Social media and gadget usage has increased exponentially in the last couple of years. According to The Office for National Statistics, approximately 73 per cent of UK adults are daily internet users and more than half use their smartphones to go online. Additionally, more than a quarter of adults use social media on a daily basis to find and share content. This increasing dependence on the internet and social media hasn’t gone unnoticed by brands, as is evident by the increased spend and resource towards developing integrated digital media strategies
a) Mobile Marketing: Smartphone usage in the UK is at an all-time high and almost 25 per cent of Britons claim it is their primary device to connect to the internet. The focus is slowly moving away from ‘mobile only’ to ‘a connected consumer’ strategy, i.e., approaching consumers when they need you and where they need you and making the most of the moments that matter to them.
Jide Sobo, MEC’s head of mobile, says:
“Consumers are increasingly always connected, whether through their smartphone, tablet, laptop or smartTV. They are ahead of marketers in that they aren’t “mobile first” or “TV first”, they use whichever device is most convenient for them at that time. If brands aren’t accessible on those devices they will start to miss out in 2014.”
b)Content: In order to grab and maintain the attention of audiences, brands are working towards creating exciting content off the back of the latest ephemeral trend. Brands are becoming aware there isn’t a formula to creating ‘viral’ content, instead they can leverage the buzz generated by news stories/ trends that consumers are already engaged with.
Jamie Toward, director of operations for MEC Access, says:
“Two content trends will come to the fore in 2014. Video will continue its rise but along with all other content formats will push closer to real time in its responsiveness to real world events. The second trend will focus around evaluation of content effectiveness. With larger bets being placed on content based programmes, brands will increasingly look to content producers and distributors to provide greater insight and measurement that will underpin the refinement of those programmes to both justify and increase the investment required.”
c) Social Insight: Large corporations are working towards integrating CRM programs with social data, and using insights gleaned through this unstructured data set to better cater to their audience
Emma Ellis, MEC’s head of social insight, says:
“The first and most important measure is the business one. Why are we doing this? What business objective is social contributing towards? We should ignore, for the moment, the different things we can measure and focus on what social should be contributing to our clients business. It isn’t rocket science and social media ROI really shouldn’t be. The tricky part of the process isn’t measuring and tracking the metrics, but identifying what they should be in the first place.”
d) Privacy: Following the controversies around Google data, NSA and cookie regulation, the consumer sentiment has remained largely unchanged. The biggest shift has been noted within the teenage demographic, wherein there is a mass migration towards closed network social platforms, such as Whatsapp, Snapchat etc.
e) Teenagers: Towards the end of last year, Facebook announced it was seeing a decline in traffic from the teenage demographic. And this trend, in part, has contributed to the rise of Snapchat. With a growing number of parents and teachers on Facebook, teenagers are worried about lack of privacy and leaving behind evidence of their irresponsible behaviour.
f) Wearable technology: Wearable technology is closer to becoming a mass market product with the imminent release of products like the Galaxy smart watch, iWatch and Google Glass. Gadgets and apps that collect data on your habits are set to become one of the hottest accessories in 2014, as is the term ‘quantified self’. Examples of smart wearables primed for 2014 include trainers, t-shirts and bras that monitor your vitals, Milkmaid smart jugs and Nest thermostat.
g) Recruitment: More companies are finding candidates through some form of social networking and have been increasing their efforts towards building a reputable image online. Brands are not only using social media to engage with customers but also potential employees.
h) Search: There are two schools of thought on how search will evolve over the coming years, either social will become the dominant source for searching information on brands, or search algorithms will pre-empt your needs and provide you with information before you look for it. With promoted trends, tweets and hashtags becoming the norm, you don’t need to search for news, if it is something you need to know about, social media will find a way to get it to you.
i) Access to brands/customer service: More customers are relying on social media as their point of call for customer service. Almost half of customers who complain about products via social networks expect a response from the brand within an hour and a whopping 60 per cent of consumers turn to Facebook or Twitter to complain about brands.