Five Digital Marketing Trends That Will Dominate 2018

Digital Trends 2018

The digital marketing landscape is in a constant state of change. As technology advances, digital marketers need to adapt and innovate to reach the widest possible audience. As with every year, 2018 will come with its own challenges, as well as new opportunities that could lead to positive results.

If you’re going to be marketing a business or product of any kind in 2018, you’ll want to stay ahead of the curve by familiarizing yourself with the most important digital marketing trends that will be used extensively over the coming months.

Live Video Will Continue to Grow

Digital marketing through video is already an important tool for marketers. In 2018, the trends in video will continue, and live video in particular will grow in popularity. There are a number of creative ways that video can be used for effective marketing. Live streaming videos can be used for retail store launches, product launches, reviews, infomercial style content, and video could even be used for feature content like ‘making of’ and ‘behind the scenes’ videos. Mobile consumption of videos will increase, so it will be important to optimize videos for a mobile audience by considering length and release schedules.

Live video can attract up to 3x the viewers and increased engagement on social networks, and if you weren’t live streaming in 2017, then now is the time to get on board.

Voice Search Will Keep on Growing

Voice searches have become popular thanks to digital assistants like Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Google Assistant. Even the mobile manufacturers are getting on board with voice search, with Samsung recently releasing Bixby with their latest smartphones.

Voice search will change the way that digital marketing works, especially in terms of search engine optimization. Keyword optimization will still be important, however, natural language long tail keywords and different keywords with similar meanings will need to be used throughout marketing copy, to ensure that audiences can find your content. Studying popular search terms in your niche and optimizing accordingly will be critical to staying on top of the latest trends in search.

Influencers Will Be a Good Investment in 2018

One of the most noticeable digital marketing trends of recent years, is the rise of niche-influencers. Influencers that have credibility or celebrity can help to grow an audience and have a direct influence on product sales. Marketers should try to engage with authoritative figures who can provide value to a brand. Niche-influencers don’t need to be ‘A’ list celebrities, and it’s even becoming common for large companies to use popular YouTube and social media personalities as Influencers.

Mobile Will Become Even More Important

Mobile is already critical for digital marketing, as increasing numbers of consumers make mobile phones and tablets their primary devices for media consumption. A focus on mobile will be necessary and marketers will optimize web pages and marketing content for smaller screens and mobile internet connections.

Google will also make major changes in 2018, as they continue to roll out their ‘mobile first’ search index, a completely separate index that will be used for users who are searching from mobile devices. Web pages will need to be optimized with responsive designs and mobile friendly content.

Instant Messaging Will Become a Critical Market Communication Tool

1.3 billion users send a total of more than 2 Billion messages on Facebook Messenger every month. This is just a single platform, and there are plenty of other popular chat applications such as Viber, WhatsApp, Line Messenger, and even niche apps like WeChat and KakaoTalk.

Marketers need to realize that messaging is more than just a digital marketing trend; it’s an essential tool that can help to ensure success. Messaging apps allow interested consumers to contact brands and product representatives instantly. Investing time into managing messaging can create better opportunities for audience interaction.

Taking advantage of the latest digital marketing trends and utilizing every possible marketing channel will provide better chances of success, by reaching a larger and more engaged audience in 2018.