privacy, like Apple’s iOS 14.5 update, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and more users installing ad blocker extensions on their browsers, many digital advertisers are being forced to take more creative approaches.
Although retargeting ads are a vital part to any brand’s SEO strategy, exploring different ad types avoids putting all your eggs in one basket—or should we say cookies? We recommend targeting by demographics instead or even using a lookalike audience, an audience with similar demographics, interests and behaviors based on your current audience.
Short-form video content
With the rise in popularity of short-form video platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels in 2021, this medium is becoming the shining star of most 2022 social media marketing strategies. TikTok revealed in 2021 that its app reaches 1 billion global users each month. It’s clear that while long-form videos once reigned supreme, short-form is now what users want to see.
So how short is short-form content? TikTok’s maximum video length is 3 minutes, but we recommend aiming for the 60-90 second sweet spot.
Of course, not everything needs to be that short. With Facebook Live, the general rule is at least 10 minutes long—but the longer you stream, the larger your chances of being seen by your target audience. With YouTube, 10 minutes is the ideal length once you've found your niche, according to Visme.
Now that you're informed and updated it's time to go write that 2022 digital marketing strategy! Still not sure where to start? Reach out to our digital marketing experts today—we'd love to help you craft an effective strategy for the new year.
