25 Jan 2018 Marketing Advice from a CEO

As Spark Boutik came to fruition at the turn of a calendar year, it’s with great joy that every year we pause and appreciate the progress of another year. It is also the chance to appreciate all of the changes that took place in the year past, as well as all the excitement that lays ahead with the changes that are coming — in this ever evolving space of digital marketing.

Looking back on the years, I can remember the days when such changes were things like: Facebook banning the Like Gate on business pages;Instagram adding video; and Twitter allowing you tag multiple people in a picture eating up all the 140 characters…Yes, remember when Twitter had 140 characters? Ha!

As we head into 2018, Facebook is still changing, you don’t have to type to search and new social platforms continue to emerge into the market. We look forward to some of the biggest digital marketing trends coming in 2018.

Facebook News Feed Change

Years ago, Facebook was highlighted for their focus on news and being the source for news.
Focus more on bringing people together and more emphasis on more personal and meaningful content, Facebook’s algorithm is changing again.

This year Facebook will value the content of your friends, commenting and writing a long-form posts will jump to the top of your News Feed. Will this change in Facebook algorithm favouring sociable posts mean we see the “young people” come back to facebook? My prediction is probably not because they still don’t want to hang out with their aunts, uncles, parents and bosses, but we’ll see.

What this means for 2018:

• Be prepared to buy and spend for that exposure and awareness, to reach those not organically engaging and commenting with your content
• Simply creating content and sharing it will no longer work as well as it once did
• You need to build better content to strive for good engagement.

Voice Search

Over the holiday we saw an abundance of Amazon ECHO and Google HOME ads and sales. More than ever we are seeing a movement into VOICE activated devices. In addition, there’s an increasing trend of individuals utilizing mobile phone voice search capabilities (ie. Siri searches, voice texting, etc.). This movement is having a huge impact on how we plan our SEO strategies. Since 2013, speech recognition has improved by 20 percent. The overall process of using these features is less frustrating and more accurate. Now dedicated voice command devices are becoming more standard in households.

What this means for 2018:

• Create more thorough and compelling content that answers common questions and addresses barriers users may have with your product
• Adopt more long tail keywords. Truly think about the various ways your ideal customers search
• Use SCHEMA
• Must be optimized for mobile
• Create more pressure for top positions and more local results

Video Advertising

Approximately 52 percent of marketing professionals around the world believe video provides the best ROI. In addition, 43 percent of consumers say they want to see more video content on their feeds. Look at your social feeds lately–in a few swipes the increase of video ads will become obvious.

What this means for 2018:

• Invest in video creation
• Put ad dollars behind your video content
• Increase use of live video features across all channels

Personalization

In 2018, consumers expect personalized digital experiences. Strategic segmentation and email marketing can help craft the customer journey. In a Spark Boutik Saturday episode end of last year, we spoke about buyer personas. To ensure your audience is getting the personal connection they desire with your brand, having defined buyer personas and a solid brand voice is essential.

What this means for 2018:

• Chat Bots—utilizing learning algorithms to service and meet the demands of customers
• Dark Social—when someone is sharing your content off social media platforms via email, messaging apps, and secure browsing, it is impossible to track with your regular web analytics. In 2018, we look forward to new ways of tracking outbound sharing.
• WeChat—it is amazing how much you can do within this platform. With Toronto continually voted among the most multicultural cities in the world, WeChat is very much on the radar.

This year shows many promising digital marketing trends. My advice to entrepreneurs and business owners? Invest in your content development team and ensure you are getting the RIO you need. To book your free consultation, contact the Spark Boutik team today.