This is an article “Following The Breadcrumbs Of Digital Media Into Major Shifts” by Marc Primo
Media strategies that push your content and online presence to more target audiences are breaking new ground this year. With recent trends influencing various factors such as consumer behavior, economics, and technology, keeping up with the changes can help you meet your business goals faster.
While many of us are now seeing the pandemic quagmire slowly fade away, the disruptions it has caused on consumer and digital preferences are most likely to remain as they are. With businesses developing solutions that have influenced our mindsets and habits, more promising opportunities are coming up from the surface for audiences and content creators.
In the current social media landscape, audiences are looking for more authentic content they can relate to and live by, then share with their loved ones. For marketers, it's a storytelling challenge disguised as an opportunity that could boost profits if done right. That's because 37.6% of consumers say they will readily share content that they find relevant on social media.
However, developing content cannot be taken lightly – ever.
Below are some new digital media trends and insights that can help you shift into the new digital marketplace and pull in more audiences to your marketing channels:
Developing content that gives audiences a purpose
Contentwise, the way a brand tells its story has shifted from pushing its messages to the consumers' screens to offering more appealing content that can pull them in. The pandemic has steered more consumers towards life-changing events and encouraged them to live life to the fullest rather than make a living.
Of course, digital marketers need to note how more people tend to focus on their families, relationships, and passions nowadays. The key here is to use data-driven insights from digital marketing initiatives to develop purpose-driven content for audiences in the various stages of the marketing funnel. Focusing on strategies that deal with search engine optimization (SEO), content personalization, omnichannel optimization, and predictive analysis will give you the right social media pulse.
The greater media content impacts its target audiences, the broader its reach online. As long as a brand's storytelling approach is genuine and relevant to audiences, it can significantly boost its brand reputation and online visibility across various platforms.
Being the needle in a haystack
Each day, there's a chance that 10,000 ads will flood your mobile screen. Indeed, that amount of unsolicited information can be sort of annoying to most people. That's why it's also no wonder why our attention spans for ads have become shorter.
However, various studies show that online usage has significantly increased during the pandemic since more people have learned to look for their news and information online. Video streaming increased by 61% among Millennials and Generation Z'ers, the time spent on gaming is higher by 39%, and social media consumption has risen by 72% during the height of the pandemic.
The problem here for marketers is how they can stand out from the sea of brands flooding the users' screens. Developing content would have to be more thoughtful, relevant, and unique, which is to be supported by data-driven tech that shows their progress.
However, data collection is another major shift that businesses across all verticals should focus on. Most of today's ad-to-platform campaigns are shifting to targeting methods via first-party data. Even though Google Chrome scheduled the end of its support for third-party cookies by next year, businesses should start optimizing the next best alternative to target and communicate with audiences this 2022.
Consumers consider collecting first-party data more secure, with lesser digital footprints stored than third-party cookies. Nonetheless, if you manage to keep your loyal customers, you can still stand out as a brand that they trust. In turn, customers will be more open to sharing their information via your inbound marketing campaigns.
Bracing for more economic shifts in digital media
No business ever expected the economic impact and volatility that the pandemic would cause two years ago. For such sectors as travel, entertainment, and hospitality, the demand was quick to decrease. However, demand skyrocketed for retail goods, particularly food and beverage. But then came supply challenges due to logistical problems.
These were the times when consumer behavior suddenly changed. Consumers began stocking up on their essential needs while products and services centered on luxury took a backseat. Fortunately for businesses, tech innovations and startups began offering solutions to meet increasing and decreasing demands.
Knowing your tech and the right digital marketing tools can help keep your company abreast of all the pandemic disruptions. With the rapid growth and need for digitalization, more businesses are competing for the attention of online consumers. Meanwhile, tech startups are helping smaller companies establish their brand recognition, social media curation, and website traffic for broader reach.
At any rate, logistical issues are still present even if the global economy is starting to open up. Nonetheless, capitalism through social media remains robust as more businesses cater to consumers looking for reputable brands online. The best thing digital marketers can do right now is to focus their efforts on inbound marketing strategies that pull more audiences inward. Doing so will also allow them to stay up-to-date with shifts in economic trends.
Where the digital breadcrumbs lead
Global digitalization continues to grow from how work shifted into homes to how tech startups give smaller businesses more significant marketing opportunities. When it comes to digital media, 69% of consumers prefer seeing ads on their mobile phones, while 72% want to learn about new products via short-form videos that pique their interests rather than text.
Having a good grasp of digital marketing numbers can help steer your strategic direction towards what currently matters to the market. However, knowing the numbers is not enough to lead you to the holy grail of digital marketing. Trends are also picking up, especially in eCommerce, cryptocurrency, service automation, and the Metaverse.
Learning how to approach these shifts with digital tools, systems, and platforms, as well as adequately testing your strategies, will cut down on your digital marketing costs and give you better ROI for the long term.