Digital Marketing Made Simple (Future Trends)

The new year's here, guys, and everybody's asking, what are the digital marketing trends for this year? Stick around, I'm going to help you out. Welcome back, everybody. I'm Dan from millennialmotivator.ca, here to help you learn how to create, engage, and inspire to grow your sales. This channel is for entrepreneurs and small business guys. I put out videos Monday through Saturday to help you learn how to grow your business and engage your customers. More effectively. If you're new to the channel, go ahead and click that subscribe button down there and the little bell, and you'll get notified when my next video goes up. But today we are talking about what are the digital marketing trends for this year. Now, there's a lot of people that ask this question. I see a lot of it on Facebook. I see it on Twitter. I see it in Quora. A lot of people want to know, what are we supposed to be using? What are we supposed to be doing? Is it— do we run over here and use this? Vine 2 is coming out. Is it Snapchat? You know, LinkedIn has video now. Is that where we're supposed to be? The reality is this, guys, there are certain things you've got to do and certain things that you should avoid, and I'm going to lay it out for you coming up right now. Okay guys, first and foremost, we've got to put this out there because it's going to be the bulk of what you're going to focus on this year, and I swear by that. If you don't get in on this, this is the largest disclaimer I could possibly give you. If you don't do this, you are going to miss out huge when it comes to digital marketing this year. Are you ready for it? Here's the secret, don't tell anyone. Video. It's video. That's the secret. I know you're shocked here on YouTube that video is in some way going to revolutionize digital marketing, but here's the reality, guys. Vine 2, it's coming back, it's going to be huge. You know major YouTube stars that transitioned from Vine originally over to YouTube, they're going to go back to Vine 2. They're gonna do both. So Vine 2 is gonna take off, bam. Facebook Watch, Facebook is getting into the video game. They wanna compete, they wanna head in, they wanna get up against Netflix, and they wanna go against Amazon, and they wanna play the game, they wanna get in. And when they get in, Zuckerberg's gonna throw money at it, and it's gonna be worth your time to get in on Facebook Watch. So be prepared for that. LinkedIn is getting in on the game. You can now go live on LinkedIn with video. If you didn't know that, now you do. If you're a professional out there using LinkedIn frequently, and you wanna share your authority on that network, build that authority and let people know what you know, it's so crucial that you do it through video. You can share so much more personality and your knowledge clearly and concisely in a video instead of the common blog post that nobody really has time to read through anyway, right? So, you've got Facebook Watch, you've got Vine 2 coming back, LinkedIn is using video, Twitter's already on the video chain, YouTube, it's gonna be huge. It's gonna be a big deal. They do big things every year, right? Amazon already has Twitch, but they're already looking at getting even further. They've expanded their Prime Video to compete with Netflix. You've got the options of, uh, them optioning some URLs. It looks like they may be creating a platform similar to what YouTube does already. So you've got all of these different video options available to you, and it's such a high-quality SEO backlink for you to have this video content out there on the web. So what does it take? How do you get it on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Amazon when it comes out, Twitch? You know, where do you go? What do you do? This bad boy right here. You can do pretty much everything you need to do from this bad boy right here. Maybe not Twitch necessarily, it's a little more gaming intensive. You'll probably need a computer. Well, you'll definitely— well, you could probably do it from mobile too, but it's more inclined to the computer. But As for those other networks, guys, this is all you need. If you have a business and a smartphone, you have no excuse this year not to be doing video. Have to be on it, have to be there. All right guys, digital marketing trend in the future, it's gonna be video. That's just a reality of it. Live, pre-prepared, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 5 minutes, 2 minutes, Instagram Stories, 60 seconds or less, it doesn't matter. What kind of video you create, but you're gonna have to create it. It's just a reality. Great, so you got your video stuff out there. What else is changing out there in the digital marketing world? Well, that's content marketing. That's you creating content, putting it out there, and letting people know this is what we're about, this is what we do, here's some tips and tricks, some thoughts, some vlogs, here you go. Next up though, and what you really got to keep your mind on here, is it's not always about content marketing, right? You're gonna have your tried-and-true old old school blog, you're gonna have your, your podcast, you're gonna have your— the reality is though, guys, podcast is gonna take off. Audio is gonna be huge. More and more people are consuming that audio content on the go, on the fly. Most professionals that I know, whether they're small business, big business, CEOs