Credits:

Author: Jerry Dischler

Source: https://www.blog.google/technology/ads/machine-learning-hands-advertisers

It’s criminal to ignore such a large audience, and brands already know that – they are not paying $40 billion for nothing. And that’s just money spent on social media advertising, not mentioning investments in other social media marketing tactics.

Social media keeps changing and evolving – and social media marketing has to evolve with it. There have already been a few major incidents this year that will undoubtedly affect social media marketing, the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the introduction of GDPR to name some. So, with the year 2018 half gone, let’s look at some emerging trends that you need to hop on right now.

Social listening

What is social listening?

Simply put, social media listening is an act of using a tool to listen to what is being said about a brand (or any other keyword or set of keywords) across social media and the web. It’s kind of like Google Alerts on steroids – and in this case, steroids are various extremely useful features such as analytics, sentiment analysis, influencer search and many others.

Why does it matter?

Social listening is becoming a must for any brand out there. It’s no longer enough to just monitor your @ mentions. According to a study by Brandwatch, 96% of the people that discuss brands online do not follow those brands’ owned profiles. So it’s highly probable that you’re missing about 90% of conversations revolving around your brand. What’s more, if you fail to respond to a mention, consumers will bail in 78% of the cases. This means that companies need to go beyond their own channels and monitor those unbranded conversations to gain valuable insights and manage brand health.

But it’s not just about tracking the mentions of your brand – you can use a social listening tool for almost any aspect of your business from product design to customer service to lead generation – you name it! The limit is your imagination. So if you’re not doing social listening yet, now would be a good time to start.

How to get started?

As I mentioned above, there are many ways to apply social listening.

Some of them may be prompted by the functionality of the tool you’re using – for example, the Awario social media listening tool identifies mentions with negative sentiment, which can be useful for customer support or crisis management. It also shows you the biggest social media influencers in a relevant field, so you can use this information for your influencer marketing campaigns.

The great thing about social listening is that you can customize the search process to suit your every need. Let’s say, you want to keep an eye on the industry you’re in – you set up an alert containing keywords relevant to this industry. Need to find new leads – set up an alert containing phrases that are often used when people seek advice about your type of product. Just do a little bit of research and make sure to choose a tool that has a flexible search mode, something likeBoolean search mode.

Influencer marketing

What is it?

I mentioned above that a social listening tool can help you find influencers, and I hope you got excited about that because influencer marketing is all the rage right now. If you haven’t dived into influencer marketing yet, you might think it’s all about celebrities plugging something with a corny tagline but I have to tell you – influencer marketing has come a long way since Michael Jordan was selling sneakers.

Imagine a situation: you need to choose a powerful SEO tool for link building. There are so many on the market and you don’t have much experience in this particular subject to be certain that you’ll make the right decision. But, a happy coincidence – there’s this blogger you follow on Twitter who writes about useful SEO hacks. You trust his advice so you’re naturally curious what kind of tools he uses, so you go to his Twitter to find out. Bingo – we have an influencer.

This is an extremely common situation. According to a survey by Collective Bias, 30% of consumersare more likely to buy a product recommended by a non-celebrity blogger. Consumers can relate more to these influencers and value their opinions more than that of celebrity influencers.

Why does it matter?

According to the report from 2016, businesses make $6.50 for every $1 spent on influencer marketing and 67% of marketers promote content with the help of influencers. And these numbers are only growing. Many brands name influencer marketing as one of the most effective tactics they use, and if you think about it, it’s only natural. If you like the content of a person you follow, you’re very likely to appreciate the same products they like. It’s like having a ready-made target audience!

How to get started?

The first step is, of course, to find influencers. You can do it manually – just by looking around and seeing who is producing content relevant to your product and has a following. Or you can use a social media listening tool to help you identify the influencers.

Then you need to establish a relationship with an influencer. This might seem like an optional step since it takes a bit of time, but I think it helps you to ‘win them over’ so to say. It’s kind of a courtship period when you learn more about them and their content, ‘like’ and retweet their posts and engage with them in the comments.

