Most Interesting Digital Trends and Tools 2018

While doing research. I found that most of website or brand offical site are using huge images and videos deliver stunning on homepages. That is an effective way to attract viewers. This way company products or services are clearly show on the image. Also the whole homepage looks clean and organized. For example, if you check the Nike offical homepage you can see some huge images.

In the QuickSprout, I find out that the number four is "Brands are taking advantage of paid advertisements". My opinion is that there are more and more brands begin to use famous stars or models to "advertise". For example, many young people would go to Instagram to learn how to dress well. If their favourite stars post photos that they wear Puma shoes (which is my brand), their fans would really google those shoes and buy it. The fashion is always lead by famous stars and models. 

While doing research on this I've noticed that are so many ways to use social media to drive traffic. During my homework 4 assignment, I found ways to utilized twitter by using hashtags and trends to help keep your name in the mix all the time. Partnering with accounts that have large followings can help you advertise to audiences all over the board. This can be a huge jump start tool for expanding your marketing campaigns online. Social media gives you more chances to be creative with what you are trying to do. 

I've read a comment on this already, but I can't help but agree. I think the most interesting trend in 2018 has been the depth of filters on Instagram, Snapchat, and other platforms. They've come so far in the past year, and the detail and ability for these filters to find faces and other objects and fit the details to them is amazing. It might not be super useful in everyday life, but it really is interesting.

With the majority of this years (2018) trends being seen throughout social media. I can't help but think that this is a brand's best way of reaching their target audience. After spending some time thinking about it, I came up with the idea of marketing through the popular game of fortnite. Not only fortnite, but maybe through twitch streaming as well. These methods may not be those of traditional ways, but the amount of viewers/subscribers that these webpageshave are mindblowing. A good example being the popular streamer, "Ninja" who has managed to go from playing halo in his basement, to being asked to guest star on commercials and other such media platforms. Although I wouldn't want to follow his same methods, I think that doing something similar could be a potential gold mine.

In reference to the montoring KPIs and other website traffic, I spoke on the montoring of something called social sentiment. This is something that I find to be highly unique and compelling due to the fact that is is becoming one of the single most important entities to consider when running a corporation. Especially a social media corporation. Social sentiment is a concept in which consumer feelings toward a given business are reported and monitored. Whether they be positive, negative, or even sometimes neutral. This metric can be conducted through an online survey, questionnaire, or company inquisitve email. In my assignment, I suggested that Facebook begin becoming more mindful of the observance of their public social sentiment. Especially given their recent scandal they faced in which private data sharing arrangements with over 60 different phone manufacturers were made. After such a headline, it may be in the best interest of the corporation to consider more action in regaining more generally positive feelings from the public, but perhaps most importantly, the people's trust. With that being said, i believe that social sentiment is becoming the most important montorting tool they need in driving traffic and business growth.

Social media now becomes more and more important in people’s daily life, especially youths. More than half of youths use social medito to build a special social network. For them, the definition of social is totally change because of it. Thus, brands start to real this truth and try to build their own social pages to advertise themselves. Moreover, they also interact with their potential customers and hold activity on the social media as well to build brand loyalty. However, in my opinion, social media is still developing  will be the main trend in 2018, because of its influence on people. It uses special technology to change people’s common sense of social, and give everyone the chance to show something about themselves. It reduces the cost of socializing and also offers the platform. Everything is based on people, and social media is people itself. That’s why I think social media will still be important trend in 2018.

One of the trends that I've seen in 2018 that I find very interesting is the amount of texting analytics and trending data found on companies.  Through the texts found in blogs, social media, and other sharing sights--more and more companies are harvesting this data for companies.  One specific site that I saw is https://infegy.com/infegy-atlas where companies can see how the expectations, the costs and the quality all influence customers.  Additionally, it can segment the data down to who is producing the data: by gender, age, income, country, and other demographics.  Most importantly, it can go as far to give data on what the users value such as sentimental content and passion.

In my opinion, the most interesting trends and tools that I found in 2018 would be just how far filters have gone on Facebook and Snapchat. I know this has been a recurring trend in the past years, but it seems more recently that filters have gone to a whole new level.Now a days filters can put your face on someone else's, you can become any animal you've ever wanted or even purchase your own filter for a birthday, wedding or any other celebraton through Snapchat. You can also play games such as tic tac toe on the filters now. The reason I bring up this trend is yes, it is very fun to use all of these different filters to send pictures to friends, but these filters can also do a lot of good as well. I interened on the Purina brand at Leo Burnett this summer and got to learn a lot about what other pet brands were doing social media wise to "out brand" their competition. When looking at what Pedigree did with creating their own Facebook filter, you can really see the good that social media can do. With this filter you basically can put a dog's face on your own, and if you like the dog you can simply nod your head and it will automatically take you to multiple dogs that look like this in shelters around your area. The Adoptable Face Mask encourages people to get in touch with these animals that need to be saved while also creating great publicity for their brand. I don't see the Snapchat/Facebook filter trend dying out anytime soon and it's very interesting to see the filters go to good use.

