Popular Trends in Digital Marketing

It can be difficult for the average business to keep up with marketing and digital media trends. As your marketing & social media experts, we thought we’d share a list of the top trends in the past year, and what will continue to trend into the New Year. As these trends continually change, the way both businesses and people communicate changes too. In order to create effective business strategies and have positive digital transformations, it is key to remain aware of these evolving trends.

Vlogs and video content

You guessed it! Video content has blown up throughout the years, and it remains an effective and engaging way to reach customers and clients. Video content can be educational, inspirational, or entertaining!

Through video blogs a business can communicate and educate customers, relay messages, answer important questions, and more. By pre-recording vlogs and publishing at ideal ‘right’ times, a business can increase their reach of their audience. Recording live, ‘real-time’ videos of an event or even a regular day at the office has become a tool to engage customers and create a raw connection between you and the user.

After integrating their own Facebook Live strategy, members at Search Engine Journal compiled analytics and found that their average Facebook Live engagement was 178% higher than their average post engagement. Additionally, the average reach of posts more than doubled for live videos. As people continue to seek more relatable and less mainstream content, your business can stand out with videos!

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is a form of association marketing, in which a business uses influential people to their brand. This could be a celebrity, or a niche leader in the community where your business or brand is relevant. Big and small businesses have become more and more attracted to influencer marketing because by using only one influential person, they have the ability to reach thousands of people that follow that influencer.

It was found that 47% of online consumers use ad blockers, giving brands and businesses even more reason to put their dollars behind influencers instead. Influencers are the ones holding everyone’s attention. In a world where commercials are ignored by people scrolling through Instagram, a business is more likely to be noticed through influencer marketing.

Augmented Reality

The power of augmented reality and information technology are on the rise this year. Considering the success of games like Pokemon Go, augmented reality filters on Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook, and even interactive video ads across the world, it is clear that augmented reality is here to stay, and will be a huge trend to watch in 2018.

Keeping up with the vlog and video trend, augmented reality will make its way into our cameras before any expensive glasses, through video filters. Eventually, businesses will be able to take part in the creation of their own branded filters that can be used when a customer is nearby a business or at an event. Virtual or augmented reality opens up a wide range of new ideas for marketing experts, including virtual tours, experiencing a product, offering directions in 3D, and so much more! Augmented reality is an innovative and creative way to increase engagement and connecting with customers, and will remain a hot trend in the next year.

Constant Evolution

Thats right, our final trend we want to note is that the rate of growth of these trends has and will continue to grow. There are always new ideas and strategies for businesses to grow their digital marketing. It is important to stay on top of these trends, sift through them and decide what best suits your business, and how you can make your content unique and stand out from the crowd.

Any and every business can utilize trends in digital marketing to reach a wider audience and engage existing and new clients. Using digital marketing as a vehicle to engage customers and create engagement, rather than directly aiming at selling, allows your company to be a serious competitor in the new year.

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