After that you can message them directly or send an email offering a collaboration. Find out their work process, how much creative freedom they need, etc. Depending on their reach, you can negotiate different conditions: a fixed fee, free products, a beta version of an unreleased product, some percent from the profit or just cross-promotion. And keep an eye on your social media stats after the job is done – analyze your mentions to see what worked and what didn’t to use this information in the future.

User-generated content

What is it?

As social media use is growing, the world becomes smaller, and word of mouth is once again the most effective marketing tactic– but now it has moved from a market square to the Internet. In its most simple form, UGC is any unpaid content that was created by your audience. From there, you can go to pictures, videos, personal stories, blog posts, etc.

Why does it matter?

The times when a pushy pitch was enough to sell something has long gone (if they ever were here at all). Nowadays consumers are looking for an authentic connection, they want to be a part of a community of like-minded people, not just another line in an annual report. Luckily, social media makes it very easy to create communities, and UGC is one of the best ways to do it. Take a look at Hootsuite: their #IWorkFromHere campaign, in which they encourage their clients to share pictures of their working place, got them 2.2 million more daily views, which translated into more than 2,000 new mobile users.

According to ComScore, brand engagements rise by 28% when consumers are exposed to a mixture of professional marketing content and user-generated content.

How to get started?

First things first, you need to identify what platform would be the most suitable for your campaign. Select something that is popular among your customers, but is also suitable for the type of campaign you’re planning.

Offer some kind of a reward. As willing as people are to share their opinions on the Internet, most of the time they need a little encouragement: a discount, a free service or anything else you might think of.

Be creative. Take this Hootsuite example mentioned above – their product is an app, so it would be difficult to promote it using visual content. But they knew that it is effective on social media. So they came up with an idea which combined beautiful pictures with topical content that emphasized one of their features (a mobile app).

But not too creative. When brainstorming your campaign, be reasonable – your ideas should not require too much effort from the customers, especially if the reward is quite modest.

Messenger marketing

What is it?

So you know how you get all these emails and occasional text messages from brands trying to sell you something? Well, messenger marketing is the next step. And if you just thought “But I hate those emails!” – messenger marketing is different. Studies show that messaging apps have open rates, read rates and CTRs as much as 10X those of email and SMS. So let’s see why it actually works.

Why does it matter?

There are three qualities which distinguish messenger marketing from traditional email and SMS marketing and therefore make it more effective.

First of all, you get messages voluntarily. Before sending a message, a marketer will need permission. Moreover, if you ever change your mind, it’s much easier to opt out — we all know how annoyingly difficult it can be to unsubscribe from a newsletter. As someone who works in marketing, you might be thinking that it doesn’t sound great, but I can assure you – this will filter out uninterested people and keep valuable prospects.

The nature of messenger apps makes your message short and straight to the point, which is greatly appreciated by customers who are used to fast content consumption.

We’ve already talked about the importance of authenticity for a brand – customers want to feel and engage rather than just buy. With messenger marketing, you’re not just sending out a plain notification, you’re starting a conversation, you’re giving the customer a chance to respond and make a connection. Relationships are the most valuable thing a brand can have, and messenger marketing allows you to build them easily.

How to get started?

Obviously, the first thing you’ll need to do is to find people who want to receive messages from you. You can do that by integrating links into your existing marketing channels such as websites, digital ads, social media pages or even billboards and print ads. You can also run a campaign specifically dedicated to bringing more people to start messaging with you.

Choose the tone and writing style appropriate to your brand and your audience. Don’t forget that you’re not just shouting your message into the great abyss – respond, communicate, engage and have fun with it. Message marketing can be demanding, but, luckily, you can use chat bots to help you out with it.

Ephemeral content

What is it?

Hiding behind such a poetic word, ephemeral simply describes any visual content that’s not permanent. By contrast to every marketer’s dream to create content which will last forever, ephemeral content is there for a limited number of hours. And again, you might be saying “That doesn’t seem like a good idea”, but the numbers say the opposite – Snapchat and Instagram stories have almost 450 million daily users combined.

