Are you a fan of Emily in Paris, Gossip Girl, or Beverly Hills 90201? Whatever generation you came from, you know exactly how celebrities impacted your fashion choices. Are you like most of us who excitedly wait for the Oscars to check who’s wearing who? But then there are those commercial ads as well that piqued our curiosity even to this day. We’re pretty sure, you still remember that Pepsi commercial ads featuring Britney Spears, Beyonce, and those big names. They were popular and memorable for a reason.
However, things have changed. A LOT.
Things have shifted to digital. What is it anyway?
Digital Marketing simply refers to online marketing initiatives which can come in different formats either from simple text like articles published in blogs to images in multimedia campaigns in the form of graphics and videos.
You know this for sure, with your iPhone and all.
So let’s break it down one by one.
The Influencers
Before, brands relied on big-name personalities as top endorses for products and services. However, with the ushering of the social media platform, a new breed of ambassadors has emerged. Sure, Cristiano Ronaldo, Ariana Grande, The Rock, Selena Gomez, and other celebrities and athletes still top the charts but they are given the run for their money with the emergence of the Influencers.
Influencers usually start out as non-celebrities who have built such a strong following through the image and the lifestyle they project in their chosen social media platforms, overtime some companies have begun collaborating with them in order to reach their target market. Some may even argue that the Influencer magic is not here for the long run. However, these social media marketing stars have proved that the service they provide has been just as effective as other known media platforms.
Choose your Platform
Facebook was indeed groundbreaking. It did not make Mark Zuckerberg a billionaire for nothing. From the simple intent of connecting people with their friends, the network has grown exponentially to include business and services. Oh, there is even a dating feature now, mind you!
Social media has been present over the years (remember Friendster and Myspace?) but Facebook emerged as the go-to social platform for its innovative and better-engineered features. The increasing usage of smartphones further boosted their rise.
But the younger generation is more enchanted with photos. If people nowadays are narcissistic, that’s something meant for a different discussion. Instagram fought head to head with Facebook until the social media giant bought Instagram. Monopoly? Again, that’s for a different discussion.
With all these platforms available to everyone, especially the younger generation, it has paved the way on how brands can easily associate themselves with influencers that prefer this platform. Whatever gives them an edge in tapping the right audience. In fact, Instagram has recently launched IGTV as an alternative to another strong social media brand which is Youtube.
Videos and vlogs ultimately have been on the rise in popularity as advertising platforms due to the universality in terms of usage and access and the very varied content it offered, from different DIYs, viral content, popular MV’s of KPOP idols, etc. The list could stretch forever and the vast content alone on these platforms may take you a lifetime to finish.
Lately, another popular app that is also a social network tool is Tiktok, which is quite fun to use, especially for the younger segment of the market. This is made possible by producing very interesting content thru complex technologies involved in the background. They have created viral content with the addition of varied filters and hip music. If another one will emerge is just a question of time as people keep on discovering new ways to be socially connected, especially now that a lot of people are stuck at home.
Analytics Rules
Marketing could be cool and visual. But what is behind everything are the numbers. With social media platforms’ data analytics, everything can be generated instantaneously. This is useful for crucial business decisions. Ultimately the Internet Age has affected the pace of how we access and process information and this extends into the social media platform and online marketing. Every time you click an ad, it is automatically captured in the traffic data. Facebook ads even take this a step further by adding factors such as demographics and other data sets which have even become a recent privacy issue. This collected data can easily be used to provide better business decisions and can help evaluate the efficiency of the campaigns already launched that will be crucial in planning for future marketing initiatives.
What the Future Holds
Previously, Artificial Intelligence (AI) may have sounded like a concept only a sci-fi movie could produce. But with the rise of AI, these technologies are now as ubiquitous as ice cream. You had to have a considerable amount of money in order to get a campaign produced and published, but with current social networking platforms, we are now presented with cost-effective alternatives, and most of the time, within our fingertips or without human interference. Coding is now the name of the game as everything could be automated including the decision-making processes through the use of complex algorithms. While these new technologies are amazing, it is not without cons. Currently, AI is still quite expensive to set up and small players may not yet be able to afford this. Human intelligence and creativity can never be replaced and AI, when optimized to our advantage, is still a tool that can help us to make better products and services. The future is certainly brighter with such innovation and it is still up to us on how we use it to improve the quality of our lives and experiences.