The Metaverse and all things digital in 2022
By Josh Bouwman, Lemon Tree Digital Lead
Get ready to navigate the ever-changing digital world with our predictions for 2022 and the resources you need to navigate this vastly changing landscape.
The only constant is change
The past few years have seen a monumental shift in both how consumers interact online and the way businesses conduct themselves. There’s a lot more change ahead and consumption of digital media is changing quicker than ever. Now is the perfect time to be revisiting your digital strategy.
Your digital strategy needs to be robust, nimble and include multiple customer touchpoints. Be ready to pivot and test new ways to reach your customers.
Meta, more than just a name change
Facebook is so last year.
You might see it as the same old platform you know (and love), but Meta is proving to be more than just a name change.
Meta plans to open up an entirely new ‘metaverse’ for brands and consumers to interact in virtual and augmented realities. Although a few years away from reality, advertisers should see Meta’s continuous innovations and their focus on improving the end-user experience as their commitment to reign the social media landscape.
With 3 billion active users and growing, Meta’s suite of platforms is a safe haven for advertisers to reach their customers.
Content is king, still
It should come as no surprise that content has made our trending list. The rise of Tik Tok, Instagram Stories and YouTube has put even more pressure on businesses to feed consumers relevant, relatable, timely and authentic content.
As an advertiser, you need to be breaking into your audience’s already diminished attention span. But when you have their attention, how do you hold it?
Reach beyond well-manicured photos and perfectly crafted copy to include short, punchy videos and authentically raw photography that shows the true essence of your brand.
Emails are a rising priority
Despite customer acquisition costs rising sharply over the past two years, email marketing still offers one of the lowest conversion costs for B2C and B2B businesses.
Owing to ever-increasing automation and personalisation capabilities, email allows you to actively nurture your customers and engage with them meaningfully throughout their journey with your brand.
With the right strategy and personalised approach, email marketing should be ranked highly on your priority list (if it’s not already).
Influencers are here to stay
Sometimes it makes us cringe, but influencer marketing still drives results for many industries.
Growth is expected to continue into 2022 and beyond with influencers and brand ambassadors giving businesses an avenue to reach customers on an authentic and personal level. If influencers aren’t your thing, try reaching out to your existing customers and clients for user-generated content and testimonials.
The SEO game is changing
SEO was once a game of tricks and hacks to get your site ranking number one.
As Google’s search algorithms constantly change, what has become increasingly important is providing an outstanding and meaningful user experience. With this in mind, your SEO strategy should be shifting towards optimisations that will enhance your site’s load time, user experience and navigation, as well as ensure your content is readable and accessible.
The growing challenge of privacy
We’ve seen significant changes in how big tech handles privacy and this is set to continue well beyond 2022.
The majority of digital advertising platforms are heavily reliant on personal data to optimise and serve ads to the right audience at the right time. Privacy regulations (like those seen in iOS updates from Apple and the removal of third-party tracking from Google) have significantly reduced the amount of data once available.
Media platforms have worked tirelessly over the past twelve months to implement solutions that will assist advertisers in reaching their target audience. As advertisers, we need to be continuously assessing our targeting strategies with more changes predicted for later this year.