Why does it matter?

The short-term life span creates a sense of urgency or, in other words, FOMO (fear of missing out). The fact that your content disappears in a day, makes people feel excluded if they miss your story or snap.

Moreover, this type of content gives viewers an opportunity to react almost immediately, which makes them feel seen. Not only do they feel respected by your company, but they get even more engaged in the present moment. It makes the connection between a brand and a viewer more real and authentic.

How to get started?

There are some peculiarities with every platform. Instagram Stories are perfect for a call to action since you’re able to put links in your stories. Snapchat is good for showing the behind the scenes of your business and building a community, or you can use it to get user generated content – the minimal requirements for content creation makes this platform perfect for UGC campaigns.

So those are the hottest trends that will shape the near future of social media marketing. If you think I forgot something, please tell me in the comments, let’s start a discussion!

Credits:

Author: Hanna Bredava

Source: http://www.sitepronews.com/2018/06/27/5-social-media-marketing-trends-that-will-dominate-2019/ 

At each of my last three keynote addresses, I was asked this simple question: “What do you think is going to happen with marketing in 2019?” It’s still only summer, but people are already trying to look ahead and see what’s around the curve. And I understand why: The world is changing a mile a minute, and it’s hard to scale, differentiate yourself, and maintain trust in the ever-changing marketing world. The more you can plan ahead, the better equipped you feel to manage those changes when they happen.

Here are some midyear thoughts about what you need to keep an eye out for in 2019:

1. People are putting more trust in others they know and reputable content, not ads.

We knew years ago that people were running away from traditional ads. A Nielsen study from 2015 showed that the top four most-trusted sources of advertising were: people you know, branded sites, editorial sites, and reviews. Ads are near the bottom of that list, and that fact hasn’t really changed.

In fact, 30 percent of all internet users are expected to be using ad blockers by the end of this year, meaning traditional ads now won’t even reach 30 percent of possible target audience members. So, does this mean marketers should abandon ads completely? Not necessarily.

I honestly feel there’s still a place for some ads, but they have to be more relevant and valuable to the consumer. This is why we see more money going to content marketing, influencer marketing, referral partnerships, and other methods that are designed to deliver actual value to audiences. This shift isn’t going to stop until ads start being more valuable for the consumer.

2. Creativity, not conformity, will set successful marketers apart.

People have been saying for a long time that print is dead, but I recently came across a company that used software to obtain physical addresses for clients and started sending them print newsletters. Imagine that. In the age of MailChimp and HubSpot, this company went against the grain and spent extra money to do it the old-fashioned way. I was also surprised to find that its campaign was extremely successful — but why?

Simply put, everybody else had gone digital, and this company saw an opportunity to do something different. Now, I’m not advocating that businesses should try to resurrect print marketing or do something only because it’s uncommon and not because it resonates with their audiences. But they should consider integrated campaigns and creative distribution tactics that focus on ways to engage audience members that their industry competitors might not be considering.

3. Winners won’t be concerned with internal barriers.

In my first point, I talked about the need to create engaging content rather than just advertisements. This engaging content doesn’t just help marketing. It can enable your sales team and be beneficial to recruiting, investor communications, internal training, and just about every other area of your business, too.

Every time I do a keynote presentation, I have people come up to me and say “John, we just can’t do this stuff! There’s too much red tape with other departments.”

My response? Companies that put up barriers between departments will fail in the long run. Leading companies are built on departments that work together. Creating engaging content isn’t just a marketing concern. Great content can fuel other parts of the company, resulting in better talent, lower costs, and improved relationships with investors.

4. Understanding how your customers communicate is vital.

Technology has evolved tremendously over the last several years. Recently, my 4-year-old daughter picked up my old Timex watch. After playing with it for a few minutes, she discovered that the face of the watch lit up when she pushed a button on the side. She grew excited and told the watch: “Call Grandma Hall!” Needless to say, my mother’s face did not appear on my aged Timex, which disappointed her greatly.

