Digital media is everywhere nowadays with the Internet continuing to expand and more content being produced everyday. Even traditional media outlets such as newspapers and radio are adapting to the digital scene, and there appears to be no sign that trends will stop changing. What’s popular one day can be almost non-existent the next. With that said, let’s look at the 5 of the trends for the upcoming year.
The world of mobile
56% of adults in America now have a smartphone. This number has increased over 20% from early 2012. As well as this, 18% of all E-commerce sales in the UK were sales of mobile phones and tablets. In the next few months we know that mobile traffic will overtake desktop traffic. Winning on the mobile front has never been more important and it is getting more important each day as sales of mobile devices increase in the developing countries such as Africa, India and the rest of Asia.
Video
In 2014 we can expect to see video marketing rise quickly. YouTube has firmly established itself as a key media platform for the world, especially for younger media consumers. Video is also now a key component of any company’s sales pages and about pages.
Wearable technology
The market or “wearables” will see a sharp rise this year. This involves wristbands, smartglasses, Google Glass, and Samsung Galaxy Gear. There are a large number of start-ups in this area at the moment. Pavlok is one of these start-ups- a wristband that administers a small electric shock or a less severe punishment (such as contacting a friend on your behalf) if you do not perform the task you were supposed to that day. Expect to see much more of wearable technology.
Content is Sacred
We all know that content is key. This is an existing trend but one which is worth repeating. The number of web pages is staggering and has only gotten higher in the past year. As Google continues to go through its iteration cycle, you will be able to capitalize on not just improving your content, but making it compatible across all platforms. The Hummingbird update show how serious Google are about this. Titles such as content manager could become obsolete. Content will go from key, to sacred.
Geo-targeted content
We know that mobile traffic will increase, but another thing to remember about that is that companies will have more data about users. With wearable technology coming into existence, the number of data is going to increase exponentially. This could lead to geo-targeted content giving us only the very latest, up-to-the-minute news, but news from where exactly the user is.
It’s impossible to predict the trends for digital media for any longer than a year. The pace of development means that in six months time, something new could come along- something that no one’s even thought of yet- and take all of us by storm. This is precisely what makes this area so exciting!