2016 is NOW. What the new year will bring to the digital world.

With 2015 ending we reflect on what we learned and experienced. Now is the time for the future to become a reality. As we experienced in 2015 was the the date from Back to the Future they had hover boards and flying cars. In today’s reality however, hover boards are common in just about everyone now; from mall cops to kids playing with them in the driveway. The trends and new technology we can expect to see according to theguardian.com are as follows; Virtual reality (VR), Augmented reality (AR), Streaming services, Original, quality content,Mobile live streaming,Ad personalisation,Moment marketing, Ad blocking,Reciprocal ratings, and finally Drones, batteries and robots (Crowd sourced trends)

Let’s take a look at some of these a little more. If you would like more details you can find them here.

Virtual Reality (VR)

VR could become a very important component to consumer interaction. VR is seen as gimmicky right but has high potential to grow, just like mobile and social media has.

Augmented Reality (AR)

With VR on the rise this has given greater opportunity to AR to become mainstream for consumers, because it already works great with current technology. With companies like Google and Microsoft investing in companies to launch within the next year, it is sure to have a successful first year.

Source

Streaming services

With people moving away from traditional TV to streaming, we can expect to see new streaming services popping up throughout 2016 with the focus in certain areas such as Ultra high-definition or specialised genres.

Original, quality content

Take Netflix for example – they have created and produced many shows that have a huge following *cough cough OITNB cough*  We can expect more brands to do this not only with video content, but also to outsource content creation and start using white labeling more often.

Mobile live streaming

2015 brought a lot of attention and success to two apps; periscope and meerkat. These apps have helped shape Vlogger and other video posters to enable and target their audience and to start streaming right from their profile, with the video also being saved for later viewing. Making it much more user friendly and allowing them to specially reach their target marketing more effectively.

Drones, batteries and robots (Crowd sourced trends)

user generated social media is changing the game.

Fans are now running the game – on social media that is. With social media being immersed into everyones day-to-day lives it is no wonder that sports marketing has made some major changes.  Even big corporations and powerhouses like RedBull and ESPN are focusing more on social media geared towards fans.

When it comes to sports teams (professional and collegiate) would be nothing without its fans. Sports marketing content creators have taken notice of this trend of fans using social media during the games and have taken full advantage of this to fuel conversations surrounding the team.  User- generated content helps improve marketing of the team by, connecting fans, selling tickets and building up their brand.

“Brands are focusing a lot more on partnering with this new mix of sports influencer networks and publishers that have massive audiences,” said Kevin Shively, senior content marketing manager at Simply Measured.

View full size infographic here.

The infographic breaks down the demographics of online sports fans and what platforms they are using.

Adweek’s study by social analytics company Simply Measured identified which sports creators are top scorers with users.

Adweek’s Top 10 Sports Teams:

FC Barcelona, Social Reach: 116,168,676

 

“The great sports content providers are like rock stars,” said marketing consultant David Deal. “They capture an unbelievable passion and loyalty that is tribal in nature.”

“It’s crucial for marketers to stay on top of sports-related opportunities,” explained Noah Mallin, head of social at MEC. “You’re at the intersection of today’s content consumption behavior, with fans watching TV while engaging with a mobile device in places like Twitter to talk about what they are seeing.”

Real Madrid CF: 113,078,803

 

National Basketball Association: 58,147,800

Red Bull: 52,682,815

ESPN: 38,052,051

Monster Energy: 28,237,230

UFC: 23,452,550

Dude Perfect: 20,814,232

GoPro: 18,798,219

Nike Football: 18,261,120

More  information on the top 10  here.

 

 

The 140 Character Limit Does Not Exist… Kind of.

The Twitter Gods have heard our cries – kind of… Before you are jumping for joy there’s a catch. It’s not tweets that the limit has been removed from but DM’s are not restricted to 140 crammed characters. As much as we love the idea of not having to use number in place of real words there is a new limit of 10,000 characters.

This is good news right?! When you have a dire situation instead of trying to explain yourself in 140 characters or less you now can DM a brand and have a conversation with more details. Therefore, reinforcing customer experience and relationships, by allowing consumers to stay on the platform rather than to switch from Twitter to Facebook or try to reach someone via phone.