Customers aren’t unlike my daughter. They expect that companies will communicate with them in the ways they like. That’s why it’s so important for marketers to be aware of their customers’ communication preferences.

Experts out there are making some big predictions about how customers will operate in the future. Some analysts say they think close to 50 percent of all searches will be made through voice search by 2020. I’m not sure how accurate predictions like this really are, but I do know that my daughters and the generations that will come after them are growing up in a world where smartwatches and smart speakers are the norm.

5. Helpfulness and authenticity will combat relationships lost through tech and automation.

There’s no stopping marketing automation and technology. These advances help marketers scale more effectively, make better decisions, and save money. However, these advances sometimes come at the expense of the relationships those same marketers have typically built with members of their audience.

Although automation might cover basic tasks, it’s important to do your best to add a personal touch or offer direct help when possible. I was recently speaking to some contacts at a consulting company that had done an amazing job scaling marketing communication, but they still made a rule to visit their clients in person once every year to see how they could be helpful or improve the relationship and get to know the people better. They said that when they do this, the clients stay longer and spend more money.

These are just five trends to look out for as you think ahead for the end of this year and into the next. Remember, there’s not a single “right way” to build a marketing strategy, but these five tips can help you achieve any marketing goal.

Credits:

Author: John Hall

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnhall/2018/06/17/5-marketing-trends-to-pay-attention-to-in-2019/#6b549bf60f71

Only those who master all disciplines will be successful. Even in 2018, search engine optimization will neither be a rocket science nor a science. Everyone can learn search engine optimization. Especially, If you can find a chance to join an excellent seminar such as the SEO Conference then you will understand better in this field. But for this moment

We would like to elaborate the top 5 SEO opportunities for 2018-2019:

Mobile First Index

The outcry was great when Google announced that the Mobile First Index will be the leading SEO factor in the future. Based on the usage figures, this is just a logical step. However, Google has further extended the deadline for the announcement and will not be implemented it until 2018. Google now offers a tool to check the mobile website. Google has also announced that Google AdWords will be able to check the mobile Friendliness of the landing pages.

With the Mobile First Index, Google is putting the smartphone at the center of search engine optimization. The notorious “mobile-first indexing” is all about getting the mobile version of a website into the Google index. This has a significant influence on the rankings.

Mobile first does not mean mobile only! Webmasters who do not have a mobile-friendly version of their website still have the option of indexing their desktop version on the site. However, one must also assume in this case that previous rankings slip in this case and less visibility.

Voice search optimization

The market research company Comscore expects that by 2020, every second search query will be made by voice. In search engine optimization, voice search is the next big thing. On May 18, 2016, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in his Google I / O keynote that 20 percent of all requests within the mobile app on Android devices are voice searches.

Before we come to concrete SEO measures for the voice search optimization, we must briefly acquaint ourselves with the basics. Even before there was a voice search, Google had provided, among other things, a major update for the basis of the voice search: the Hummingbird update.

With the Hummingbird update, Google also took into account the user’s intention and the contextual meaning of a search query. This path will be followed up in language search and built on.

Today Instead of typing keywords, we talk to the language assistant. At the Microsoft Build Developer Conference in 2016, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella stated that:

“Human language is the UI layer”

It is obvious that spoken language is usually more extravagant than manually typed searches, especially on a mobile device, where the input is a bit more time-consuming. So we can talk about 150 words per minute, but only write about 40 words per minute.

Indeed, Voice search optimization is the next big thing in SEO

With the increasing accuracy of digital assistants, it is becoming more and more important to respond to users’ specific requests as accurately as possible. The big challenge of SEO 2018 will be to ascertain the intentions of the users in order to react to them with relevant content.

Artificial Intelligence and SEO

Artificial intelligence is one of the most important technologies of the future and has long since made its way into everyday life.

Google is in my opinion the strongest artificial intelligence on our planet. It will eventually provide us with an answer instead of search results. Therefore my thesis is this: The search engine is dead, Google becomes the answering machine. Google’s artificial intelligence is an enormous opportunity on one hand, and on the other hand, this Artificial Intelligence has to be controlled very carefully so that it does not end in a Skynet – the AI from the movie Terminator, which can no longer be controlled.