Link to View Pedigree's Mask- https://www.contagious.com/blogs/news-and-views/pedigree-pic-of-the-litter

While researching digital marketing methods throughout this class, I've found that quality video is one of the fastest growing and successful techniques out there. However, I hadn't thought to explore tools within this genre of content until now. My initial search yielded a promising contender for one of the top video marketing tools of 2018.

This tool is called nFusz, which claims to be the "first interactive video-based CRM," or customer relationship management system. It not only allows you to track customer engagement with content on your website, but it can also *create* engagement by allowing your audience to respond to calls of action within the video, while keeping it rolling on your brand's website. Easily customizable with "full analytics," it gives your customers the option to shop the items directly advertised in the video on your site, make appointments as they watch the video through its interface, and connect to live customer service by interacting with buttons in the video. I think this is something really special that could spice up any type of video content on a brand's landing page!

One of the largest changes I have seen in 2018 regarding technology is in the privacy and security of personal information while using applications or websites. Not only was there the whole Facebook debacle, but I have seen so many emails with "New Policy" in the headline, and commercials stating how much safer our information will be with the changes that are now being implemented.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4zd7X98eOs

I think one of the most interesting tools I have came across while doing my research on digital marketing methods is Google Adwords. Being able to martket your business to your target market simply through bidding on the right keywords is awesome. I've also learned about how search results become listed as priority and what it means when a website results has a "Google Ad" certification below it.  

It's not obscure and interesting but Goolge My Business is the most important tool for companies to improve their online presecne and it's often neglcected. It's a free profile on the world's most popular website yet some people never bother claiming it. For anyone with a company, claim it, update it weekly and add pictures that are stragetically labeled. Large food and retail companies do a poor job taking advantage of it becuase corporate usally claims all of the locations and they do little to optimize individual locations. They usually do not allow franchisees to manage them. A lot of small businesses don't know about it, or they do not take full advantage of it. For staying on top of current trends Neil Patel is awesome.

The thing that I want to introduce is that I know about and interesting, even very surprised in this year, is the "UBER EATS." It is very an interesting function for uber. Generally, we all know that uber is another way of taxi, like you can have more options to take taxi, for example, you can share your uber with others, and then the transportation cost will be lower, however, the drivers will gain more from “uber pool.” Why I know about the experience is that I have been take uber for a short time, and the driver told us that he is very happy to do this job with salaries from driving uber. However, everything is changeable, the uber begin combining the “take out” and uber together. It will show people that we do not only have only one function to do, but also for others. It will let your life fill with uber, just imagine, you go out for work by uber in the morning and enjoy your take-out food when you back home. It seems that much convenience for everybody. In the winter, you will not need to go out for your dinner, it is freezing outside. But the uber will do help to you. Uber is not only the uber. 

The most interesting trend and tool I found for 2018 is google analysis, because I had been taken couple ADV high level classes, not only I notice how powerful google analysis is, but also I have the chance to use it, by actual using it for some clients in my ADV class. Google analysis is a very great tool for people to track website’s traffic, and it is free for everyone to use, from the website tracking we can see a lot of information, for example like things to improve or make progress. By using it, I notice it is really great and can make convenience for a lot of people, and also really enjoy using it too.

I think Google trends is one of the most helpful digital marketing tools today. This can help with anything from validating a new idea for a business venture or even creating a campaign for your business. This tool is like a “cheat sheet” for marketing.

I think one of the most interesting digital trends of 2018 is the further development of AI technologies. One example of AI usage for business purposes is the development of non-human customer service support. With the implementation of AI, many companies have been able to provide excellent and reliable customer service to their shoppers online. Thus AI has been great for online stores, a reason being that it saves them money by removing the need to hire another person. 

Through out this course, while preparing for some of the assignments I stumbled across the tool buzzsumo. Buzzsumo details the total engagements any topic, company or brand you type into their search bar. Buzzsumo also breaks down the total engagements into Facebook engagements, Twitter shares, Pintrest shares, number of links and Reddit engagements, all while showing the mutiple stories that your topic or brand could have been involved in. Buzzsumo is a one-stop-shop into viewing how engaging somthing is for your company/brand accross several platforms in one convenient click. 

One very interesting digital marketing trend I’ve been seeing just from following many social media influencers is the use of small-scale, private Facebook groups. While this isn’t a wacky or mind-blowing tactic, it’s interesting to me because this is what the influencers are using for content now instead of public blogs, etc. This seems like a great new way to keep those extra interested fans in “the know” while making them feel closer to the influencer and their brands they work with. I’ve included a screenshot below of a popular influencer, Shaaanxo’s Facebook group. It has 50,000 members as opposed to the 3M likes she has on her normal, public Facebook page. She uses this closed group to endorse her own makeup line, XO Beauty, while also providing different types of content like lists and memes.

While studying in this course I stumbled upon a program called VWO or Visual Website Optimizer. I do not know much about it but its basically the "God-Level" tool to use for tracking and improving your websites. 

While completing my AdWords mobile certification, I was very interested to learn about the ways in which an app and a mobile site are different, yet they can work together to drive your business. There are also many cool ways to use extensions to drive business with Adwords mobile. Overall, I think Adwords is great, it looks to be extremely effective while also being really easy to use.