Digital marketing is a highly dynamic field. New trends emerge almost weekly, with novel solutions and fresh highways to conversions being the name of the game.
If you want to keep your head above the water in digital marketing, you’ll need to keep a close eye on trends and new developments.
Let’s see some of the predictions for the following year.
A committed relationship between an influencer and a brand
There are very few digital marketers that don’t hire the services of an influencer at all. Social media influencers are a very strong tool to boost your brand. Here’s why.
- An influencer increases brand awareness.
An influencer's biggest asset is their audience. It’s what they bring to the table – a dedicated following that’s already been built and is receptive to the message they are being sent.
Typically, a digital marketing agency will contact an influencer for product placement, brand endorsement, and mentions on social media. Their following then becomes a pool of prospective clients for the brand.
By lending their social media platform to their clients, influencers help marketers immensely when it comes to increasing brand awareness.
- An influencer builds trust and authority.
Influencers, the good ones at least, have an intimate relationship with their following. A good influencer will put building trust and authority with their following as their top priority.
That is why when an influencer endorses a product, their followers’ sense of trust and intimacy makes the ad or product placement much more believable, thus much more likely to convert.
A digital marketer uses the trust and rapport the influencer built with their community. Instead of just being force fed an ad they can’t skip, the audience receives a message from a trustworthy source.
This is one of the great powers of using influencers in digital marketing.
- An influencer has built a niche audience.
You could go to a macro influencer that covers a wide range of topics and caters to a huge, unmanageable crowd.
The other route is going through a niche influencer. Let’s say you’re trying to sell kitchen knives. Finding a food influencer with a small but loyal following can actually garner more conversions.
Small influencers usually have an intimate relationship with their following that really cares about the content they create. That means you’re much more likely to encounter a real foodie that has a chance of purchasing your product (in this case, kitchen knives) if you go through a small influencer.
Hiring an influencer means reaching your target audience more consistently and truthfully.
- Connecting to a broader market.
Targeting a niche audience via an expert influencer in some fields has its benefits. They have a small, focused following that is interested in a certain niche.
On the other hand, reaching out to a social media influencer who has a large following has its rewards in the sheer numbers they bring.
You’re much more likely to reach and convert a totally new customer by using a large influencer.
Influencer marketing is not a new invention by any stretch of the imagination. However, the writing on the wall seems to suggest that this avenue of digital marketing will continue to gain momentum and weight as time goes by.
Video based content and TikTok
We’ve had Facebook as a start. Then we had Instagram for the images. Twitter for the zingy one-liners. The numbers show that 2023 will have TikTok as its guiding light – video based content is here to stay.
Available in more than 150 countries and with a membership estimated to grow to 2 billion by the end of 2022, TikTok is the planet’s best, attention grabbing promotional tool.
Video marketing has become so influential that other social networks are retrofitting short video capabilities on their own platforms.
Having some sort of video content to post on all of these platforms will be paramount in 2023. If you’re a brand owner, make sure you pair up with a marketing agency that is video savvy.
If you’re a digital marketer and still don’t have a dedicated, in-house video content team – what are you waiting for? Snarky taglines and well-written copy is still a basic fundamental, but if you want your client’s message to really resonate, you need to put it in video form.
User generated content
The old world marketers used to say that word of mouth is the best type of advertisement. This adage still holds true in the form of user generated content.
Take the #ootd trend on TikTok and Instagram as an example. You have people showing off their outfits and listing what they are wearing today. As an apparel brand, this is the best type of word of mouth marketing you can garner.
The holy grail of every marketing agency is creating a viral trend that the general public takes and makes global. This is, perhaps, the most difficult task to achieve, as nobody really knows the formula for a viral hit.
While creating a viral trend cannot be planned for, incentivizing your audience to create content that showcases your product is an immensely valuable digital marketing strategy. This will probably remain true for the duration of the decade and will definitely still be true in the year 2023.
Voice search SEO
According to Google reports, more than a quarter of the global population uses voice search. While regular SEO optimization can bring results in the text based queries, voice search SEO strategies are becoming more and more important.
Specializing in voice search SEO means adopting new tactics and strategies.
Content needs to be written in a more conversational tone. Long tail keywords are back in. Persona-based content that answers commonly asked questions is a good recipe for this.
Turning your attention to mobile and local SEO is the name of the game. People usually search for local businesses in their vicinity, information about traveling from point A to point B, and other things tied to their location. Keeping this in mind while creating content is the path to success.
An emphasis on green and socially aware thinking
Ecological awareness while building a brand is a must. More and more consumers, especially the younger generations, are becoming acutely aware of climate change and plant preservation.
So if you want your brand’s message to resonate with contemporary audiences, including some sort of green message, trend or aspect to your product placement is crucial.
Recyclable packaging. Inclusive marketing campaigns. Insisting on a sustainable product. Raising awareness for minority groups of all kinds.
These are all ways a brand can give back to its community while also sending the correct message to their prospective customers and clients.
Conclusion
Digital marketing is almost a redundant phrase. All marketing is digital. And as technology advances, new avenues in digital marketing are being opened up in a regular manner.
Keeping your ear to the ground is the name of the game. With a bit of effort, you can easily discover a trend wave while it’s still forming, catch it while it’s new and small and ride it out to you or your clients’ advantage.
Influencer marketing and social media seem to be here to stay. However, who knows what kind of trend will come up next? That’s the beauty of this business – being forced to always be in the know and be quick on your feet.
