Guide: Five 2016 Digital Marketing Trends to Watch

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As the internet increasingly advances and matures, digital marketing continues to embrace these rapid changes.  The world of digital marketing is unpredictable yet exciting due to the fact that no other industry in the world changes as quickly as this one.  While we approach the end of spring and the inevitable half way mark on our year, it’s been easy to see just how far the world of digital marketing has already come, but which digital marketing trends of 2016 are here to stay or even appear?

  1. Increase in Social Media Based Marketing

The relevance of social media in our current society is indisputable.  We use social media for everything, from communicating with friends, sharing experiences, to even planning events.  While our dependence on social media grows, marketing via these platforms will continue to increase as well.  Not only is the desire to market on social media growing, but also the availability to do so.  Instagram is soon releasing a variety of tools that will allow marketing your business on their platform to become extremely more efficient.  Another new marketing tool that will only continue to develop is Snapchat.  With the ability to create custom geofilters to market a product, the potential to reach a very specific target audience is incredible.  Social media management in Los Angeles can now look and feel very different than that of a city somewhere else in the country or even world.

  1. SEO Shifts to Content Marketing

As search engine algorithms become more advanced, the content that appears to the user after a search is becoming more relevant.  It is getting harder and harder to trick the system into marketing a product to a user that is not interested in it.  In this way, SEO is transforming into what we now call Content Marketing.

  1. More Interactive Content

Another digital marketing trend of 2016 that will continue to take off is interactive content.  The ways to interact with consumers online are transforming with the growth of technology.  A prime example of successful interactive content is the well-known business of BuzzFeed.  While BuzzFeed offers a variety of services, their primary success was achieved due to interactive quizzes.  Quizzes have turned the reading experience into an interactive one, keeping the reader focused and interested longer.  Other technologies such as virtual reality and the recently launched 360 degree videos on Facebook are also leading to increasingly more interactive ways to market to consumers.

  1. Website Redesigns

Today, a website is so much more than just a place to get information.  If your website is not both easy to use and well designed, it will quickly become irrelevant.  Competition is increasing rapidly in the online world, and basic information just won’t do it anymore.  Recently, new websites are being built responsive, and will continue to be designed this way.  A responsive website is one that fits that width of the browser, no matter the size.  This allows for the user’s viewing experience to be the best possible on any device that the website is loaded on.

  1. Growth of the Video Platform

The last, but not least, of the biggest digital marketing trends of 2016 is the growth of video as a platform for content.  With over a billion users you could argue that YouTube is one of the most successful sites on the internet.  In the future, this success is only going to continue to grow, and with it, marketing.  Effective social media management in Los Angeles, as well as the rest of the country, will be taking advantage of video content.  Videos can and do engage users for longer periods of time than other standard forms of marketing, and their power should not be overlooked.