You already have a social media account on every platform, now what?
There’s a big misconception about what social media is and how you can maximize it to drive awareness for your event and sell tickets.
So, what are the digital marketing trends that we are looking at in 2019? According to a recent report from Nielsen (data and measurement company), U.S. adults spend 10 hours and 24 minutes per day interacting with media across all of their devices.
Given that so much time is spent online, it is pertinent that brands and event producers keep themselves up to date with trends on how their audiences consume content on online platforms, especially social media. To have an eye for emerging tech and trends and its early adoption helps massively to stay ahead of the curve.
Having personally worked with various brands and influencers, here are some of the trends, I think are essential to keep in vision while navigating the social media landscape in the coming few months. Here we will talk about social media trends to adopt for 2019 outside of the typical Instagram, Facebook or Twitter campaigns.
- Nano Influencers –
With trends continuously affecting purchasing decisions, influencers have a huge impact on how brands engage audiences and spend money on ads. Marketers are investing more of their budget into influencer marketing.
However, we are seeing a huge shift in terms of what kind of influencers brands are approaching. One of the biggest challenges influencer marketing faces is the lack of guaranteed sales from campaigns. To solve this, a lot of brands are resorting to the avenue of nano-influencers.
Nano influencers (even smaller than micro-influencers) refers to everyday consumers who have a small but loyal following. Brands have started identifying influencers from their current consumer base who already believe in the brand. They incentivize them to promote the brand that they already love through social channels and word of mouth. Since their community is intimate and trusted by their network, thus creating valuable awareness for the brands.
According to a Forbes article, Kate Edwards the COO of social marketing technology startup, Heartbeat, that works with over 200,000 nano influencers and 250 brands says, “Brands have always known that word-of-mouth marketing works well, but it hasn’t been until now that we’ve had the technology to activate this channel in a scalable, cost-effective way,” explains Edwards. “That’s why brands are moving away from influencers and celebrities, and more toward recognizing the voices of everyday consumers.”
What does this mean? – Event brands need to re-evaluate how they are spending their marketing budget to include influencer marketing by identifying their key, loyal fans with a following. It’s important to define the goals of the campaign before deciding the kind of influencers your brand wants to work with. With Sparxo, you can easily locate your loyal fans who return to your events year after year.
2. Chatbots/AI
AI and chatbots are on the rise to drive personalized experiences across different channels. Platforms like Google and Facebook have been continuing to adopt artificial intelligence to enhance customer interaction.
Facebook, for example, uses AI in the form of neural networks and deep learning for image recognition that makes it easier to find friends. Filtering timelines and streaming has also become much more efficient with the use of AI. Twitter, on the other hand, is also working on using AI and machine learning to categorize every single tweet. The aim is to provide content people care most about at the top of their feed.
AI on a whole can also help event brands understand event going habits, environmental factors and what motivates attendees to make decisions. By learning these factors, you can curate content for your audiences in a much more tailored fashion.
When it comes to chatbots, we are seeing a steady rise in usage. Community management and customer service have become a huge focus area for most companies and that’s where chatbots are making a deep impact. If you are producing a large event, you might consider offering a chatbot to handle your attendee questions. And, when the bot is unable to navigate through the scenario, it seamlessly switches to an employee.
In fact, according to Gartner’s forecast, by 2020 organizations will succeed in capturing 85% of customer contact with technology.
What does this mean? Event organizations need to market and sell smarter by exploring and investing in tools that use AI or chatbots -as their usage is going to become much broader in the coming months. Adoption of such tools will assist to expedite operation and help organizations identify their target market and customer persona more accurately. Automating your work and identifying key attributes of your first time visitors and returning fans is key to developing an event brand that lasts.
3. The rise of Vertical videos
Do you usually capture content on your phone horizontally or vertically? Likely the answer is vertically. In fact, as per the Movr research, we hold our phones vertically 94% of the time.
Keeping this data in mind, content is adopting a new format – the vertical video
Snapchat pioneered the vertical video content format and Instagram followed suit first with its stories, stories live and then IG TV
We also saw the rise of vertical videos in sports media such as ESPN that launched a vertically oriented version of its flagship show, SportsCenter via Snapchat. The segment was launched to target younger viewers who are consuming stories in short bursts.
Buffer also performed testing to gauge the effectiveness of vertical videos on Instagram and Facebook. It found out that vertical video outperformed square video within the Facebook and Instagram News Feed especially stories. Brands today understand that they have to produce content that grabs attention from consumers at the moment and tell a story. And vertical videos succeed in providing that intimate look which makes consumers part of that story.