Since Google uses its artificial intelligence RankBrain to evaluate the most relevant content, general ranking factors are losing importance. No longer is the single keyword crucial, but the context of the search query. Good content today is provided by relevant content, technical factors and a long user stay on the website.

Artificial intelligence already has a major impact on search results. AI systems make a major contribution to answering the countless, complex and sometimes unpopulated search queries.

Google’s determination to move the AI sector forward should bring us some exciting developments in 2018.

Long term business with the right SEO strategy

An ultimate SEO strategy is one that can be used for the majority of all website owners, and is independent of business models. It should work just as well for news websites as for online shops, social sites, blogs, but also for hobby sites, affiliate projects, institutional websites, B2B and any other types of websites.

Stop thinking about optimizing your page and think about optimizing the search experience instead. -AJ Kohn.

The world is changing fast. The SEO industry has been lagging behind since 2012 (Penguin 1) as far as Google updates and changes are concerned. For the SEO of today, a big question remains open:

What must a modern SEO strategy look like today?

By what means, procedures and tactics can a website develop sustainable rankings in a sustainable and secure way?

Firstly,  it can be stated that search engine optimization can be subdivided into different areas:

OnPage: This area is dedicated to the technical optimization possibilities. These include the URL structure, the structure of the individual pages, the technical content, the internal linking and many other aspects.

Content: Content should ensure good rankings. It is about finding the right content for the different target groups. These include u. a. Potential prospects, buyers, customers, but also content for the public, which interacts strongly with the website and potentially sets external links.

Links: Links are important to SEO because there is a direct relationship between quality/ quantity of links to your website and how much search traffic your business website receives. Your websites become more credible when you have other sites refer to them.You can also check link building service at rankweapon.com

Interactivity: Chrome and Android are likely to provide Google with usage data for more than half of the people of the world. They know exactly who, when, how, which links are clicked, which websites and pages are read, what people are buying and how they otherwise operate. Google also uses this data when determining rankings in organic search results.

In order to achieve real dominance in the search engines, a website must have an above-average performance in all areas. Only in this way can long-term high and stable rankings be achieved.

SEO and Social Media

When it comes to social media and search engine optimization, there’s one rule which governs them both: Relevant, high-quality content will get found, noticed and shared. Social media optimization is an important part of your search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing campaign.

Facebook has been working on its algorithm for a long time to combat spam on the platform. Now, the update is officially implemented: As of now, less relevant links in the news feed are significantly downgraded.  The most notable benefit of Social Media Posting and Social Media Optimization is that you can quickly get backlinks that improve your rank. That way you can get more visitors and close more sales.

Social media optimization is a vital part of your SEO campaign.

To achieve top rankings in search engines like Google. We all need it, but the road to a high Google ranking is long. To be seen on the internet, a good search engine ranking is a necessary requirement. But how do you move up in the search results? In addition to on-page and classic off-page optimization, there is another factor that is becoming increasingly important: social signals. Shares, likes, or mentions on social media via Facebook, blogs, and forums influences the search engine ranking in Google.

Conclusion: Optimize your pages for your users, not for the search engines! Google’s concern is to provide users with the best possible results for their searches. Thanks to artificial intelligence and in-depth learning, the search engine understands search intentions better and therefore prefers the pages that best serve. Website owners should ask themselves the question: what does the user want to find on pages? This is nothing new, but in 2018 and 2019 it will become more and more central. The growing of artificial intelligence is likely to cause individual ranking factors to become less critical.

Credits:

Author: Todd Aitken

Source: http://ceoworld.biz/2018/03/26/top-5-seo-opportunities-for-2018-2019

Since its inception, the web has consistently evolved. The early days of Mosaic and Netscape Navigator helped popularize the internet and, since then, each and every year has brought new concepts, ideas and trends — some good and some bad.

