The eventful year of 2017 is at the brink of extinction. In two months, we won’t have the constant four-digit attached to our dates, nor will we have the moment that we have long crossed. Looking back, what will remain with us the trendiest of the trends that stuck by on the vast portal of digital marketing and will continue to inspire us in all our strategies.
Digital Marketing is constantly evolving. We have travelled a long journey from Yahoo to YouTube, and we will continue to do so in future. The year started abuzz with the predictions of digital marketing’s demise high in the market. However, from social media to search engines, they all saw a rise in its users. Enumerated in today’s blogs are the trends that had us shook in the year 2017.
Big Data
Big data has gradually become the base of all constructions. Be it behavioural analysis of target audience or an extracted insight on engagement, big data ruled the world with its efficacy. There were instances (like Amazon’s Prime and Snapchat’s controversial comment) that highlighted the racism of this data-driven analysis, but marketers found a way around the loophole and continued to use this system heavily in their analysis structure.
Also, the predictions that were made earlier this year, very well stood true with the increased application of big data in the marketing funnel.
Content Marketing
The content was yet again crowned king by the digital users. Rightfully so, with the increase of available content on both social media and search engines, quality has become scarce. 2017 gave us some of the best available content in a market that was widely appreciated with high rates of engagement. The year also saw an increase in comedians and meme pages, which established that a pinch of humour will be voraciously consumed by the netizens.
Following the trend, many leading companies changed their content to make space for humour in it. The reason was to enhance the customer experience and hammer the nail at peak time.
Search Engine Optimization
The race to stay on top in the search list saw a cut-throat competition. Targeting the keywords was shifted to the second position and new methods of SEO (like compatible web design and fresh content) gained more traction. Also, with Google’s revised model of intolerance towards plagiarism and a distasteful eye towards keyword-rich content, gave way to the lesser-used off-site blogging.
Website development companies were also seen implementing newer responsive designs that were easier to load and SEO friendly
Social Media Marketing
The phrase “find your audience where they are” was widely incorporated by organizations. This saw a rise in jobs, as many companies preferred going with an in-house digital team. The Digital marketing agencies, that handle multiple accounts, witnessed the flood of relief with Facebook’s new ad policies and split testing models. While we are talking about Social Media, it would be notable to mention the revised version of Business Manager. Although accompanied by complexities, the Business Manager accounts enabled “almost” real-time tracking of engagement and applaud rate.
Social Media Marketing witnessed a tremendous increase in marketing budget on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. Snapchat became the newest addition in the field.
Video Marketing
Quality content saw an upgrade in the form of video marketing. From Facebook to Pinterest, every media platform included video in its UI with the increasing consumption of video content. These tactics were also applied on web designs where the organizations started incorporating videos in the background as well as on the front end interface to efficiently narrate a story to visitors without being fundamentally present.
The number of video bloggers increased, while YouTube took some serious measures to block obscene content and stupid channels. Video narratives were also used increasingly to market services and products in the form of a pre-video advertisement on YouTube
These were some leading trends in 2017 that influenced marketing strategies. We are rooting for new trends that will be witnessed by 2018. Feel free to comment if you think one or more disruptive trends got missed out in the article.