top 5 marketing trends to watch out for in 2018

We are living in a fast – paced digital world that is constantly changing the marketing techniques we use. Below we have listed 5 marketing trends that we believe you should keep an eye out for in 2018!

1. Rise in influencer marketing

• While paid advertisements can be a powerful marketing method over the last year we have seen a huge rise in influencer marketing. In fact a recent survey conducted by the customer acquisition firm fluent actually found that 69% of all snap chat users skip the ads. Yes you heard that right! Advertisers have now clocked on to this fast growing trend and they have learned new ways to spend their buck.  The most popular way this can be done is by collaborating with celebrities also known as influencers. Some advertisers are willing to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds to these popular social media influencers in order for them to post about their brand.

2. AI focused content

• Artificial intelligence is no longer just a narrative used in sci-fi films. In fact in 2015 Gartner predicted by 2018 that AI would be responsible for 20% of all content produced. With the rapid advancements in AI, this prediction sounds fairly accurate.  I mean we’re in 2017 and an AI system has already composed a full musical album. Then you have Albert, which is an artificial intelligence marketing platform that provides autonomous digital media buying for you. Imagine having an AI system do it all for you? Sounds like a dream come true!

3. Live stream and video content will blow up!

• When it comes to content, videos and live streams have the highest engagement rates. Unlike a written post, videos and live streams are far more interactive. On average, videos get 135% more exposure in comparison with images and written posts.  This is no surprise of course.  In the majority of cases videos are interactive and engaging therefore people tend to choose this instead of reading. For this reason alone more marketers and brands are investing more money into video creation and live content.

4. Social Publishing

• The majority of social media pages act as just a content distribution platform however that is slowly starting to change. LinkedIn has served as a social publishing platform for a long time as it allows people to publish articles however it’s the social media giant Facebook who has really kicked it up a notch. The leading social media network opened up a publishing tool last year called Instant articles. At first it had little success however now it’s receiving a third of all link clicks on the site. The number is predicted to rise significantly again in 2018 once more publishers and businesses adopt the tool. Following on from Facebook, Snapchat has now introduced a feature that allows snappers to add links to their snaps and opens them in the application with a simple swipe function.

5. 360 degree visuals

• Virtual reality is by far the largest trend that is being used within marketing. The VR market is projected to reach $162 billion USD by 2020. 2017 has been filled with tons of amazing 360 degree adverts, games and even music videos! With the use of a VR headset it allows the user to actually step into an interactive virtual world which is something that no other marketing tools offer. A great example of this technology being used is the biscuit company Oreo.  To promote their new range of biscuits they actually created an animated virtual world that took users through an immersive environment of rivers filled with milk and chocolate. This 360° advert gained over three million views which indicates the campaign was a huge success.