5 Biggest Digital Marketing Trends We’re Pursuing in 2018

digital marketing trends

The world of online marketing has come a long way since it began, and as a result, digital marketing trends change year-to-year as well. With new tools, evolving social media platforms, and changing client preferences, what worked last year will not necessarily work next year.

To achieve the biggest impact, marketers must stay current with the latest digital marketing trends and adapt their strategies accordingly.

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Here at Mod Girl Marketing, we’ve been watching several trends set to grow even bigger in 2018. From live video to a new approach to SEO, we have begun experimenting with the following 5 digital marketing trends for ourselves and for our clients. In 2018, we plan to do even more, further integrating each of these digital marketing trends into our strategy.

Looking to grow your business fast in 2018? Grab our free LinkedIn Profile Optimization Checklist for simple tweaks to 10X your prospects on LinkedIn – all in under 1 hour.

2018 digital marketing trends

5 Biggest Digital Marketing Trends for 2018

1. SEO Will Be About a Lot More Than Just Keywords

Every marketer knows that Google adjusts their search algorithm often. However, these changes will reach a new level in 2018. Voice and image search will explode, digital assistants will become the norm, and mobile search results will become the focus for many businesses.

Data forecasts an increasing inclination towards voice search, with 55% of teens and 40% of adults already using voice search daily. Digital assistants, such as Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa (and a proliferation in home assistant hardware sales), have made voice search popular and more integrated with apps. And visual search using Google Lens is developing quickly.

Google Lens does not just let smartphone cameras “see,” but also aims to make the cameras understand what they’re seeing. According to Google, “if you see a marquee for your favorite band, you can hold up your Assistant, tap the Lens icon and get information on the band, tickets and more.”

We’re keeping a close eye out for these digital marketing trends so we can continue to create optimized content for ourselves and our clients — all while approaching it with an audience-first mentality.

seo digital marketing trends 2018

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2. Videos Will Be Live, Engaging, and Accessible

In 2017, video accounted for 69% of internet traffic, but by 2020, it is expected that video will make up 80% of consumer internet traffic.

Live video and ephemeral content, or content that disappears after a certain period of time (popularized by Snapchat and Instagram Stories) will continue to dominate 2018 digital marketing trends. There are over 200 million people using Instagram Stories per month, and that number is only expected to rise in 2018.

Though YouTube used to rule the video world, 2017 saw social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram become popular video publishing platforms in their own right. Autoplay has made it possible for marketers to grab their audience’s attention quickly as they’re scrolling through their feeds, and closed captions have made videos easier to watch no matter where you are.

Though we’ve been using video at Mod Girl for several years now, we began steadily increasing our video creation throughout 2017, and plan to do even more in 2018. I went Live in our Facebook group, Mod Agency Insiders, and I hosted several free Mod Lead Gen Masterclasses.

We also started creating videos for many of our blogs to give our audience even more ways to engage with our content, such as the one below from our blog on the best marketing analytics tools.

3. Customer Service Will Be Instant

In 2017, Facebook made Messenger a standalone app — complete with games and a chatbot platform. This resulted in an enormous growth of its user base: as of April 2017, Facebook Messenger reached 1.2 billion users!

But in 2018, messaging apps won’t just be for messaging friends anymore. The use of chatbots was one of 2017’s biggest digital marketing trends, as more people prefer customer service over social media compared to phone calls or email. In 2018, businesses will turn to chatbots even more to provide instantaneous customer service.

By 2020, 80% of businesses are expected to be using chatbots. Here at Mod Girl, we’ve adopted the use of ManyChat to answer questions and send resources to marketers at all hours of the day, allowing us to stay responsive even when none of our team is online.

Related  Using a Facebook Chatbot as a Digital Agency (with Examples)

4. Facebook Groups Will Be a Source of Valuable Data

According to Facebook, more than 1 billion people around the world use Facebook Groups. 100 million of those individuals say they are part of “meaningful groups” that define their Facebook experience.

Aiming to provide support and camaraderie between marketing entrepreneurs, we opened the doors to our own Facebook community in February 2017: Mod Agency Insiders.

facebook group marketing entrepreneurs

Now with over 2,000 members (and growing fast!), this group has quickly evolved into a powerful resource for marketing entrepreneurs to connect with one another, share ideas, and help each other grow.

For businesses, Facebook groups are a great way to hear from your target audience first-hand. We often run polls and soft-launch products in Mod Agency Insiders, which allows us to get great feedback from our ideal clients about the problems they’re facing and what changes we should make to a product before a full launch.

5. Collaboration Will Take Precedence Over Competition

Our Facebook group is just the start of the resources we’re creating for marketing entrepreneurs.

I’m a big believer in the idea that we should focus on collaboration, not competition. There’s more than enough work out there for everyone; by helping each other succeed, we can all get further.

digital marketing trends agencies

Over the past year, we’ve created several products for marketing entrepreneurs at every stage:

  • Mod Agency Bundles: for marketers looking to start or grow their digital agency.
  • Mod Lead Gen Masters: for anyone looking to harness the power of LinkedIn to generate 5 – 8 leads per day.
  • Mod Outsource Masters: for entrepreneurs who are ready to scale and are looking to partner with digital partners or freelancers to help.

We developed these products to solve specific needs we saw in the marketing community. My team and I created comprehensive membership areas with training lessons, exclusive interactive communities, and group coaching sessions where members are learning not only from me, but from fellow like-minded entrepreneurs.

Related  Agency Growth Strategy Tips with Jason Swenk and Mandy McEwen

Continuing to Grow Mod Girl Marketing in 2018

In 2017, we experimented with all of these digital marketing trends, and we’re excited to continue incorporating them into our marketing strategy in 2018.

But most important is the last trend I listed: the focus on collaboration, NOT competition.

2017 was the first year that I was able to dedicate my personal time and resources to making our new entrepreneurial programs a success. My passion is helping entrepreneurs grow. That is what I love doing day in and day out – and thanks to all of you, I got to do that more than ever before this past year.

2017 was THE turning point for Mod Girl. We proved to ourselves that we CAN create a community of passionate digital entrepreneurs who love soaking up our knowledge AND sharing their knowledge with the community in Mod Agency Insiders.

We CAN make a difference in the lives of entrepreneurs by providing them with premium training and coaching that they can’t find anywhere else.

We CAN empower our Mod Lead Gen Masters to generate dream leads on demand without advertising, allowing them to grow their businesses they way THEY want to and live a much more enjoyable life (without PIA clients!).

We CAN leverage our existing network of white label agencies, vendors, and freelancers to connect startup entrepreneurs with our tried-and-true resources they NEED to scale quickly – without the headache that comes with choosing the wrong freelancer.

We CAN show B2B entrepreneurs how to become industry influencers – and fast! – to build their personal brand and, ultimately, their business. (Coming soon!)

We CAN provide valuable, FREE resources and training that actually impacts growing marketers.

And thanks to all of you, we have so much MORE in store for 2018!

So to all of our readers: thank you for being part of our community and helping us grow in 2017. And if you want even more resources to crush your goals in 2018, join our Facebook group, Mod Agency Insiders, today!

digital marketing facebook group

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  1. Reply

    We are talking about the future of the social media, we’ll written Favorited!, just to let you guys know this days will be written in books in 30 years from now on!

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