One important lesson learned from all of those years of changes and trends is that being successful is often related to riding the wave of change rather than following in its wake. You can do that by exploring the trends of tomorrow and then looking to incorporate those that are applicable to you before everyone else does.

Here are eight web development trends that should have the largest overall impact on the industry in 2018:

Improved Online Support

Being connected to users is more important than ever. Chatbots, those computer programs which have conversations with us either via text or auditory method, allow a website to have a 24/7 contact point without maintaining a 24-hour customer service department. The evolution of Chatbots has led to things like answering common questions, directing people to information and pages or even how to complete a transaction. As consumers become more comfortable with the idea of a chatbot along with how to interact with them, the expectations for every site having them will increase.

Progressive Web Apps

A recent study about mobile usage found that mobile apps account for 89% of total mobile media time. It makes sense then that utilizing a similar format to mobile apps would be well-received by target audiences.

Progressive web apps are web applications that can appear to users like a mobile application but are truly web pages or websites. They take advantage of the host of features on web browsers but deliver an app-like user experience. There are numerous advantages to this technology such as the ability to work offline, near-instant loading (as much of the information is stored in the cache), reliability and the ability to receive push notifications. They can be built in less time, work for any user and are generally easier to deploy and maintain, all of which are beneficial to developers and consumers alike.

Push Notification With Websites

One of the most powerful tools that a mobile app has is push notifications. The ability to send direct information to a user who provides value has proven to be extremely popular with everything from traffic changes, sports scores or notifications about sales. This type of communication works on websites as well once a user enables push notifications. The benefits are higher engagement without the additional cost of creating a mobile app to replace a website.

Single-Page Websites

The single-page website trend found its footing this year and should continue to become more common. This design is one long webpage. Navigation is based on scrolling or using links that jump up or down the page to that particular section.

The biggest advantage of this type of website is simplicity. There is no complex navigation or deep menu to traverse. And the design works well on mobile devices, where scrolling is a common navigation method. This style provides a modern solution to simple online needs and is inexpensive to develop and host.

Static Websites

A static website is very basic. Each page is simply coded using HTML and displays the same fixed or static content to every user. Why would people want to effectively take a step or three backward in regards to web technology and options? Simplicity.

These websites are safe, load quickly and can be cheaply made. Static websites should see a resurgence in use for cost-conscious projects, as they are miles ahead of the original static websites from the web’s infancy, but not nearly as dull or labor-intensive to create.

Motion User Interface

Interface has been a top concern for developers for years. Even the best-looking design can be rather pointless if you can’t find the information you need. Originally designed for mobile apps, a mobile user interface allows for the use of animations and transitions to help alert users to actions or important components, along with adding life and style to a project.

This technology offers a high degree of customization, which then allows a developer many options to craft a highly functional and stunning site. Some examples of motion would be easing in, overlay, cloning, obscuration, parallax, parenting, dimensionality and offset-delay.

Phasing Out Flash

Flash was a very exciting component for websites allowing animation and other motion aspects. While it was commonly used for years, it is now something that everyone should look to phase out. Adobe announced this year that the Flash Player will no longer be updated or distributed after 2020. Additionally, it is incompatible with most types of mobile devices. Rather than losing out on web traffic, especially on your mobile site, you should replace any Flash with HTML5, which is quickly becoming the most common, universal format on the web.

Photo Content

The value of a good photo has never been higher in web development, primarily because a good photo can help spur conversions. This concept is not a new one as during the heyday of print magazines, great product photos were in high demand to help create conversions simply based on the story an image told. Unique pictures and photos that show individuality while conveying information will be an important key to online success in 2018.

The bottom line is that trends will come and go, spurred by the evolution of our technology. These developments can be utilized to both entice and engage new and existing users when applied optimally. That is why it is important to look to the future now for ideas and inspiration so that you can stay ahead of the competition.

Credits:

Author: Ken Braun

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2017/11/16/eight-web-development-trends-coming-in-2018/#2f52a29055d8

Credits:

Author: Archknow

Source: https://medium.muz.li/biomimicry-in-design-takeaways-for-a-designer-8e2c537b7a78