or janitors, they're listening to podcasts. So if your company doesn't currently have a podcast, you may want to consider it. If you're not down for podcasts, you don't feel that you've got time to devote to that, Not a problem. Get out there and find podcasts that are in your niche and volunteer to show up on them. Interview with those people, talk with those people, share what your business is doing. It's going to be super powerful, powerful for your brand to be on podcasts and sharing that information and that, that beautiful, beautiful audio. People on the go consuming your brand. It's, it's valued and it's free right now compared to where, you know, traditionally on radio you'd have to do a a sponsored promo ad and pay them. Podcasts right now, there's so many of them. It's free, it's fun. Get in on it, optimize it, make sure that you're there. Ideally you want your own, but if you can't do it, find other ones that are relevant, get in on it, plug in on it. Last but not least, guys, the major trend change, and we're going to talk paid ads. I always leave it for last. I'm not a huge advocate for paid ads. I know they work. I know there's gurus out there that blow it away. I'm always about content and community first. But now that you've got those out of the way and you're looking to give it that extra little boost, no problem. What you want to do is check out influencer marketing. Now I'm not going to touch on all the other ones that already exist— Facebook, Instagram, uh, YouTube, Google Ads. You guys got those, you know those, those have been around forever. People are out there teaching them, go check them out. Influencer marketing this year has to happen. If you are a company, if you are a brand, you need to be out there finding the influencers in your niche reaching out directly and saying, I want to advertise on your XYZ podcast, YouTube channel, blog, whatever. Influencer marketing is so grossly underpriced for the exposure it gives you, the engagement you get, and the conversions that come from it subsequently. You have to be using influencers to your benefit. Now, there are all kinds of channels out there that are starting to create agencies around influencers. So if you search in Google influencer agency, you're going to have a bunch pop up. Tons to choose from, lots of different niches. The only suggestion that I give you when you go into influencer marketing is don't just look at sheer numbers. Look at engagement. Look at what people are talking about, how people are engaging with it. Are people loving the content that goes out or is it just, it goes up and it comes down? Make sure that you do your background. Make sure you check out the channel, make sure you see people are engaging and it's not just random filler and robots. Okay? Make sure that it's key quality engagement and community. All right, it's key, it's crucial, you've got to hit it, it's absolutely mandatory. Okay guys, last but not least, I'm gonna give you a little bonus 2018 tip for digital marketing stuff coming. Okay guys, last but not least, I'm gonna call this the one-to-one. This is the real world, this is you reaching out directly to people and having conversations. Now like never before, DMs on Instagram, DMs on Twitter, direct communication through YouTube channels. YouTube looks like it's gonna make some community changes so you can have more conversation style on the mobile. You have to, have to, have to, have to be ready to get on those conversations one-on-one, reaching out and talking to people. If you see people engaging with your content, don't leave it dead. Reach out to them direct. If you throw something out on Twitter and certain people like and retweet it, send them a DM. Thanks for shooting that out. What are you about? What do you do? How can I help you? How can I reach out? Simple ways to engage, to turn it, to To make it profitable for you and your business. It's so simple. Don't forget the one-to-one. Even though it's a digital space, you still have that ability to create real conversations with real people, and that will always, always, always be an optimal way to create conversions. Now, the reality is a lot of people get, oh, I don't really want to talk to people. I kind of want to be anonymous in what I do. Tough. If you want to be a successful entrepreneur in 2018, this is what the competition's going to be doing. This is what you have to do. You have to get in on this, guys. Be on your mobile phone, talk to people through Instagram DMs, Twitter DMs, reach out to people on YouTube. And before you go scamming— scamming— spamming people out there, I'm not advocating spamming. What I am advocating is this: you put out quality content, you create that video we talked about, you put it out there on the networks, and when people engage, then you reach out. Okay, so it's as simple as picture you've got a booth at a conference, right? You put up a booth, Bam, somebody walks up to the booth and says, hey, that looks pretty cool, what do you guys do? That's essentially what somebody does when they engage with your content online. So as soon as you see that engagement, if you were at a conference, you wouldn't ignore that person that's engaged with you. You take the opportunity, seize it, and have that conversation. Do the same thing with your digital this year, guys. You will see monumental results if you dedicate the time and the focus to having these conversations. Let's go!