Key digital trends for 2021

 Here are the seven digital trends for 2021.

1) Changes in B2B & B2C marketing strategies – Creating efficient strategies in lead generation and relationships

As well as engaging, social media now has to deliver sales results, and this is visible when a company begins to measure such results effectively. With the pandemic, some business models have been accelerated, such as online retail, click and collect, frictionless retail, and D2C e-commerce, changing the way companies position themselves to meet customer needs. Today, one of the basic principles of any content strategy is generating leads to build relationship with potential customers.

In the strategic domain, a big hit this year is expected to be big data-based natural language processing (NLP), which should help gain better understanding of the information obtained through big data systems and thus ease user interaction. Other highlights are the Data Warehouse (predictive, prescriptive, descriptive or diagnostic analytics) and Dark Data, which refer to all information that companies collect, process and store in the normal course of their activity, but are not intended for any other specific use.

2) Will 2021 be the year of AR and AI?

We are currently in the third wave of the Internet, a stage where Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are already part of all (or almost all) aspects of our lives. With these tools, brands can go beyond screens: they can experiment new formats and increase their creativity. However, like all new technology, using this resource requires a large investment in the development of prototypes.

Another factor pointing to the growth of Augmented Reality is the 5G technology, which should soon revolutionize how we connect with the Internet of Things (IoT). In the area of Artificial Intelligence (AI), we can expect a significant advance in technology being used to improve workflows and the buyer’s journey through personalization and hyper-personalization. In marketing, automation should go beyond naming the person to whom the message is directed; however, as artificial intelligence advances, some companies, such as content agencies, may probably be adversely affected.

3) Entertainment, Music, & Games – Creating online communities through influencers

It is often said that one of the paths to the future of social media is entertainment. However, several brands have difficulties in creating attractive content to their customers. An extremely viable solution is to team up with influencers who already do it very naturally. After all, real people connect with real stories, and nothing better than working with great opinion makers to bring entertainment to consumers who are increasingly demanding and seeking true connections.

Another big news is Spotify Studios , launched in 2020, which is aiming to include video podcasts. The gaming world is promising too: for instance, Fortnite has already performed several initiatives, such as including DC Comics characters in the game.

4) Flywheel – The clients are in the center

Several markets have used data captured in the digital environment and creating segment-oriented messages based on the user’s personal characteristics. Now it is time to have these data used not only by the marketing team but by the entire organization in a more strategical fashion aiming to design new products, services and solutions, and place the customer in the very center of all operations. Part of this change is related to the m-commerce, whereby purchase is made via cellphones. By the end of 2021, mobile devices are estimated to generate nearly 73% of the total e-commerce sale record, which entails that we need new digital strategies, especially content-centered strategies.

5) Engagement with purpose – Diversity and inclusion initiatives

Changing people’s lives through the enterprise’s activities is a growing trend in the market. Embracing diversity is currently a challenge for brands of which the public demands a more authentic position and long-term actions. Therefore, organizations should not decide to support a cause if they do not intend to live up to the expectations through actions. For example, if an organization is willing to invest in an LGBT-oriented campaign, it must ensure that its employees hold this ideal, provide job opportunities to this demographic, and treat LGBT people adequately. This is the only way for the campaign to be effective. This applies to any other topic of interest. Brands approaching diversity-related topics is a response to the constant changes in society, but it is necessary to be cautious and avoid superficial approaches.

6) New possibilities – Virtual Assistants, Twitch, TikTok, WhatsApp, Shoploop, & Kormo Jobs

Both voice search and use of virtual assistants such as Alexa and Siri should be taken into account in 2021. With the increasing use of voice search, brands are supposed to produce content aiming at these platforms. Twitch, which is widely used by the gaming community, has gained new audiences. Chinese social media TikTok already has offices in various parts of the world capable of designing solid strategies for brands. WhatsApp has promised to become an important sales tool, especially for small businesses.

The latest is Shoploop, a new video application that has come to compete with TikTok, but it has a more commercial focus that can truly benefit electronic commerce. This new project comes from Area 120, a Google department dedicated to innovation. For now, Shoploop is still in its trial phase, but another novelty, also from Google, that promises to draw attention in 2021 is Kormo Jobs, the Asian LinkedIn, Google’s newest professional tool. Already available in India, it promises to become the newest website connecting professionals worldwide.

