The tricky part about digital marketing practices is that the trends keep on changing every year. The landscape is so dynamic that it often gets difficult for the marketers to stay relevant to the marketing needs of the time. However, it’s not just the consumer requirements that are setting the trends for the digital marketers. It is often the innovations of technology that are initiating the trends in the spectrum of digital marketing.
Here are 6 recent innovations in technology that are affecting the digital marketing scene in 2018 and beyond.
1) Artificial Intelligence:
What is the first thing that flashes in your mind when you hear the term “Artificial Intelligence”? Trust me, no one is going to be surprised if you say “AI apocalypse” in response. For years, Hollywood has filled our brains with some negative images about the whole concept of Artificial Intelligence. However, it has already entered the digital marketing domain and is making a significant impact on various industries.
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AI covers a broad spectrum of technology, even in the context of digital marketing. Primarily, it is being used for the meta-analysis of data sets, which is later used by the AI to make its own decisions. The application of AI in digital marketing is still at a nascent stage. However, it is just a matter of time before AI becomes the norm in digital marketing, owing to its increasingly accurate ability to analyze the behavior of the consumers.
2) Personal Digital Assistants:
Have you tried talking to the digital assistants on your phone? Well, it’s fun. Personal digital assistants like Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant have already gained massive popularity among the users, and for the most part, they deserve the attention. These AI-driven personal assistants have been designed specially to stay connected with the users on a personal level and assist them in their day-to-day lives.
The application of personal digital assistants is no longer limited to smartphones or tablets. Smart home devices like Amazon Echo and Google Home, which uses the same technology, have also received a huge appreciation from the market. According to Statista, the number of users for these personal digital assistants is going to reach1.6 billion by 2020. It won’t be wrong to assume that some innovations in this field are in order.
3) Social media is transforming:
Today’s digital marketers rely heavily on the social media, and why won’t they? Social media is where they get the most number of engagements. And to its addition, social media offers some amazing features which are often leveraged by the marketers for lead conversions. Over the years, social media have gone through several changes, and the experts believe that there is going to be a massive shift in the way social media functions.
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People are now spending more time on social media platforms. Interestingly, with the introduction of high-speed connectivity and smartphones with larger screens, people have become more interested in watching videos of social media platforms.
Facebook Live, Instagram live, Periscope and many other social media features have been introduced lately to comply with the video-watching trend. Also, the way advertising is taking over the social media platforms, it will be no surprise if you see innovation of new features in social media in the coming years.
4) Blockchain Technology:
Blockchain technology has created quite a buzz in the recent times, and by the looks of it, it is here to stay. The authors of the insightful book “Blockchain Revolution” (2016), Don Tapscott and Alex Tapscott describe blockchain as “an incorruptible digital ledger of economictransactions that can be programmed to record not just financial transactions, but virtually everything of value”.
Since it is not regulated, it offers the marketers a great opportunity to explore it right now. For businesses, this technology can help prevent frauds and ensure better security to customer transactions across industries.
Since it demonstrates a lot of potentials, it won’t be much of a surprise if blockchain technology is utilized by the marketers for brand building and customer loyalty programs. For the B2B brands, this can be really effective as they usually deal with larger transactions.
5) Voice Search:
We have already discussed how personal digital assistant is changing the whole search experience for the users. However, that’s only a part of the bigger picture. Voice search and speech recognition, which have now become significant parts of search engine optimization, is now being utilized as tools for brand building.
According to a study published on GoogleBlog reveals that more than 40 percent of the teens and adults use voice search on a daily basis, and the number is steadily growing. For marketers, it is no longer a choice, but an obligation to accommodate voice search in their SEO strategies to get the desired results from the market.
6) Chatbots:
Speaking of personal digital assistant, the AI-driven chatbots are also providing the users with the experience of “real conversation”. Now, this whole idea of chatbots has already caught the eyes of digital marketers, who are willing to improve user experience, leveraging the technology.With time, the chatbot technology is only going to evolve from here, and it won’t be wrong to believe that this will become a part of the average user experience in a year or two.
The application of brand-focused chatbots on social messaging platforms has already been quite successful, and it is only the beginning. The use of chatbots have already created a trend in the domain of digital marketing, and to stay on top of this incoming trend, marketers need to learn more about its application. Also, for the marketers who rely heavily on the social media activities, this technology is going to be a game-changer.
As you may realize, these trends have already started to affect the digital marketing scene, and as the market gets more competitive, marketers need to prepare their strategies based on these trends. While the innovation of technology is affecting the digital marketing practices, it is also quite evident that the innovation in technology is also being driven by the digital marketing needs.
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