As it does every year, YouTube published on its blog a letter from the company's CEO, Susan Wojcicki, revealing the main trends involving the expectations, perspectives and challenges that will be present this year on the social network.
According to Wojcicki's letter, music, gaming, shopping, entertainment, sustainability and equality should guide YouTube's trends in 2022, with the ultimate goal of ensuring more diversity and access to quality information.
MUSIC 2021 was the year of music for YouTube. During the period, the platform reached over 50 million subscribers on YouTube Music and Premium. At the same time, more than 4 billion dollars were paid to the music industry. This year, the goal is to follow the same path and keep connecting artists and fans around the world.
GAMING YouTube stands out in the gaming world as a unique place where content creators can tell their stories in video using various formats, such as live streams, VOD and shorts. In 2022, the platform wants to improve the live experience for both creators and viewers, focusing on live content, Shorts and chat features. In addition, gifted memberships will be launched, one of the features most requested by users.
SHOPPING YouTube is investing to also become an innovative commerce platform, based on the analysis that brands and content creators are increasingly reviewing products, launching merchandise and talking live about consumption. A pilot tagging program for creators was also launched, where viewers can buy products featured in their favorite videos, in addition to shopping tests integrated with Shorts. Live shopping tests are being carried out in the US, South Korea and Brazil.
TV With TV remaining the leading screen used since 2021, YouTube is looking for new ways to interact with smartphones in order to offer more platform viewing features on TV.
WEB 3.0 With the world of cryptocurrencies, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) taking over the internet last year, YouTube intends to follow these trends to increase the connection between content creators and their fans.
TEACHING AND LEARNING The platform's number one goal on this topic is to double the number of users who engage with educational content on YouTube. Whether to improve curriculum, explore interests or assist with studies, the network is widely used for learning purposes. In 2021, in partnership with UNESCO, the Mi Aula channels were launched in Mexico and Argentina, offering videos with high school curriculum content from those countries. This year, the feature arrives in Brazil through the YouTube Edu channel.
YOUTUBE SHORTS The idea is to focus on the discovery and exploration system to further help content creators produce and reach an audience on Shorts. In 2021, an audio mixing feature was launched, which should be expanded within the platform.
SUSTAINABILITY Understanding this to be an extremely relevant and appealing subject, YouTube wants to increase, in 2022, content focused on climate change from creators concerned about the environment.
NEW FEATURES FOR CREATORS Improving creators' lives is also one of the platform's priorities for this year. After listening to their demands, YouTube will launch more mobile features, improve pre-publish checks, where creators discover possible copyright issues or advertising suitability before publishing content, and hire more people to expand testing and give creators more details about policy violations, such as timestamp markings, for example.
