2019 Digital Marketing Trends
As technology continues to evolve and expand, consumers’ expectations do too. Some of the biggest challenges digital marketers’ face in the new year are speed and creativity. The digital environment is on the continual shift upward in keeping content fresh and personalized to consumers and brands must keep in mind the expectations of the tech-savvy audience they are reaching.
Consumers expect everything to load fast! A January 2018 study showed only 1 in 3 people are accessing Facebook on a laptop or desktop, compared to 95% who access Facebook through a smartphone. However, conversion rates are still better on laptops than smartphones.
Why? When smartphones do not load the content fast enough, users exit out of the ad or website before it fully loads. Research shows 53% of people will leave a mobile landing page if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load. Brands must keep this in the back of their minds when they’re creating mobile ads and campaigns. It doesn’t matter how eye-catching or compelling the content is if the consumer doesn’t have the time or patience to load it. Companies and brands should make it their 2019 goal to make all content not only mobile friendly, but quick to load as well.
Facebook Instant Experiences is a new feature that advertisers who use Facebook Business Manager should test. This ad format allows marketers to create a quick version of a customizable landing page that will load right within the Facebook app! Brands can include videos, pictures, lead generation forms and retarget using pixels. The experience is easy to create from a marketing standpoint and seamless for users. Facebook users have and continue to see more ads taking place right within the Facebook platform. This creates a positive experience for users who don’t want to wait; and generates a higher conversion rate for advertisers.
Instagram continues to be one of the most influential platforms in 2019 with about 1 billion active monthly users and 400 million Stories users. In 2018 there was a big emphasis on Stories that continues to grow in 2019. Facebook (Instagram’s parent company), consistently rolls out new features for brands to utilize, such as product tags for shopping. Using the Stories feature, creates a more personal experience to build relationships with target audiences. To maximize engagement and Instagram Stories’ full potential, test features like stickers, GIFs, polls, and more.
Video ads are also predicted to increase in 2019. Video traffic has already consumed most of our search results and social media feeds, but it will continue to grow. Optimize your videos for a mobile format and include captions so that your content can easily be consumed with or without sound.
The continual digital shift has not taken away the importance of content marketing. Content marketing is the key to your digital marketing strategy! However, focus on quality over quantity and publish content more strategically this year. It isn’t all based on publishing content excessively.
Be aware of these social and digital trends and adapt! Think outside the box, be authentic and build your own brand personality.
A quick summary of some of the forecasted 2019 trends:
- Make sure your website is mobile-optimized and loads quickly! This is a must for any marketer.
- Facebook and Instagram will continue to be the most influential advertising platforms. Take advantage of using stories to ensure a personal experience for users giving your content personality.
- Get creative with your content and think outside of the box using Facebook Experience and video to stay fresh.
- The way consumers search is changing, add contextual language and longer keywords to raise your rank for voice search terms.
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