Latest Digital Marketing Tips and Tricks for 2018

by Akash Chauhan Google Marketing Consultant

The digital age, in which progress seems to have accelerated even faster in recent years, has sparked a revolution in marketing, the likes of which has never been seen before. It seems that, almost overnight, marketing departments have been forced to go from relying on billboards, TV spots and magazine ads, to email campaigns, social media platforms, regular blogs and, of course, their website.

There’s no reason to think that this progression will slow down any time soon. Staying relevant nowadays requires not just keeping up with the latest trends, but reading them and anticipating how they might continue or recede in the future.

With that in mind, here are five top tips for digital marketing in 2018, incorporating predictions and strategy suggestions.

Bring Social Media into the Fold

When it comes to social media, a lot of digital marketing departments seem to still be painfully behind the time. One of the most basic ways this happens, to this day, is not properly incorporating social media into the full digital marketing department. Social media is still too often palmed off to a low-ranking social media executive, or even worse, an untrained intern.

This is criminally underrating the importance of social media, and the results that can be achieved through skilled usage. Social media should be fully incorporated into the department, staffed with trained people, and made a full, important part of the overall digital marketing plan. Cross Graphic Ideas Digital Marketing Company in Jaipur claims that social for business media will grow in 2018.

Moving Pictures

You might have noticed something, through your own personal web browsing and social media usage: video is suddenly everywhere online.

We live in a world where people are drifting further and further from traditional media consumption, particularly reading lengthy articles, and more towards quick informative or entertaining videos. Facebook saw this trend coming over a year ago, and began prioritizing video content on people’s feeds. Many websites will now automatically launch a video, whether pre-recorded or live-streamed, as soon as you open their page.

Video content may cost more money than photos, and certainly more than text, but this is the price you have to pay to stay at the forefront of users’ minds. Whether it’s on your website, your social media, or via a link in your emails, start increasing your use of video content immediately.

Live in the Moment

Particularly when it comes to social media, using current events (in a smart way, mind you!) to your advantage is a great way to gain momentum on your posts… and, yes, hopefully ‘go viral’. To do this, speed is absolutely crucial.

The half-life of a tweet is – at most – 30 minutes. Many estimates have it much lower than that. That means, if you want to tweet about something that’s currently happening, or just happened, you’d better do it pretty quickly.

To be able to do this, you need the right system in place. If your current setup involves a tweet going through all kinds of checks and balances, before eventually gaining final approval, it’s going to be irrelevant by the time it’s actually posted.

Instead you want a system that allows whichever person or team controls your social media accounts to post as quickly as possible. Establish a set of ‘Dos and don’ts’ beforehand, agree on a tone that your company’s posts will use, and then allow the poster to make the right decision.

If you’re not comfortable with that degree of trust, well… you’d better get your head around it soon! These things are getting faster all the time, and in 2018 your social media may need to be even quicker than it should be now.

Influencer Marketing

The rise of influencer marketing is set to continue in 2018, with blogger outreach and other influencer methods proving ever popular. Whilst this method of marketing is very natural, it also provides great results when part of a long-term strategy.

A brand will build its authority by deploying this method, helping to increase traffic and exposure. Having a brand mentioned in an article or video had many benefits.

Give Value

If you haven’t heard of inbound and outbound marketing, don’t worry; it’s an extremely important concept, but it’s not complicated.

In short, outbound marketing requires you to go out and directly acquire customers. With inbound marketing, your digital marketing plan makes customers come to you.

How do you do that? By getting away from the old school methods of shouting at people, and commanding them to buy your product; that method’s been dying for years now, and soon it may be completely ineffective.

The outreach available through modern digital marketing allows you, instead, to build a true community of fans. Now that email lists, blog posts, and social media channels – all of which require opt-ins – are so important, your customers have a choice whether or not to follow your brand. They’re not going to do so if you’re boring and self-promotional. No, you need to add value to their lives.

The two best ways to do this are being informative, or being entertaining. Tell people interesting and useful facts related to your product or, though it’s admittedly more difficult, make them laugh.

This is harder than old school, ‘shouty’ marketing, but pretty soon you’re not going to have a choice. Get a head start now, build up your community, put an inbound digital marketing plan in place, and you’ll begin reaping the rewards in 2018.

You can view this as either a terrifying, or fascinating time for digital marketing. Personally, we’d opt for the latter!

Things are moving incredibly swiftly, but if you can keep up with the tide of change, there are a whole lot of rewards on offer.