Mumbai: If there’s one word that’s seen an immense rise in consumption from the pandemic, it has to be "content." Though content has always been there in the limelight, it gained prominence in 2019–20 since all of us were stuck in our homes. Many people wanted to enter the content creation industry but could not do so because of full-time jobs or a lack of time. However, after the pandemic, so much time was suddenly available for hobbies and following our passion.

The creative economy has grown tremendously over the last two years. In fact, as per reports, it’s expected to touch Rs 2,500 crore by 2025, which in itself is testimony to the fact that both content creation and consumption are on the rise. Not only this, but there have been significant investments made in the content creation industry, in startups focused on content creation and content monetisation, and also on individual creators to help and support them in their journey.

I started my content creation journey in 2018 when I was juggling competitive exams and my startup venture. As someone who has seen social media platforms evolve over time and introduce new features to help creators, here are some video marketing trends to watch for in the coming year:

Celebrities have become creators and creators have become celebrities

It is now normal to say that every single person, whether or not they are celebrities, has realised the power of good content. There is a certain sense of relatability and shareability that comes with content, which is why certain pieces of it go viral. One of the key differences between celebrities and creators is access; the latter is more accessible. Celebrities have been hopping on to this trend and starting to put out "content" in their own capacity to engage with their audience. For example, actors like Varun Dhawan and Alia Bhatt have been consistently posting content on their YouTube channels, and the same goes for cricketers like Aakash Chopra and Shoaib Akhtar. On the contrary, there are creators who have become viral sensations and have become celebrities of some sort.

Brands will start creating content for themselves

With TikTok getting banned in India and Reels & Shorts coming into the picture, it is very evident that short-form content is on the rise. Instagram leveraged Reels to its advantage, and the same was done by YouTube with Shorts. In addition to creators creating content for their own pages, brands also should be creating content to make sure that they send across the right messaging. It’s important for the brands to focus on their own content in addition to investing in creators to do so for them. Since a lot of brands and companies have seen the importance of short-form content, they will start building a content engine for themselves and driving traffic organically too. So if you’re a business owner, make sure to leverage content to your advantage. The trend will also focus on brands creating user-generated content and using that to their advantage.

Short-form content will continue to rise but long-form will help in authenticity

We’ve seen this in the last year or so when so many creators became overnight sensations, and the trend will continue. It is said that the average attention span of a goldfish is longer than that of humans. People will still continue to consume short-form content as attention spans are declining. But that doesn’t mean long-form content won't be consumed. One of the most interesting ways to produce long-form content at scale is podcasts, and I feel that this will be a trend one can expect in 2023. We can expect a lot more podcasts in the next year, not just from creators but from businesses, entrepreneurs, artists, freelancers, and more.

The second way to create video content at scale is to document everything. This was said by American entrepreneur and investor Gary Vaynerchuk, where he said, "Document, don't create," which basically takes the load off the creator to create content. One long piece of content can give you more than 60 pieces of short-form content. The art is in churning out content and distributing it so that people watch it.

Overall, I am very optimistic about the content creation space, and I can’t wait to see how it unfolds in the near future. It’s difficult to predict trends as nobody knows what might change or what might happen, considering the recent Elon Musk deal with Twitter, but we can only hope for the best. Well, now is as good a time as any to start creating content. If you haven’t started yet, what are you waiting for? Get started today.

The author of this article is digital content creator and Iceberg Creations founder Deepak Pareek.