Digital marketing trend predictions for 2018

The year 2017 has been a topsy-turvy year for the digital world. On the one hand, this year witnessed Instagram rising to new heights in terms of user engagement, and on the other, Facebook’s organic reach was revived with major tweaks.

The digital world also saw influencers becoming a big part of every brand’s media plan. With cheaper data plans, Indians started watching more videos than ever. So, the question is, what does 2018 have in store for the digital marketing industry? How can digital marketers, startup founders, and freelancers plan ahead for the year 2018?

Here are some digital marketing trend predictions for 2018:

Video will become bigger

Videos have become a major part of the digital world. With Facebook testing video monetisation like YouTube, it is clear that the trend is here to stay. Subscription video platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Voot etc have also witnessed an increase in viewership. All brands are adopting video ads, video storytelling, collaborating with video influencers, and what not. In 2018, if you are not up-to-date with video creation skills, you might be lagging behind.

Personal branding on social media by celebrities

This year saw several celebrities, including Shilpa Shetty Kundra, Malaika Arora Khan, Gauhar Khan, and many others, starting their YouTube channels. These channels are either in collaboration with media houses, or on an individual basis. They help celebrities merge this content with call to action with their clothing brands, Yoga CDs, etc. Increasingly, as actors such as Anushka Sharma and Deepika Padukone launch their clothing lines, this personal branding trend is bound to grow in 2018.

Storytelling by brands

It is becoming harder by the day to sell without a story. That trend will grow in 2018, and we could see more “BTS” or Behind the Scenes by big brands. If you are managing a brand, it would be great if you state candid facts about the brand, along with CTA posts. Recently, a letter and sharpeners for left-handed children designed by Hindustan Pencils (the brand which owns Nataraj and Apsara Pencils) went viral.

A mother of a left-handed four-year-old wrote on social media about the plight of the children to use the pencil sharpeners that are mostly made for right-handed children. The Group Marketing Manager responded with a letter, and five specially-designed sharpeners were sent to the lady’s home. Coming closer to a user, knowing their stories, and telling your own, will never go out of fashion. In fact, this is bound to grow in 2018.

Google might release voice search based SEO algorithm

With upcoming and new internet users preferring less written content and more visual and audio content, video search might take a concrete shape in 2018.

Currently, Google’s SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) algorithm largely depends on written content. However, with increasing video content and audio searches, Google might soon come up with an audio search-based SEO algorithm. Currently, video SEO is highly dependent on the tags, or descriptions being written along with the videos. However, in time, Google may start ranking videos based on their voice/video quality, similar to what it does to the written content.

Domination of advertisements on Instagram

The year gone by was the year of Instagram. The number of daily active users went up from 150 million per day in January 2017 to more than 500 million per day by the end of the year. Influencers, bloggers, and content creators found great opportunities to get found organically on the platform.

The Instagram ads platform has been active since a while, and the number of advertisers on Instagram ads has also been increasing rapidly.

That said, content creators have already started experiencing falling organic reach on Instagram. With post and story ads, Instagram is also heading towards an ad-driven platform. It is predicted, that this year, it will not be as easy as it was over the last few years to gain popularity on Instagram. Organic reach will see a decline, and content creators will have to work a lot harder to get noticed.

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of YourStory.)