2018 Digital Highlights and What’s Next for 2019

Ready to take a trip down memory lane?

I’m not being overly dramatic here.

2018 was the biggest year yet for digital marketers and Internet users. New features, updates, and releases overwhelmed us.

From Yahoo! Messenger shutting to the launch of Instagram TV (IGTV), it was a huge challenge to adapt to these changes and make better strategies.

But hey, we survived!

2018 Digital Highlights

So why don’t we look back on the highlights that occurred in the world of digital marketing last year?

Almost everyone has gone mobile

Do you still remember our parent’s rants that we “use our smartphones too much”? Well, it’s true. No one can’t deny that we are becoming glued to our smartphones.

According to Facebook, 94% of social media users access their social networking apps on mobile. In that case, digital marketers should consider creating mobile-first content. For example, square and vertical sizes images for Facebook mobile newsfeed

Plunging of organic reach and referral traffic

When Facebook announced the changes to its algorithm last year, the Page’s organic reach plummeted down.

The new algorithm let us see what’s most important to us which are posts from our family and friends.

And when the organic reach is getting lower, the referral traffic goes down too. This is the result when fewer people see social media posts from business pages.

It means that social media is an engagement channel, not referral traffic.

Marketing became vocal – literally

The voice-response technology has rapidly emerged as one of the most disruptive forces to hit the industry in 2018 with the rise of Alexa and other voice-activated assistants like Siri (Apple) and Cortana (Windows).

Marketers were fighting hard for their brands to be mentioned by these digital assistant devices as one of the suggestion when a user inquires because these assistants only deliver one search result per request. So it became a challenge when it comes to marketers optimizing their content for voice search.

AR and AI

In 2018, machines have risen.

AR stands for Augmented Reality mixes augmented elements to a real-world view, thus creating added value to the users seeing it.

Our smart devices are getting powerful time after time and social apps have integrated with AR. Big brands incorporate AR to better engage with consumers.

On the other hand, AI stands for Artificial Intelligence. It was widely used by marketers as they found that it can be useful to them.

According to Hootsuite, there are over 100 thousand Messenger bots active on Facebook. The tech giant released its predictive analysis to help marketers find insights faster making the chatbots effective when engaging with a user.

Increased demand in micro-influencers

Celebrity endorsements are effective.

Big brands agree with this.

But what about a business that’s starting to build their following?

That’s where micro-influencer marketing comes in. With the power of a micro-influencer and a business/brand, they can form a tight-knit group of followers who are loyal to what they promote.

Plus, it’s a cheap alternative to celebrities so brands can allocate their budget to other marketing strategies.

The Verdict: 2018 was a rollercoaster ride digital marketers and I enjoyed it.

What’s next for 2019?

As early as now, we’re already going to face some challenges that will require us to act fast and do things right!

Defining the fine line between real and AI

Depending too much on AI and Chatbots is a big NO NO.

People who get in touch with you on Facebook knows so much about customer service. They know when they are talking to an AI or a real human.

If you your chatbot can create a seamless conversation with a customer, that’s better. But when the AI keeps on saying the same thing over and over again without progress, that’s when the customer will doubt if the brand really pays attention. Bottom line: Be careful with AI.

Creating contents fit to all mediums of digital marketing

This is a constant struggle for digital marketers throughout the years. How are you going to transform your ideas into campaigns that can perfectly fit into social media, IGTV and Youtube videos, PPC (Pay-per-click) efforts, and voice-based search?

That’s a tough one, isn’t it? But you don’t have to be alone in this one. Careful planning, dynamically collaborating with your colleagues, or thunder brainstorming is the first step.

Videos worth of the user’s time

A person’s attention span is increasingly shrinking as we know it. In fact, the attention span of a goldfish is already much longer than a human being. But don’t worry, social media users spend most of their time watching videos so you won’t lose a single viewer.

What you need to keep in mind though is the rule of thumb which is grabbing a user’s attention within the first 3 seconds.

Be controversial, create a cliffhanger, pique their interest; do whatever it takes to make a user keep their fingers off from scrolling away from your video.