3 Trends To Watch In 2018
Here are some of my thoughts on current trends to manifest in 2018 which already happening in my direct field of view and certain industries.
1) Digital Nomadism
You may have already encountered a massive movement of friends and family migrating into new platforms. I currently see this in Germany regarding Instagram. I have been there for a couple of years now, but lately, I see more and more people creating their account. Sure, Facebook is actively pushing people to go there or giving you the power to invite people to the platform, yet the real movement is coming in 2018. Demographics will change drastically and find their niche. With new platforms emerging every day, attention spans will become shorter and shorter, and it will become harder for companies to keep their followers entertained. With every major platform offering live streaming, video ads and so on, costs for marketers especially will rise more than in the past. All in all, it will get louder for everyone, and people will look for a place to be heard. The switching costs will be on a new low, and it will be interesting to watch how the big players will tackle this and how smaller companies can grab theirs.
2) The Power of Voice
Was it only me, or did many people start to listen to podcasts, even more than before? Podcasts are living through a renaissance and are probably as popular as radio ever was. Business, Marketing, Video Games, Science Fiction or Trivia, almost every subject is available with a plethora of channels to chose from. Why do we love podcasts so much? It gives us time. I changed my behavior from listening to music and now have multiple podcasts that I follow and delivers each week new impulses and relevant information.
It is also a fantastic marketing channel, and I would go so far as to say that every company, especially B2B specialists, need to work on some form or another, it offers much potential.
Here are some recommendations for your start in 2018:
3) Change will happen even faster
One thing is for sure; we will see an even more rapid change in almost every aspect of our daily life. More updates, more products, shorter product lifecycles and more experimenting along the way. Features will be rolled out aggressively and tested among target groups and countries.
This goes hand in hand with my first statement, regarding keeping audiences invested and interested, platforms have to change, try out new features and fight for their relevancy. The most prominent example in recent memories is Snapchat. They had a good thing going and threatened the much bigger giant companies, but Facebook navigated quickly and copied features, filters, and stickers and kept their core audiences. Whereas the impact was even higher with Instagram since the product was much closer to Snapchat itself.
So, we will see constantly smaller start-ups come up with new features and functionalities and the more prominent companies have to follow suit.
What is your position in all of this?
Feel free to leave a comment below, would love to hear your opinion.
Originally published at www.sebarsch.com.
