Content Connects Us All—Tracking Changes In The Creative Industry

If you had to summarize marketing and content sharing before social media, how would you describe it? Pre-social, most marketing efforts were focused on email and physical print ad placement in newsletters and magazines. The development of technology has entirely changed the ways consumers gather information and make buying decisions. This has opened up a world of opportunities for content creators to embrace storytelling and visualization through new platforms and digital mediums.

The creative industry is not only flourishing, but evolving and adapting to the new ways we interact with our world socially and economically. Viral content holds a certain social weight, it spreads across networks and connects us to each other through, often through humor, and “did you see that one thing on Tik Tok!?” Cranberry juice saw an entire revival from a viral video of a guy skateboarding, holding a bottle of Ocean Spray, and listening to Stevie Nicks. Today, we’re exploring changes in the landscape of content, and deciphering what trends will continue into 2022.

Keeping Up With The Times

Trends have always been a part of human life, but these days we cycle through what interests us at a drastically faster rate. This means content creators and marketers not only need to embrace advancements in technology, but also in what’s trending, for example, video marketing.

When 72% of customers prefer learning about a product or service through video and online users spend 88% more time on websites that have video, it’s hard to argue that the video takeover isn’t real. Last year, over two-thirds of videos were a mere 30 seconds long, showing consumer’s desires to ingest information quickly and efficiently in an engaging way.

This acceleration has only increased due to the pandemic. One 2020 study from McKinsey indicated that the US experienced 10 years’ worth of e-commerce growth within three short months. Recognizing the real-life challenges this brought to supply and distribution chains, it also brought new challenges for those trying to win over consumers with goods and services online during a disruptive time. As a result of these trends, content providers will continue to be pushed towards quicker content generation and distribution efforts.

Creativity & Authenticity Attract

Whether content is visual or written, it is a vessel for continually engaging your market, establishing credibility, attract new prospective clients, and bolstering your brand identity. Creating content is no longer a side-hustle or hobby, but an avenue for growing a full-blown career for many. The case for a creator-based economy is supported by surveys like one from Facebook that stated 80% of Instagram users research products and services on the platform before making buying decisions.

As Instagram recently passed a milestone they weren’t expected to hit until 2024, a billion users, the power of casual content sharing is undeniable, and allows more people to capitalize on promoting brands they care about, broadening both the accessibility and the impact of content creation itself.

Even mega brands like LinkedIn that have focused on more traditional online networking are testing the waters of putting creative content at the forefront of their platform. “Creator mode” will be a space where professionals can promote their personal brand through stories and videos. These growing trend emphasizes that people like consuming authentic, unpolished tidbits of marketing, where creators are genuinely invested in a product or service, chatting to them from their living rooms or their kitchens.

You could make the argument that for just about any job, whether you’re an artist, marketer, actor, entrepreneur or developer, that some level of innovation and demand for creativity exists. We’ve always existed in a creator’s economy, the advent of social media and increase of accessible design tools has only expanded people’s ability to market and be creative, regardless of if your company has one person or one million.

Rise Of The New Creative Agency

However, achieving such heights of having an on-point, non-stop flow of new content for people to consume is easier said than done for many brands. Changes in technology, the rise of influencer culture, and even a pandemic will push creatives to think outside the box and come up with fresh tactics for reaching their audiences.

Going into 2022, it is likely we will see even more of a push to subscription-based business models, like Patreon, where platforms support artists and creatives in monetizing their content offerings. This same kind of idea can be found in new casual-content building agencies, like Denver’s own Soona.

The idea behind Soona is to connect brands with independent creatives, and create ready-to-use visually stunning content that doesn’t take months to complete. Their content ranges from product photos to video, to headshots. What’s the goal? Shorter iterations and greater affordability for brands trying to market themselves against corporations that spend millions on advertising. Founded by Liz Giorgi and Hayley Anderson, advancing their mission means improving access to high-quality custom content for brands of all sizes, while also providing meaningful jobs to their employees. (They even coined the Candor Clause, an open-source legal disclosure to help close the gender gap in VC.)

While Soona creates the content, another Denver-based PR firm, Hey Mr helps brands manage and grow their social media presence. Self-proclaimed ‘digital-market allies,’ the Hey Mr team integrates a multi-media, multi-platform approach to help businesses grow and stand out. Outsourcing agencies to manage branding and social media isn’t new, but both of these new businesses are intentional about being your brand’s partner, and telling your story in a way that actually captures people’s attention.

We Live & Breathe Creative Material

Creativity changes as humanity changes. Tracking changes in the creative industry takes us on a journey of how we experience our world and the ways that communication has evolved over time. If you’ve ever looked at someone born post 2000 and wondered what it’s like to grow-up in a digital-first world of everyone owning a pocket super computer, there’s something we can all learn from the seamless blending of our digital and physical lives.

One thing is certain, only humans and their creativity have the ability to visualize data, to take information from a page and present what’s in between the lines as a narrative, something to follow, something that captures our emotion and curiosity. And in that, content creation will continue to seek its lofty goal of compelling people to take action, or innovate, or rethink a solution they had not previously considered.

Here at BWBacon Group, we know and live what you are experiencing as an employer or job seeker in Denver, Boulder, Dallas, San Francisco, New York City or any of the other cities we work in. We believe great recruiting starts and ends with understanding people.

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