Each year social media seems to become more involved in everyone’s lives. This year has been full of social media trends that have not only made the internet in 2022 a more complicated place, but also one of the best affordable marketing tools to use. This year social media has brought small content creators and small businesses into the limelight, it has made short-form content an easy marketing tool for all, and made a new career out of live streaming on many platforms.
This year a new term has been coined in the world of social media platforms. Small creators known as micro-influencers have made a huge impact online. Micro-influencers can be defined as someone on social media with a presence larger than the average person, but not as large as a celebrity. A micro-influencers following can range anywhere from 10,000 to 2,000 followers. Micro-influencers usually run a social media page that specializes in a specific area. For example, a page specifically for DIY, fashion content, gym content, etc. In the world of marketing, companies have really taken advantage of these creators. A company sponsoring a creator who is specifically sharing with the company's target audience makes for easy advertising, for example, a protein powder company wants a popular gym influencer to show off their product in a TikTok or on their Instagram story. Micro-Influencers have become mini-celebrities this year and have made a new and relatable impact online.
If you haven’t noticed Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube have all added a recent feature to their platforms. Short-form content or “reels” are a trend that has been around for years starting with Vine, and has made a resurgence with Tiktok. From just your average person to huge companies, everyone loves using short-form content and reels to market, or to post fun videos. The most recent app to get in on the action is YouTube, which just recently introduced its YouTube shorts feature. Allowing creators to post quick videos that give their audiences a little more insight into their everyday lives. Large companies have been using these features on these apps to market to their audiences in a more relatable and comedic way. These features on apps have made people more drawn to large companies. This trend within apps has really changed the way people produce content, it has become more relatable and real and not so perfectly produced.
Live-streaming is another trend that has really evolved this year. This has really catered to large influencers, giving them another outlet to interact with their audience. This year live-streaming became not only for gaming creators but for any online creator. The app that has really become the main component in making this happen is Twitch. This streaming platform has all forms of live streaming like ASMR, live makeup tutorials, gaming, or Q&A’s with your favorite influencer. It also doesn't take much skill to live stream, it is an easy way for people to market themselves and their content. Audiences have made this a trend because they enjoy hearing about a person’s life at that moment and seeing what they are experiencing in the present time.
The social media trends of 2022 have been around for years. What has made them trends that have shaped this year specifically, is the way that they have grown and evolved into trends that cater to anyone and everyone.