At this point in time, almost every business has some form of internet and social media marketing strategy, and using sites like Twitter to talk about your business is now seen as something that only the slowest to catch on aren’t doing. However, as internet marketing becomes more ubiquitous, it can be easy for messages to get lost in the constant wave of promotion we all see every day when we are online. For this reason, your internet marketing strategy has to constantly adapt and make use of new techniques and technologies, so that you can stay ahead of the curve and keep engaging potential customers.
Here, we take a look at three trends in internet marketing you should not ignore.
The Rise of Video
Video is becoming more and more important in internet marketing, and there are a few reasons for this. For one thing, people tend to trust video product reviews more than written ones, as it is much clearer that the reviewer has actually used the product and isn’t just being paid to write a favourable review of something they have never used. For another, videos have special treatment on Google, coming up higher on search rankings and being given enhanced listings that allow you to play the video on the search results page rather than going to YouTube or wherever else the video is hosted. Using video in your online marketing is therefore good for customer relations, and also good for SEO – a double win for what is now something quite cheap and easy to produce.
Diversity in Social Media Platforms
We all know that the big social networks are essential to a good marketing plan, but what the savvy internet marketers are now doing is looking beyond Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and G+ (though it is somewhat arguable that G+ is in fact a ‘big’ social network, as it has not had the uptake from users Google was hoping for), and considering other outlets. Tumblr, Pinterest, Reddit and other platforms have proven very useful to some companies in reaching their target demographics, so it is worth diversifying your strategy to consider more than just the major social networks.
Images
It has been shown that when people are online, they tend to only read things if they interest them very specifically. People don’t have time to read every ad or promotional tweet or Facebook post they see, and so reserve their eyeball time for text for the articles that they want to read and the posts from the friends they care about. As a result of this, image based adverts and posts have been shown to be far more effective, with simple memes going viral far more easily than full text articles. While well written content can be important, when you need a quick, easy to digest hook to pull people into your message, images and very little text seems to work best.
Working with these three trends, you can improve the reach and scope of your social media and internet marketing quite easily and effectively, so consider them in your marketing plan today!