7 Digital Marketing trends to watch out for in 2018

The digital marketing trends storming the digital world are worth keeping your eyes on if you want your brand to excel in the digital space this year. I am sure you want to be on top of your game this year. To help you get started, here are 7 marketing trends you cannot afford to overlook:

Focus on Generation Z

Most of the digital marketing trends are focused on Generation Z. A large number of them make use of technology as a purchasing platform and a platform for discussing brands. Besides, most of them are joining the workforce which would increase their purchasing power. This means that brands will have to adjust their digital branding strategies to reflect this change.

Videos and Live Video

Videos are undeniably popular among online audiences. Videos outperform all other forms of content in every study. Although Live video is not a new development, but its growth in recent times has been exponential. Everyone wants to go live.

People love watching live videos. According to Facebook, live videos get 3x more views. As a matter of fact, 80% of users said they’d rather watch a live video than read a blog post. Using Instagram stories and the likes, where you can create video content and share it right away is a plus. Creating your own video content with a strategy to connect it to your blog content is a vital move to steer up engagement and drive traffic.

Surge in Chatbots

Instant gratification has always been one of man’s greatest weaknesses. People want answers to their questions immediately, or most times they lose interest and move on to something else.

Interestingly, Chatbots are available on Facebook Messenger. They can give your brand the opportunity to interact quickly with your prospective customers on a more personal level. With over 100,000 active chatbots on Facebook messenger and over two billion messages exchanged between brands and their audience every month, one can say that the chatbots evolution is here to stay.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is rapidly growing, as it has proven to be an effective method of promoting a brand to a new audience and getting engagement. Influencers are highly sought-after for their large audience, warm personality and enchanting content capable of to steering up engagement.

Increased Relevant Content

“Consumers have been pretty consistent and clear in their feedback, the way to avoid alienating them is to give them what they want — personalized, relevant content using their data in a responsible and transparent way.” — Larry Drebes

Audiences want targeted personalization and are fed up with reaching a website only to find content that has nothing to do with their interests. Analytical tools are not for decoration. They are detailed and valuable to your brand with insights to craft content that target a group set. Use these insights!

Overlapping Stories

As you’ve probably figured out, ‘stories’ is part of the new trends on social media. Now Facebook, Instagram, even Whatsapp have incorporated this. Instagram has over 200 million people using it every month. The popularity of these features has been seen across similar platforms offering timed videos and visual content.

Customer Experience Marketing

Customer experience marketing is just about making sure the customer has a good experience when you are marketing to them. Customers see your business or brand as the sum of experiences they’ve had with you. This could be anything from in-store customer service to finding your local listing online or seeing one of your business’s ads on Facebook.

Digital marketing is stepping up its game this year. It’s not going to be marketing as usual, so you need step up to stay in the game.

Tell me; what digital marketing trend will you adopt for your brand and why?

Let’s rub mind together in the comments section below…