3 Trends That Will Impact How We Communicate In 2022

While brands are still fine-tuning their communications strategies to align with the year ahead, we thought it would be a good opportunity to share how we communicate, as communicators.

With another year behind us that has been dominated by pandemic talk, we can’t look forward without looking at how the past 12 months have altered internal and external communications. And before you assume that this post is going to focus on all the negatives ways in which pandemic has impacted our language, keep in mind that it has also presented new opportunities for companies to redefine their voice, both internally and externally, and finally step into the spotlight.

Organizations had to quickly re-focus and possibly introduce new technological tools to be able to connect with employees virtually. Externally, they have also had to take a hard look at their brand positioning to ensure they were able to generate positive brand awareness in what was proving to be a very over-saturate market. 2021 was also the year brands started to be called out for things like not being genuine/authentic or featuring a lack of inclusivity, which forced some companies to revisit and revise marketing and PR campaigns to ensure a better sensitivity lens was added.

Throughout the last year we’ve also come one step closer to bridging the gap between the real and cyber world, as seen in RC Show 2021 ONLINE LIVE, which brought its competitions, cooking demonstrations and world class content onto a virtual stage for attendees to access and connect from anywhere in the world from the comfort of their laptop.

With all this in mind, here are three trends we see continuing to impact how we communicate in 2022:

A Hybrid Future

With working from home looking like it will be a permanent reality for most going forward, businesses have had to readjust how they keep their employees connected. Platforms such as Slack, Zoom and Teams have continued to play a key role in day-to-day communications, and as such have continued to evolve by offering new ways to keep members engaged (i.e. Slack’s Huddle feature). Every day meetings have become opportunities for senior leaders to connect with their teams and foster genuine connections, showcasing a glimpse of “real life” with every video chat, and boosting morale for those who desperately need to stay connected.

It will be interesting to see once restrictions lift and more people return to the office (full or part-time), if/how companies chose to communicate internally and keep their teams connected.

Media Diversification

If there’s one thing in this world that we know will always change, it’s technology. We see this every day with new and evolving social media platforms and ever surfacing ways to engage with content. There’s a place for every platform because each offers a unique opportunity to connect with customers, internal team members and/or family and friends.

For PR professionals, we are always looking for new opportunities to generate “earned” coverage for clients to help them reach their goals, whether that be visibility, drive sales or anything else, and we realize this can come from a variety of platforms. Each platform serves a unique purpose. It’s time all are explored individually from a user perspective, as the potential for clients to reach consumers is vast – with the right, targeted content of course!

Going forward it’s important to understand that platform diversification is going to be the key to ensuring the best reach for the content created and that campaign investments are maximized.

Conscious Consumerism

Canadians are among the most brand loyal consumers in the world, but in 2022 we are taking that to a whole new level. The pandemic has made people reassess what they value and what/who they want to support, they are eager to build strong relationships with the brands they purchase from and will have no qualms spending a little more money for quality goods, as well as cutting down the preferred brands in their network to only a handful they trust, align with and that are local.

Something we have seen in abundance throughout the pandemic is that customers care (now more than ever) about what a brand stands for before they decide to commit to purchasing from it.

This can also be said for social media influencers and brand ambassadors. A massive following, posting for algorithm preferences, and an abundance of hashtags won’t help move the needle in terms of driving “real” engagement and impacting purchasing decisions.  

To summarize, brands that truly understand a one-size-fits-all approach to communications is the way to go, will be the ones that stick around for the long haul. And, thanks to fabulous digital content creators and advances in technology and AI, being able to hyper-personalize and gain traction on your message is now very much achievable.