7) Creative Talent – Senior professionals with a disruptive leader

With the increasing value of digital marketing over the past months, native advertising and programmatical advertising have joined forces, and now must work cooperatively. Having a team well directed by a manager with robust global experience and holistic vision is of essence. Having a well-aligned team delivering projects by the deadline is no longer enough; it is also necessary to innovate and be disruptive, to have the ability to leverage the social media and content team and assist the marketing professionals to make important decisions.

For example, in 2021 digital teams should create strategies for Bing and Yahoo! as alternatives to Google, and consider programmatical advertising for wearables, including the popular smartwatches. All that must be discussed and strategically lined-up with televised merchandising.

Maslow 3.0.

What is RSS

 
What is RSS and why do you care?
Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds are an XML format that was created to syndicate news, and be a means to share content on the Web.
Say you want to read updates from more than two dozen sites weekly. Having a way to subscribe to those sites from a central location, instead of needing to visit them individually, is very convenient. I read about 232 sites and blogs, and pull the questions from LinkedIn for three categories.
You can also syndicate Google Alerts to an RSS reader, for example, and save your inbox for real correspondence. I also have a service that tells me if someone is reposting my feed, which is how I know when sites scrape my content.
As a publisher, you want to offer a way for people to subscribe to your content -- and offering a feed along with an option to receive it in the form of email, is the easiest way to do that.
Despite the link sharing taking place on various social networks -- Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google+ -- feeds are still a major way to publish and pull content.





[image courtesy of Stephanie Quilao]

The First Digital Copywriter

It's Joe McCambley, who is listed as copywriter on that very first 1994 banner for AT&T on HotWired.

According to his bio (pdf), "Joe conceived and developed the first advertising experience that ever appeared on the Internet in October of 1994. It was a banner that led to an online tour of the world’s best art museums, sponsored by AT&T and developed for the inaugural issue of HotWired Magazine."

Which also answers an old question -- what happened when people did click "right HERE".

Digital Nostalgia

• Digital Nostalgia
  A set of information graphics which examine the technological changes in our lifetimes and the influences they have had on our lives.
  
• 
  Life Online
  The creation of the Internet and how technology influenced social change.
  
• 
  Audio/Video
  The recording formats of the past and the changing ways we listen to, watch and carry our media.
  
• 
  Disk Space
  The formats for storing and transporting the increasing amounts of computer data we produce in our lives.
  
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  Mobile Evolution
  The launch of the mobile phone and how it has developed to the essential piece of technology it is today.
  
• 
  Wireless World
  The launch of Wifi has given us more freedom in the way we communicate and use our digital devices.
  
• 
  Global Technology
  The global distribution of technology and how it is making the world a smaller place.
  
• 
• 
• 

2010| Web trends list

Sections:

1. social media
2. business
3. mobile
4. marketing
5. search
6. SEO
7. web design & development
8. software

Social Media

• Twitter integration and apps were king in 2009 and are here to stay. Either you integrate or you perish
• Tumblr is successful and growing in the shadow of Twitter, when Twitter finally loses steam will Tumblr be the new darling?
• Market consolidation in social media leaving only a few major players on the scene: Twitter, Facebook and who else?
• Social news (Digg, Reddit) and bookmarking (Delicious) will become obsolete. Already the first wave of social media that is social news and bookmarking lose against Twitter.
• Social browsing (StumbleUpon etc.) is already dead. There were more than a dozen of social browsing services in 2008. Most of them are dead or on hiatus already. More to follow.

Business

• We’ll witness a demise or hiatus of most startups without critical mass of users as the money runs out
• We can expect a proliferation of premium and freemium business models as venture capital stays scarce
• Companies and brands will have to develop a social media strategy in 2010 to stay afloat
• With business accounts and data access selling like hotcakes and additional revenue sources Twitter will become profitable in 2010 already

Mobile

• We’ll see a smartphone systems death match as the market isn’t big enough for all the often incompatible systems we have right now.
• Apple will be losing market share. The iPhone still looks like years ago. They don’t even have a netbook yet. They can’t rely on cult tactics forever.
• Phones and calls for free thanks Google: Google prepares the real Google Phone combining Google Voice and Gizmo5 VoIP to offer free calls.

