The digital era is all about visuals. With people's attention span decreasing more and more every single year, conveying messages through pictures or videos is much easier and effective. And a large portion of content marketing is focusing primarily on producing visual content to improve brand awareness, generate more sales and keep businesses relevant.
Speaking of relevance, let's look at the top visual content trends for 2022, starting from your website and ending with social media posts and freebies.
Website Colours
Website design trends for 2021 & 2022 include bold and bright colours that bring joy, positivity and hope for the future. This isn't a surprise, considering most people were forced to lead a boring and sort of gloomy everyday life since the pandemic hit. Designers are looking for ways to inspire optimism in users through the use of colour psychology. And it is working.
Apart from the bright colours, though, 2022 brings another visual trend for your web design - muted earthy tones. This is in a way connected to our desire to be closer to nature as we take a breather from the digital world. Also, it is in line with the growing concern of environmental crisis we are facing. Most brands are now taking steps towards greater environmental sustainability and it makes sense that their branding would reflect that.
Dark, thick lines and simple fonts get the green light in 2022. Backgrounds look minimalist and as simplified as possible. If in 2020 and 2021 lots of white space was a major trend, next year, your background can change to a different colour, but the overall design must remain clean.
Website Graphics
Animated graphics began rising to fame in late 2018 and ever since then their popularity has been growing. They remain one of the top visual content trends for 2022. Add 3D designs and you are absolutely rocking it.
Tell a story with your graphics and web design. The so-called scrollytelling is extremely clever way to capture the attention of your website visitors and tell them all they need to know about your brand and products or services. And it could all be done through visuals with minimal text.
Website Images vs Video
Of course website images and videos also follow specific trends, which change, emerge or simply develop over time.
One thing that will always be relevant is optimised images. They will also significantly affect your SEO. The images must be of smaller size with with very high resolution.
Alt text with keywords is important for your search engine ranking and to cater for people with visual impairment or disability. This simple improvement of your imagery content can also aid visual search, which is another hot content trend for 2022. Google inverted search and Pinterest are already the kings of that!
Here are some more 5-minute SEO tasks that will boost your rankings.
In terms of videos on your website - that's always a fantastic idea! However, instead of hosting them locally (on the website itself), start a YouTube channel, post them there and then embed on the website. It will help with site loading speed and you can also optimise the videos for search. To do this you should use keywords in the video title, description and file name, add closed captions or subtitles and a custom thumbnail.
Last but not least, when it comes to website design, the most innovative approach is to let the users take the reign. That's right - content personalisation will keep being a major trend in 2022, giving users the freedom to choose what they see on your website.
Social Media Images
In 2022 we expect even more businesses to start posting branded images on their social media channels. Right now, over 90% are already doing it. It helps with brand recognition and building a relationship between the business and the consumer.
No less important is the inclusivity and diversity factor. This trend has also been here for a while, but as we move up the 2020s, its significance grows further. 85% of people say they find it easier to relate to a brand who uses model that looks like them or posts visual content that matches their lifestyle, beliefs and personal choices.
Make sure you know the image specification and formatting on each social media channel you are using for marketing. Adjust the images you publish to fit those specific formats. For example, square for instagram posts, vertical images for Stories and pins, landscape for Twitter.
Social Media Videos
There's barely anyone who would be surprised by the fact videos are the most consumed and therefore preferred form of content. The format, again, is platform dependent, but the biggest content trend for 2022 remains vertical videos. They fit a mobile screen perfectly and are usually posted as temporary content (stories).
Research shows that the most popular video type is explainer - giving people tips or details about a product or service. They are also one of the most converting forms of content posted on social media.
Each year video trends lead us to shorter and shorter video length. It seems that for 2022, the golden spot is exactly 15 sec, which makes a fantastic Instagram Reel!
It turns out you can't get it wrong with a short educational video.
If you are more into long-form videos, there's still opportunities for you to shine. Live interactive streaming is going strong this year and will continue to engage people in the near future, providing a direct link between the consumer and the brand.
Emojis
Remember a couple of years ago we thought emojis will soon become a thing of the past. A childish introduction to the business world. We couldn't have been further from the truth. Emojis remain relevant and in fact, they become even more important in communication on various levels, touching and representing a spectrum of social issues, movements and changes.
So, not only you won't look stupid if you use emojis in your content marketing campaigns, you will prove to your audience you are moving with the times and are relatable.
Freebies
Freebies have always been an important part of content marketing and most sales funnels. They can come in various formats and sizes. But to stay on top of the competition in 2o22, just follow the above visual content trends when you are designing your freebie. Whether you are creating an e-book, an educational video or an infographic, use bold and bright colours, simple background and fonts, representative images or characters and 3D designs.
The less effort it takes to get the message or to absorb the information from your freebie, the higher the chance for it to bring conversions.
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