Last year, Valorous Circle told you about five upcoming digital marketing trends for 2017. We highlighted that customized content for all businesses, marketing automation, mobile optimization, wearable technology and the Internet of Things (IoT) would expand digital marketing. Every article you’ll read about new digital marketing trends always stipulates that these are not reinventions of the wheel, but merely ideas that are once again having their time to shine.
Even though everyone is already embracing their first full weekend of the new year, we still have 51 more to go. Here are Valorous Circle’s new digital marketing trends for 2018.
Pro-Shot Live Video
Despite the ability to record every thought in our head and broadcast it on the internet, there is still a massive divide between YouTube’s in-house productions and the layman’s content. Live streams aren’t part of the new digital marketing trends of 2018 – it’s how they’re shot. Any concert marketer can take Facebook Live video and share it the venue’s followers. Viewers see a snippet of the show and ask questions about what to expect on their next visit. But have you ever really watched concert footage you took at your last event other than the original upload?
Unless you were using a multi-thousand dollar camera, your video would likely have heavily distorted audio and visuals. In other words, what you remember seeing live isn’t translating to what people see on their phones. Expect significant changes in businesses’ use of higher-quality technology and digital streaming this year.
Virtual Reality in Everything
Ready Player One is an upcoming film directed by Steven Spielberg set to release in March. An adaptation of Ernest Cline’s 2011 novel, Ready Player One depicts the dystopian future where virtual reality has taken over all facets of society because the world is in turmoil after an energy crisis.
So, nothing like the real world seven years later, right? We kid, of course. The desire to interface with the virtual world, however, is not in any way diminishing. Not only are there games to play, movies and Netflix to watch, but now the world of consumer marketing is piling on, adding customizable content most often seen on automobile and remodeling websites to VR.
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Snippets > Teasers
Americans and Google alike are getting tired of teasers. Sure, Disney will still produce a 15-second teaser trailer for their big 2-minute movie trailer out the following day, but that’s not really what’s happening in 2018.
Google changed its meta description field to include 320 characters instead of the 160 used in 2017. What does this mean for your business?
Instead of someone seeing a smaller teaser the size of a tweet below your website’s URL, they’ll now be able to read a good-sized paragraph. This additional space should reveal more about who you are and what you do or create rather than display obnoxious calls to actions.
More Native Advertising
Native advertising is pervasive, intrusive and annoyingly, stubbornly, precisely what you’d expect when viewing it on your favorite website.
Google ads, sponsored content, branded content and product placement will be more prevalent as younger generations reject traditional marketing media.
Baby Boomers may have more wealth, but new digital marketing trends aren’t necessarily about finding the money, they’re about finding the people who can share your brand with others the most.
Asking for Help
Siri, Alexa, Cortana, and Google help us out on a minute-by-minute basis. We rely on them for everything from naming that one guy in that one thing to playing our favorite Big Band music to reading the top news of the day. And we’ve been doing it for years. What you’ll see and do more of in 2018 is allow these A.I. to instruct us.
Recipes and tutorials will no longer be “OK, Google, show me a video of cake baking,” but rather “Alexa, tell me how to bake a cake.” After you decide on which cake to create, you’ll start the process under the steady directions not of a cookbook, but from plastic towers with microphones and illuminations.