Marketing

• We’ll see less bullshit and more substance in the online marketing field. As the Web matures more and more people become too savvy to get fooled.
• Advertising replaced on the Web by “ad content” that is non promotional content about the brand, company or products: Less banners more reports.

Search

• Real time search will go prime time for everyone, not just the search geeks and early adopters
• Google and Bing will keep on copying each other in order to capitalize on the search advertising market
• Advanced personalization will lead to your own personal search results for most people rendering ranking checks useless

SEO

• SEO is becoming ubiquitous, everybody does it (BBC etc.) and in 2010 those who don’t will fail to compete
• More SEO experts will return underground again inspite of ubiquitous SEO due to wide spread prejudice of the ignorant against the trade
• Like it or not but we’ll see more jQuery pop ups due to their high conversion rate. 

Web Design & Development

• Mobile apps will continue to boom and optimized web pages for mobile use will become common place finally
• HTML5 and CSS3 will allow web designers to offer extra features possible backed by graceful degradationin oder to support for older browsers
• YouTube censorship spawns an open source and DIY video embedding counter movement. We already witness it but in 2010 you’ll look like a noob using YouTube on your site

Blogging

• Blogs get even more authoritative and accepted, becoming the “old media” of the Web
• Quick and clean miniblogging (Tumblr, Posterous etc.) establish a lively sphere between Twitter-like microblogging and blogging.
• Video content finally gets the importance we expected for years now with growing band width etc.

Software

• There will be more cloud computing and web based software or rather webware around and people will use it more often
• Most notably Google Docs will convince more users of the Microsoft Office desktop edition to switch
• At the same time Google Chrome OS will be competing successfully with Windows at least on netbooks

VIA

Facebook Advertising

Success on Facebook

Success on Facebook comes from a blend of sheer size of fan base, record of publishing useful content and the extent of consumer interaction that is offered.

We looked at eight major product categories to find the brands that gained the most traction on the site, comparing their Facebook pages to those of competitors to determine which were best and worst at taking full advantage of the platform.

Some big-name players -- Coca-Cola, Best Buy, Starbucks and Microsoft among them -- are performing especially well on the social-media site. Others, however, including Burger King, Walmart, Dell and Geico, might be missing some prime opportunities to interact with their current and potential customers.

Contents:

• Consumer Packaged Goods ... Retail
• Restaurant/Food ... Technology
• Apparel ... Insurance
• Automotive ... Airline

CONSUMER PACKAGED GOODS: COCA-COLA

The granddaddy of Facebook brand pages wasn't even started by the soft drink giant. Two fans created the page in August 2008 and it went on to become the top product page on the site. Perhaps Coke learned its lesson from the Diet Coke-Mentos phenomenon, when it objected to the use of its product in a viral Web video hit. This time out, instead of playing the corporate heavy, Coke brought the two consumers to company headquarters and invited them to continue to run the page with backing from Coke.

Stats: 3.7 million fans; regular promotions include one that solicits videos for a shot at appearing in a Coke commercial.

Missed Opportunity... Pepsi. The company makes a disappointing showing on Facebook, given that it's a digitally and socially savvy brand. The Refresh Everything page has 250,000 fans, a fraction of rival Coke's. The company mostly uses it as a channel for pumping out updates of marketing activities.



RETAIL: BEST BUY

At a tough time for electronics outlets -- witness the demise of Circuit City -- Best Buy is pushing the envelope with social shopping. Its Facebook page doesn't just tout products, it lets visitors browse from the site and get feedback on items from Facebook friends. It's also using the site to get general feedback from its customers, sometimes to a fault.

A recent post asking users what they thought of the company offering a BestBuy.com in Spanish ignited a firestorm of hostile and offensive comments. The company acted quickly by taking the post down.

Stats: 842,000 fans; one of the richest retail pages on Facebook, featuring "shop and share" and "gift ideas" applications.

Missed Opportunity... Walmart. The retailer might be the biggest on the face of the Earth, but you wouldn't know it on Facebook. The company clearly has its work cut out for it in the give and take of social media, but hiding is a dubious strategy. Its page has less than 17,000 fans and no content.

RESTAURANT/FOODS: STARBUCKS

The chain has flexed its brand muscles on Facebook, running several ad campaigns to plumb its fan base, even to the point of offering free ice cream this past summer. Some say luring fans in with freebies means fleeting success, but Starbucks' fan page is growing over 3 percent per week, according to AllFacebook, putting it on track to overtake Will Smith in popularity on the site.