Plus the ease of shooting through vertical videos makes it easier to capture and share content which is a huge part of marketing products.
Another thing to keep in mind is that vertical videos are constantly evolving. Instagram is adding new features almost every day from interactive polls, Q&A to stickers, etc. Augmented reality continues to change both the storytelling landscape and consumer experience – opening up more ways fans to engage with their favorite brands.
What does this mean? – Event brands need to rethink their video strategy and editing process. They have to move away from producing just the regular run of the mill pre-recorded videos and instead think about integrating live content in their video marketing strategy that is relatable, captures the emotions of the moment and is easy to share.
4. Curated & Immersive Experience :
One size does not fit all. More brands are adopting this mantra to change the way they provide experience to their users.
Whether it is Netflix suggesting your shows to watch based on your likes/dislikes, Stitch Fix making shopping easier by sending you personalized styled outfits, Airbnb recommending personalized trips and activity or even e-commerce sites showing “you may like” products based on your past purchases – the usage is becoming endless.
Consumers expect brands to remember who they are, what they like, what they dislike, whether they prefer purchasing online or on-site and are willing to spend a premium to receive such custom-tailored service. We especially see this with sales of VIP packages offering custom experiences at events.
A lot of brands and marketers are thus investing more time and budget on data analysis to understand what their audience wants. It helps them curate their customer service, UX, emails or even packaging to entice the audience and increase revenue, loyalty and decrease drop-outs.
Another popular trend to take notice of is – the growth of immersive experiences.
Franz Aliquo, Creative Director at ad agency RPM quips – “The easiest way to create shareability is to give people an experience.”
Whether it’s the brightly-colored, Instagram-worthy rooms of the Museum of Ice Cream ( MOIC), curated design photo booths at the Color Factory or even immersive theatre like “Sleep No More” – A theatre experience set in an abandoned building in Manhattan. Participants follow characters and explore different areas of an intricate “hotel,” as performances inspired by Macbeth unfold in parallel throughout the building.
It’s these powerful, unique and “FOMO-inducing” models of curated marketing to an immersive experience that creates a framework for shareability – for people to get involved and take ownership of scaling the experiences.
What does this mean? – Event brands need to be more creative than they ever have. Whether it is in your post, blog, video or customer experience, it’s no longer a luxury to provide tailored experience, rather than a necessity. “Make them notice” is become the new norm of 2019 marketing. Make sure your event experience is memorable from the moment they go to your website and register to their first step entering your event.
5. OmniChannel Marketing
Today’s Gen Z has become very comfortable in shopping online. So much so, that they expect online shopping to have the same benefits as in-store if not more. And that’s where omnichannel marketing comes into the picture.
“Omnichannel refers to the approach that provides the customer with an integrated…experience. The customer can be shopping online from a desktop or mobile device, via phone, or in a brick-and-mortar store, and the experience will be seamless. It ensures marketing strategies are geared toward enabling customers to convert on any channel. “(Google Definition)
Another reason why it’s imperative to have such a seamless experience is that most people own multiple devices these days. In fact, according to research done by Google, 90% of multiple device owners switch between an average of three devices per day to complete a task. This means that a purchase can start or end at any time, at any place, on any device. Therefore it’s becoming more necessary for businesses to provide an integrated user experience to prevent customer drop-outs. Starbucks is a prime example of a brand who is nailing the omnichannel marketing with its app rewards and ease of order in-store.
As opposed to the traditional multi-channel marketing, omnichannel marketing is a new approach that focuses on curating a cohesive user experience for customers at every touchpoint. This differs from traditional marketing, where individual channels were optimized without taking the whole experience into mind. The goal here, however, is to transcend any one medium and provide shoppers what they want, when they want, where they want. Omnichannel marketing puts the customer at the center of the experience.
What does this mean? – Event organizations need to start thinking about digital experience as a whole rather than one medium at a time. Instead of having various channels like ads, blog, social media, email, or online compete against each other, they need to work in tandem and provide the same experience individually or as a whole. This also means event organizers should consider selling tickets on as many channels as possible. Sparxo is uniquely designed with this in mind. With Sparxo, you can sell tickets on multiple channels and aggregate all of your data in one place for analytics and check-in. Try it for free today!
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What’s the biggest trend you think will play a pivotal role in the digital landscape?
Here at Sparxo, we understand the importance of your brand and brand experience. That’s why we developed a white label, no brand event ticketing and registration platform that you can use for free. You keep 100% of your ticket price with us! Sign up for a free, no-obligation account today!
Original article by Nupur Singh on LinkedIn
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