Now that we’ve entered the year 2022, we thought it would be a good time to take a walk down memory lane to the marketing world of ten years ago. It’s safe to say that we’ve all come quite a long way since then, from our marketing strategies to social media features and tracking abilities. Join us on our journey back to 2012, and try not to give yourself too hard of a time for the choices you made a decade ago.

2012: Instagram was just becoming popular, and “influencer” hadn’t yet been added to our vocabulary.

Instagram was first launched in October 2010, and in the spring of 2012, the fast-growing app was acquired by Facebook. In a three-month period following the sale, Instagram grew from 35 million users to more than 80 million. Back then, the platform was used almost exclusively by individuals to share snapshots of their lives, complete with overly saturated filters and heavily hashtagged captions.

2022: Everything is for the ‘gram.

Over the last ten years, Instagram has evolved to become a key marketing platform used to reach its one billion monthly active users. The app now boasts shoppable links that brands can provide for their users, turning Instagram into a true e-commerce tool. Popular individual users, or influencers, can also successfully generate income by partnering with companies to promote products in their posts. In addition to added monetization, many brands and users now carefully curate their feeds to fit their own aesthetic, while also focusing on authenticity to appeal to their unique audience.

2012: Brands utilizing user-generated content was on the rise.

In 2012, companies were just beginning to realize that sites like YouTube and Facebook were becoming platforms for customers to share their experiences with different products. These online communities gave consumers a bigger voice than ever before. Smart brands jumped on the opportunity and began re-sharing these reviews on their own accounts, lending an authentic boost to their credibility. By the end of the year, some experts predicted the value of user-generated content would skyrocket in the years to come.

2022: Brands interact closely with users every day on social media.

These days, some companies almost exclusively feature user-generated photos and reviews on their social media profiles to give their fans a shout-out and add credibility to their brand.  Many now see social media as an ongoing conversation between real people, where cultivating relationships with consumers goes farther than shouting sales phrases into the void. On platforms like Twitter, brands’ accounts will tweet back and forth with fans daily, commenting on their funny observations and answering questions to keep the conversation going.

2012: Companies realized the importance of tracking analytics on digital platforms.

For traditional marketing methods, it was difficult to directly track results of campaigns and prove the effectiveness of the efforts. Marketers could measure television ratings and newspaper circulation, but they often couldn’t tell how many true conversions they earned from the ads they placed. Once companies began testing digital marketing methods, they quickly learned advanced, detailed data was more accessible through this technology.

2022: Marketers rely heavily on detailed tracking of their campaigns, but changes are coming soon.

With an increase in the amount of data available through digital marketing, marketers have been able to target their campaigns very specifically. Many companies, including ours, now rely on these results to inform our strategies and prove results to clients. However, in the last couple years, ad platforms like Facebook and Google have begun to restrict their data in an effort to increase user privacy. Additionally, smart device manufacturers, such as Apple, have also added layers of protections to their products with recent software updates. In 2022 and beyond, marketers will have to get creative to rethink our now-ingrained strategies to target the users we want and find the results we need.

2012: Experts were anticipating video to be the “next big thing” in marketing.

Video usage was growing rapidly in the US in 2012, led by the popularity of YouTube, which was still just six years old at that time. Already, Americans viewed billions of digital video ads per month, and spend for video advertising reached $3 billion, according to eMarketer. These impressive statistics signaled to brands that video had a very bright future in marketing and advertising.

2022: Yeah, they were right.

Video is still king for users and marketers alike. 99 percent of respondents to Lemonlight’s survey enjoy watching video content from brands, and 93 percent of brands have earned a new customer due to social media video. In the last ten years, marketers have figured out how to add personalization, interactive features, shoppable elements, and other innovations. There’s short-form video, long-form video, disappearing video, live video, etc. on every possible platform. Video isn’t going anywhere any time soon – in fact, we won’t be shocked if it’s still an essential marketing tool in 2032.