Stats: 4.5 million fans; ice cream and pastry giveaways clearly resonate with consumers; the company's social strategy was enough for Altimeter Group to rank it the No.1 most-connected brand.

Missed Opportunity... Burger King. Not many ad icons nowadays have the appeal of Burger King's mascot, but the brand is curiously absent from the social networking platform. That's too bad because it clearly has cachet among users as evidenced by the avalanche of responses to the short-lived "Whopper sacrifice" campaign last January.



TECHNOLOGY: MICROSOFT

Unlike its nettlesome rival Apple, which is so beloved it doesn't need a Facebook fan page, Microsoft typically has to go the extra distance. The company has a sophisticated Facebook strategy with fan pages for several different product lines. This helps build focused fan bases for Internet Explorer, Windows, Surface and its MVP Award Program of product evangelists. The approach lets the behemoth act smaller.

Stats: Over 300,000 fans; used the Bing page to solicit feedback on features the new search engine needs.

Missed Opportunity... Dell. Despite a concerted effort at social media, Dell hasn't cracked the Facebook code. It has about 40,000 fans who get a regular stream of product releases. What's missing is the feedback loop Dell started with its Ideastorm site in 2007.

APPAREL: ADIDAS

For a brand used to playing second fiddle to big-spending rival Nike, turnabout is fair play. Adidas Originals is a Facebook powerhouse thanks to its trove of quality content and event information. The brand has a "your area" tab that populates with localized content.

Stats: 2.1 million fans; posts photos and videos; updates a few times per week.

Missed Opportunity... Nike. As the ultimate passion brand, Nike would figure to be quite popular on Facebook. And it has amassed 382,000 followers. But talk about anti-social. Nike hasn't updated the page since July. Just do it, Nike.



INSURANCE: AFLAC

For some brands, fan bases are best built around characters. That's been the case for Aflac, which has attracted fans for its trademark duck's quirky updates. The brand gets the character's voice right, mixing charity pleas with offbeat takes on news from the duck's perspective.

The company, seeing how far it can go, has taken the duck to Twitter where he's attracted over 3,000 followers.

Stats: 161,000 fans; mixes updates with charity pitches and contests; posts daily.

Missed Opportunity... Geico gecko. If a duck can do it, a lizard can, too. Yet the Geico gecko has never found his footing on Facebook. The page has just 6,800 fans. The lizard's droll tone doesn't carry over to the site. Instead, his updates sound a lot like the voice of a PR pro.

AUTOMOTIVE: FORD

The automaker has lately fared better across the board than its domestic peers. It's also beating its competitors in social media, including on Facebook. Ford Mustang has built up a loyal following, and Ford is an active updater on the company's official corporate page.

Stats: Over 370,000 fans on the Ford, Mustang and Fusion pages; mix of product and event information with photos and videos.

Missed Opportunity... Toyota has nearly 50,000 fans, yet it hasn't updated its page since June.



AIRLINE: SOUTHWEST

It's hard to find anyone who's a fan of air travel nowadays -- but there are plenty of them on Southwest's Facebook page, which succeeds with a personal approach. Rather than craft a brand voice, for instance, Southwest introduces "hosts" Lindsey and Christi. Frequent polling keeps interaction high. Southwest has more Facebook cachet than hotter brands like JetBlue and  Virgin America.

Stats: 80,000 fans; high customer engagement thanks to fun promos.

Missed Opportunity... United Airlines. Not exactly a passion brand, United Airlines could stand to have something more than an empty page with 11,000 intrepid fans. 

Color Scheme Designer

A brand new interface, as well as the engine, all rewritten from the scratch. Rapidly increased precision and color space conversions, better preview, enhanced scheme creation system, unique scheme IDs and permanent URL of the scheme

The Grid:::line by line

August 10, 2009 issue The cellular industry is one of the most competitive brand environments in the world, and South Africa is no exception. Vodacom fights tooth and nail to protect and grow market share against its closest competitor, MTN, and a couple of other market players. Advertising may be the most visible part of Vodacom’s marketing efforts to build its brand, but product development and innovation is where customers get to experience the magic.

