Top 10 Digital Marketing Trends in a Social World

Millennials have never known the world without the Internet. Generation Z has grown up with social media. Nothing is more important to small businesses in today’s connected world than knowing, understanding and implementing social digital marketing trends. Here you can find a top 10 digital marketing trends you must know nowadays in order to be up to date with everything that happens in social media.

Top 10 Digital Marketing Trends in a Social World

1. Social Will Become the Next Internet

Social media have become an essential component of small business digital marketing strategies and will become even more important in the future. It’s not difficult to imagine the day when small business websites will have fully transitioned their marketing efforts to social.

2. Virtual Reality Will Open New Online Advertising Doors

Numerous virtual reality devices are scheduled to be released in the next few years. Many of these devices, too, will be integrated with social media channels, making it even more essential that small business digital marketing strategies stay abreast of the new media available to them.

3. User-generated Content Will be the Wave of the Future

Small businesses need to be prepared to give up their control of their brands’ marketing efforts. Social media posts, customer review sites, and blog sites will do much of their marketing for them, whether they want them to or not.

4. Video Ads Will Increase in Popularity

Small business digital marketing strategists will need to understand the various forms that video ads can take and which ads should go where. Bing, Facebook, and Google all allow paid video advertising and paid video ads on Google’s SERP pages have been in the works for the past two years.

5. Millennial-focused Small Businesses Will Change Their Tactics

Despite Millennials being the first Internet generation, they are no longer a niche youth demographic. Yes, they undoubtedly understand and use social media better than any other group and they have a lot of buying power, but Generation Z is right on their heels and quickly approaching the time when they’ll take over the youth market.

6. The Internet of Things (IoT) Will Mean Radical New Website Development

Business Insider defines IoT as the connection of devices (other than typical fares such as computers and smartphones) to the Internet and predicts that over 17 billion smart connected devices will be connected through the IoT by 2019. This presents an entirely new world for small business website development. Developers will need to scramble for upgrade solutions. Small businesses that have neither the time nor capability to keep up with and implement the quickly evolving technology will need to contract with a small business website company that can and will as part of their marketing strategy and site development services.

7. Wearable Smart Devices Likewise Will Change the Marketing Landscape

Small businesses will need to take smartwatches and other wearable devices into account in their marketing strategies. Online versus real marketing will become ever more blurred.

8. Data-driven Customer Engagement Will Reach New Heights

Small business digital marketing strategists will need to be adept at gathering, tracking, and analyzing massive quantities of customer data to develop meaningful, actionable, and effective ways of grooming potential customers and retaining existing ones.

9. Responsive Websites Will be a Necessity, Not an Option

When Google began rewarding mobile-friendly websites in 2015, responsive websites became mandatory. All remaining desktop-only small business websites will need to become mobile-friendly sites that display and work on the many devices that customers use today.

10. Voice Interaction Will Become Ever More Prevalent

Voice interaction is the most basic and comfortable methodology for consumers. Small business digital marketing strategists will need to develop ways to interact with customers and potential customers on such platforms as Amazon Echo and Alexa Voice Service.
When Bob Dylan sang “the times they are a changin'” 53 years ago, no one could have foreseen the enormous technological changes that have occurred in the past 10 years and continue to occur at a breathtaking rate. The importance of small business digital marketing will continue to grow with them.
See also: 24 Digital Marketing Predictions From Top Marketing Experts For 2017