In the period between December 2016 and January 2017 we saw a barrage of articles posted online declaring “The 5 Digital Trends That Will Die in 2017” or “This Is What Advertising Will Look Like In 2017”. Now that we’re halfway through 2017, we thought it would be a good time to go back and review those predictions and see how many were accurate.

 

1 - Influencers Will Continue To Be Kings

Influencers have become essential to marketing campaigns over the past few years, and in 2017 they’re more important than ever. Getting an influencer to promote your brand or product is nothing new. Brands have been creating relationships with celebrities and sports stars for years, or sending their products to popular bloggers for a boost.

 

Influencer marketing is a little different. It involves identifying a person on social media that may not necessarily be a celebrity, but who is seen as an authority in their community and has a great personality. These people have become one of the most effective ways to reach customers.

 

What makes influencer marketing so attractive is that it gives brands the opportunity to create word-of-mouth buzz about their products. When used effectively, influencers create natural ways to entice your target audience, which is honestly almost priceless in marketing.

 

2 - Pop-up Ads Will Stop Annoying Website Users

In August 2016 Google declared that it would start penalising websites that feature large pop-up ads that obscure content by boosting the rankings of sites that don’t feature them. 

 

But these pop-ups and interstitials seem to be as abundant as ever, and the copy on them seems to have become more pushy. Even top ranking sites like Wired.com still bombard users with large pop-ups. 

 

Google started penalising only mobile sites in January this year, but there’s no word on when it will start affecting desktop versions of websites. There’s not much data yet on how many sites this has affected, if any. We’ll just have to wait for the reports.

 

3 - Live Video Content

Live content has become the internet’s new favourite, but is it a fad or is it here to stay? The ability to watch something happen live is appealing, whether it’s your favourite celebrity going about their mundane lives, or footage from protests. It’s the type of immediate content users have been waiting for. 

 

Live video is now available through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. And people are utilising this technology more every day. At the moment the content seems to be mainly personal, with users sharing their own experiences in creative ways. As the technology becomes more common we hope to see more brands use it to reach consumers in creative ways. 

 

You can never really tell what the future holds, especially when it comes to marketing, and even more so in the realm of digital marketing. We’ll keep our eyes out for new trends as the year progresses.