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You already know that in 2019, digital marketing trends simply can’t be ignored. The need for marketing is essential. We hope you are actively executing your digital marketing strategy and seeing some results.
However, this year has brought us some changes that we need to add to our strategies. Here are some of them:
Instagram is still pretty important
Facebook did a pretty smart move by buying Instagram. Although the Facebook app is becoming less popular, Mark and the gang have nothing to worry about – everyone’s moving to Instagram. Facebook’s still the social network with most users, but Instagram’s user number is growing rapidly. In June 2018, the number of monthly active Instagram users surpassed one billion.
Resource link: https://www.statista.com/chart/9157/instagram-monthly-active-users/
It’s not something new, but it’s one of the hottest digital marketing trends at the moment. This network should be especially important for businesses that have a target audience that’s under 30 because here’s where everyone hangs out. Facebook, on the other hand, is losing its young audience and gaining the reputation of a social network for “old people”.
At the end of 2018, Instagram had 500 million daily active users and 400 million stories daily active users. There are about 100 million photos and videos shared every day, getting 4.2 billion likes.
Chatbots keep growing
When they appeared, chatbots disrupted the way companies were communicating with their clients. They aren’t just a buzzword anymore, they are now an essential tool every organization needs in order to maintain its relationship with customers. They enable an immediate conversation with your customers, making communication much easier than before. Most of them work through text chat, but verbal communication can also be enabled.
Facebook was one of the first platforms to enable chatbot creation. In May 2018, the giant announced that its bot platform had been used in the creation of 300,000 bots, which was a very high jump compared to the 100,000 from the previous year.
Chatbots as a digital marketing trend
The use of chatbots was very common in 2018, and this trend is going following 2019 as well.
Why is it that chatbots became so popular all of a sudden? The answer is pretty simple. Humans are born to socialize. When they interact with other humans, they feel like they’re being heard. Social networks kind of gave us an opportunity to be heard even more, and that’s why we like them so much. Talking to a chatbot is like having a basic conversation with another human. We like having conversations, so that’s why we like chatbots.
Moreover, chatbots are a pretty cheap alternative to customer support. Everything regarding them can be done by your developers during working hours, and you don’t need to have 24/7 customer support staff anymore.
MyClever, Drift, Salesforce, and SurveyMonkey Audience partnered up to conduct chatbot research. This research showed that 69% of consumers prefer chatbots in their communication with brands. What is more, 35% of them believed that chatbots are a better and quicker way to answer complex questions compared to applications. This is the field where most of the digital marketing trends are shaped.
Consumers like video content
Cisco forecasts predict that by 2021, the video will make up 82% of all Internet traffic. This means that consumers really like video content, and the number of hours they spend watching videos will keep increasing.
This can be also confirmed by the fact that YouTube is the world’s second most popular social network and that 73% of all Americans engage with YouTube. A lot of these YouTube videos are created with marketing purposes and show a video ad before or after the video.
The popularity of video content on other social media is increasing as well. 82% of Twitter users watch video content on the platform, while 40% of Instagram’s one billion users are creating video content via stories on a daily basis.
Live videos are one of the biggest trends when it comes to internet video. Cisco also predicts that by 2021, live video is going to make up 13% of total video traffic.
There are several reasons why video is so popular among users. First, it makes you original. Even if you have a script, something unexpected can always come up and make it even more interesting. Second, you can bring more value to customers with educational videos. This way, you can build trust with your customers, without only focusing on direct sales. Third, video marketing explains it all. Users are busy and they don’t have the patience to read a whole text. Watching a video takes up much less time, giving much more information.
Voice searchers are taking over the throne
The growth of voice recognition has brought us the increasing popularity of voice searchers. Smart speaker shipments grew nearly 200% YOY in Q3 2018, with Amazon and Google shipping the biggest number of devices. Moreover, 55% of households are expected to own a smart speaker device by 2022, which is 42% more than what we had at the beginning of 2019.
The advancements of AI and natural language processing have played a significant role in the increased popularity of voice searchers. However, this is a whole new world for marketers, who need to optimize their content to be first when it comes to voice searchers. The reason for this is the difference between search engines, which show several search results, and voice searchers, which normally give only one result. This means that you really need to be on the top to rule voice searching.
Why is voice searching spreading so fast? Because it’s much easier than turning on your computer or smartphone to type in something to search. You can do something else while telling your smart speaker to search. Furthermore, it’s much faster – some people type slowly, so their searching process lasts longer.
It looks like digital marketing trends are rapidly changing. We have new trends and new technologies every year. We need to be flexible to adapt to these changes and remain close to customers, beating the competition. One thing remains the same. You still need bright talent that will understand these technologies and get the most of them.
