MARKETING: THE 411

Over the coming months, our marketing team will be sharing trends and insights on the current social landscape, as well as the accounts, articles and newsletters sparking inspiration. To kick off the blog series, we’re reflecting on how content consumption is changing, noting a significant fall in Instagram engagement over the past 12 months, and rising time spent on TikTok and YouTube.

YouTube’s longer form, more in-depth videos are a far cry from the short, stylised Instagram Reels we have, reluctantly, for some, grown to love. Time - definitely. Money - most likely. And creativity - by the bucket load.

And what does that mean for the viewer? You don’t fall into watching a 20-minute YouTube episode in the same way as you might with a 20-second clip. You choose to watch it. And no doubt, think about it for some time after too. You might even talk about it - crazier things have happened.

TikTok falls somewhere in between the two. Viewers can either fall into a scroll hole, viewing hours of short, comical content or viral ASMR food porn, such as Poppy Cook’s 15-hour potatoes. Or, they can use the platform as a learning and discovery tool thanks to the increasingly popular #LearnOnTikTok hashtag, which launched in May 2020 following a vast demand for educational content amongst young people on TikTok. Now, it has 530 billion views and users can discover videos up to 10 minutes in length, covering almost any topic - from science to finance to food.

So, this has us pondering… is 2023 the year where we take back control of what we consume and create online? Is it time for marketers to value true engagement, both online and in real life, as much as the reach achieved on an app? Perhaps, we can all start creating content that stops the scroll and makes us pause for thought.

To. get in touch with our marketing team, please contact Jen@gemmabellandcompany.com