A case in point is a brand experience where real and virtual worlds intersect, called The Grid. A mobile social network that allows users to chat with friends, locate them on a map and share media, The Grid is a first for the African continent. Part Facebook, part Flickr, and a dash of Twitter combined with a GPS-type navigation system, The Grid allows customers to share their lives in a mobile location-based matrix with all of their friends. The application is all about socializing on the go. If users want to have a cup of coffee with a friend, all they need do is log into The Grid to see which friends are nearby and tag the location of a nearby coffee shop. Then they send a coffee invitation with directions to tempt their mate to pop on over. If the coffee drinking duo wants more friends to join them, they can log in again and type up a blog, message or record a quick video and invite everyone who’s free and happens to be nearby. Because The Grid displays the user’s approximate position on a street map, everyone can easily see where friends are and what they are doing where. Users from any network can join in because the independent and network-neutral application was developed to showcase innovative new technologies to all South Africans. “There are several areas where users get significant value when interacting with The Grid,” says Vincent Maher, portfolio manager for social media at Vodacom. “The service enables low-cost and real-time conversations, as well as an opportunity to meet new people and interact with them via mobile phones. Then users can create the mobile equivalent of a blog by combining multimedia elements and maps to show where the content was created. The Grid is a highly social environment, and what we are seeing is that people love to share their experiences and contribute to creating a social map of their experiences across all walks of life in South Africa.” The Grid is offered as a free or value-added service to users, who only pay for the data usage from their mobile phone to access the service. “Right now people are using The Grid to meet and interact with friends and new people, and to share their experiences through photos and stories about the things they do in their day-to-day lives. The service is busy most of the day, but usage peaks in the evenings when people are home from work and relaxing,” Maher says. The winner of the New Telecommunications Service at the Comms MEA Awards—held to recognize outstanding performance in the Middle East and African telecommunications sector—The Grid’s branding plays a significant role in promoting the larger Vodacom brand as a technological mover and shaker. Not only does it underscore innovation as a key brand value, but it does so in a way that is completely experiential. What’s more, it is changing the way marketing is delivered by offering a new paradigm for brand messaging. “The Grid demonstrates how the physical and digital can be meshed to create a more compelling and relevant marketing message,” Maher says. “By tying location to the delivery of messages it means small businesses finally have a viable digital platform to advertise on, and this means that bigger brands can leverage multiple locations simultaneously to interact with their customers in an interesting, innovative way. There are a lot of very interesting ways that brands can leverage The Grid to integrate digital and mobile campaigns with the physical world. The revenue model has been developed in such a way that deeper integration can be done to encourage users to go to specific places as part of a promotion. Another element of the model is the ability to deliver location-targeted advertising, which makes the content of the ads more relevant. At the heart of The Grid is the digital marketing “holy grail”—the viral effect. “Usage is driven partly by viral growth as users invite their friends to join and partly by innovative media integrations,” Maher says. The more friends users have on The Grid, the more they can get out of the service and the more they can do with it. “The stickiness is directly connected to how many friends a user has and the quality of conversations. The ability to meet new people without revealing your mobile number is also very appealing and, as users become more advanced, they start to use the features like the street maps and content uploads,” he says. To launch the new service, Vodacom commissioned the world’s first geo-tagged documentary for mobile phones, which centered on the issue of youth culture in South Africa’s biggest urban township, Soweto. Called Mobikasi (literally translated this meansmobile township), the mobile documentary utilizes The Grid’s location-based service capabilities to tag real-life physical locations and link them to relevant content in the movie. When users look at the film, they can explore Sowetan youth culture on their mobile phones from anywhere in South Africa through The Grid’s map interface, or by physically touring the famous township and watching documentary clips on their phones at the locations where they were shot. Mobikasi features people, music, fashion, social issues and places of interest and is unique in that it is not linear in nature. Rather, Mobikasi splits the content up into 25 one-minute inserts, and each is geo-tagged to the location where it was shot. This means that viewers can now explore Soweto’s vibrant youth culture by virtually “traveling” through a mobile street map of the township and stopping off at points of interest to enjoy the short video clips about each destination. The mobile documentary has proved so successful that a second season of Mobikasi is on its way and will take place in other townships around South Africa. In short, The Grid is a smart social networking solution with a branding strategy and message that targets a continent where mobile connections are more pervasive than television, the radio or the Internet.