When it comes to marketing, if you’re wondering how to make the most of the summer season, check out the following trends:
Chatbots:
Technology is neutral. Whether it’s used for good or evil is up to the user. Chatbots were notorious for planting fake news stories that sought to affect last year’s election. However, chatbots can be used for more benign purposes, such as spreading your marketing message via Facebook Pages and other venues. Bots allow for your brand to converse with prospects without the need for a human. The tech is still fairly new, but the potential is huge.
Live streaming video:
YouTube is no longer the only game in town. Instagram, Periscope and Facebook Live are all challenging YouTube as purveyors of live video content. Your brand can create and share live content at any time and from any location. It’s especially useful when you want to interact with a live audience. Check this link for best practices.
Evaporating content:
Snapchat and Instagram are the biggest names in expiring social content, but Facebook Stories is a new product that allows videos and photos to evaporate after 24 hours. This is an excellent mechanism for building excitement with fresh content.
Social traffic:
The holy grail of social traffic is getting it for free – organic traffic. This is becoming increasingly unrealistic, as Instagram, Twitter and Facebook algorithms become pickier about which content gets the most exposure. To play in this game, you certainly need terrific content, but you also might have to cough up some money (pay to play).
Augmented reality:
AR is hot. Snapchat has attracted competition from Facebook Live with new AR components, such as masks and lenses. AR changes your phone’s camera into a sensory input device as new apps proliferate. The marketing implications are limited only by your imagination.
Mergers:
It’s a good idea to stay on top of the latest social media mergers, because they may affect platforms you currently use for marketing. Recent mergers have seen Facebook gobbling up Oculus Rift, Instagram and WhatsApp, Twitter acquiring Periscope and Microsoft grabbing LinkedIn for $27 billion.
Personalization:
The trend is toward highly personalized and targeted content. For example, Facebook is developing sophisticated ad target options that address a marketer’s particular needs.
Big data:
Though big data has been with us for some time, its continually becoming more powerful and comprehensive. Demographic data helps marketers identify and understand the types of customers they attract. Psychographic data gives further insights into the motivations of actual and potential customers – an area of research pushed by Facebook. Attitudinal data describes how folks feel about your products, and behavioral data (or sociographics) is used to analyze online behavior across the web. This infographic neatly summarizes big data’s current state of play.
Social influencers:
Marketing campaigns tied to social content creators are achieving almost universal acceptance. One study found that 84 percent of marketers are planning one or more influencer campaigns in the next year. This is often a cost-effective way to extend your brand’s reach.
Clearly, the worlds of marketing and technology are intertwined in a growing number of ways. We encourage you to spend some time learning about these and other innovative developments – you can bet your competitors are. Need additional funding for marketing purposes? IOU Financial offers loans up to $300,000. Contact us today for more information.