“Brands have trained and integrated their team to handle customer relations. Now Twitter’s direct messaging service will come to their rescue. They can have one-on-one conversations, they can have customers’ personal details, since the service will use Twitter’s platform,” Sumana Samuk, digital marketing manager, Litehouse, an experience design house under Harman International

From a business prospective brands can now use DM to reach customers at any location and send out e-newsletters to followers or any pressing news.

Twitter has vaguely stated that it will be launched in July.

You can read more here  and here

Twitter – A Networking Tool

At my time at Marquette I have had to use Twitter for a few of my classes. At first I thought “another social media platform… no thanks.” After being “forced” to use it for classes and for my PURE3600 class I have come to the conclusion that Twitter is in fact a useful tool to network yourself and connect with others.

In this class (PURE3600) has made post more and have many opportunities to connect with working professionals. Twitter has allowed me to stay connected and follow these people. (In a non-stalking kinda way, of course!) Use not only for networking but for thanking these people for their time and (hopefully) teaching me something new, that I could use in the future.

By it being a real- time tool this allows for faster and more convenient way of searching and gathering information – whether it be on a person I will be listening to speak or a just catching up on the latest news from around the world. Twitter has provided me with the an experience that I can continue to use even after I am done using for my classes.

If you are looking for a few tips on how to get your start I have attached a link on eight easy ways to network using twitter. —> http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/8-easy-ways-to-network-on-twitter/

I would love to connect with you if we haven’t already! —.> https://twitter.com/Paigebrooks93

 

Friend or Foe?

As time goes on it seems that our lives become more revolved around what we do online. This is how people know us and know how we are, is by what we put on social media. It acts as a window that people can peer into what sometimes should be personal is no longer personal thanks to social media networks. The question of late is should companies also be peering into those windows of their employees or prospective employees?

With more employers looking into social media of their employees should peole stay true to what they want to post regardless of losing a potential job or keep it clean 100% of the time?

Graduating in May I find myself having these conversation repeatedly as transition from a college student to a career woman.

Being young and in a in between stage I understand both sides of the argument. Companies and management want to protect themselves and keep a positive image. However, on the flip side if a candidate is being looked at solely on their social media it could be considered discrimination – employers must make sure that its not but only based on business practices and nothing else.

Since this is becoming more common among employers I would suggest candidates and employees take it with a grain of salt and it’s always to be perceived as a “clean” person than a person who post things in bad light or illegal.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/should-companies-monitor-their-employees-social-media-1399648685

The Wonderful…

On March 18,2015 Marquette hosted it’s annual Digital Advertising Summit, and if you never attended I strongly recommend that you go. This year I was selected to be an ambassador for the Diederich College of Communication and introduce on of the speakers. I had the pleasure to introduce Katy Lynch of Manifest Digital based out of Chicago.

Now for a brief Bio on Katy…Born in Scotland, Katy was the President and Founder of SocialKaty, Inc, Chicago’s largest social media marketing agency. Founded in 2010, SocialKaty exploded, offering a rich set of services to a diverse portfolio of over 60 full-time clients, including AAA, Spartan Race, Beanie Babies, O-Cedar, ServiceMaster, and Firestone Tires.In July of 2014, Katy excitedly announced the merge between SocialKaty, Inc and Manifest Digital, a Chicago-based experience design agency. This combination created one of the largest social and content marketing teams in the U.S.

She set the scene of the bringing us back in time to our embarrassing Myspace pages and what popular social media platforms looked like back then, including Youtube, Facebook, Flickr and even LinkedIn. Fast forward to 2015 we now have an abundance of social media platforms to choose from and new ones created daily.

Katy reminds us of the importance of having visuals; “Posts with visuals receive 94% more page visits and engagement than those without.” (Wishpond)

She gives us a heads up of what to expect in 2015 and beyond. What will get people to pay attention to your brand and why should they care? That is the million dollar question. A study done by Brafton said that by 2017, 74% of web traffic will come from video. This is why we notice of the rise of platforms such as Vine and Snapchat, people want to see information that is beneficial and they want to see it in a matter of seconds. With shocking statistics saying that, 45% of viewers stop watching a video after 1 minute and 60%of viewers stop watching a video after 2 minutes. (Digital Sherpa)

Katy’s speech reinforced the idea that marketers need to be on top of the mobile marketing and advertising. With 86% of mobile users spend 86% of their time on apps.

It was a pleasure meeting you Katy!