Digital trends and tips for 2018

Much like the natural world, the digital world is in a state of constant change, but as I’m sure we can all agree – the digital landscape is evolving at a much faster rate. For marketers, the social media algorithm changes, along with the growing popularity of video and visual content should not be cause for concern – but rather an invitation to adapt our strategies for success.

Looking at recent statistics taken from Hootsuite’s Digital in 2018 webinar we can see that for the first time in history, over half the world’s population (53% to be exact) are on the internet, and a whopping 42% of the world are now active on social. Another key statistic that jumped out at us, is the year-on-year change in organic reach across social platforms. The average organic reach on Facebook posts has decreased by 10% since 2017, with organic posts now reaching only 8% of a page’s followers (organically).

Taking this into account, it’s clear that the value of paid social activity is increasing. To achieve the same, if not higher reach in 2018 – marketers will need to implement boosted posts and paid social campaigns into their strategies. Considering the drop in organic impressions, it’s also worth reanalysing the value of Facebook’s page likes ads. Considering that you now have to pay to reach 92% of your audience – why not take your page likes budget and funnel it into other paid social activity?

Given the drop in organic reach, it’s also become less critical to post daily. As a result, marketers should consider posting less and using the extra time to create genuinely engaging content. We need to pivot towards more ‘pull’ than ‘push’ – i.e entice your audience with inspirational, entertaining or educational posts rather than simply pushing your products or services. One useful method to increase your reach in 2018 is to partner with influencers; for the best results we advise choosing those whom fit with your brand and/or demographic, as they will likely have genuine understanding of what your demographic really cares about.

Looking ahead we can also clearly see a shift towards more visual and audio content across not just social media, but the internet as a whole. The inclusion of audio and image searches across Amazon, Google etc. is a deliberate move to make the internet more accessible for the ‘next Billion’ internet users. These next billion users are expected to come from developing countries, where literacy rates (especially English literacy rates) are much lower. It is expected that over the coming years the UX of the internet will continue to develop in order to accommodate these new users.