Digital Marketing Trends 2018 in Lebanon - Must Read!

Like any other trend, digital marketing trend keeps evolving with time. The digital marketing trends that worked wonders for your business in the year gone by may not prove fruitful to your business in the current year. In this post, we will shed light on some interesting marketing trends that digital agencies in Lebanon need to follow.

1. Video Marketing: The trend of video marketing will rule the roost this year. Consumers love watching videos to educate themselves about any brand or business. Since the consumption of video content among consumers is growing at an accelerated rate, digital marketers are embracing video marketing with open arms to share their brand message with consumers. Videos are an effective means of keeping consumers engaged which in turn enhances website traffic besides improving conversion rates. Other than live video streaming and Instagram /Facebook stories, 360° videos, short-form video ads, transcribed video content, and Facebook Watch will be a vital aspect of every video content strategy this year.

2. Conversational Chatbots: Artificial-intelligence powered chatbots, will be an essential part of digital marketing Lebanon this year. Chatbots are revolutionizing the landscape of customer service by delivering ‘instant gratification’ to the impatient millennial consumers who seek instantaneous feedback to their queries. Chatbots will continue to provide you with personalized response to address your queries about a specific product or services. This year, businesses will embed smarter and more responsive versions of chatbots on their website to empower chatbots to take care of clients’ queries and manage sales activities more efficiently.

3. Voice-optimized Content: Voice search will have a greater impact on SEO this year. Advanced voice-enabled devices will make it possible for you to ask any question to your smart device and get answers in the blink of an eye.

4. Influencer Marketing: The primary objective of Influencer Marketing is to develop an emotional bonding between your product and your target audiences. Digital Influencers are primarily of three categories—

• Celebrity Influencers, also known as Mega Influencers; e.g., renowned actors, sportsmen, musicians, models, etc.

• Authority Influencers, also known as Macro Influencers, are digital pacesetters with a huge fan-following.

• Micro-Influencers are individuals who use social media to share content involving their interest. Micro-influencer marketing is a powerful way of enhancing the sales of your business offerings; moreover, they are more effective than mega and micro-influencers.

Micro-influencer marketing gained significant momentum last year; however, this year businesses are going to implement integrated influencer marketing strategies by combining celebrity influencer marketing, authority influencer marketing, and micro-influencer marketing.

5. User-Generated Content: This year, brands will focus more on user-generated online content for enhancing sales. Customers tend to trust the opinions of other customers over celebrity brand endorsements; thus, brands will put more emphasis on user-generated content by adding customer reviews, ratings, and testimonials on their website. Brands will also initiate hashtag campaigns to derive user-generated content from their customers. Since video content is gaining worldwide popularity, businesses will also initiate campaigns to encourage user-generated video content on Facebook Live, Youtube, Snapchat stories, and Instagram stories.

Last but not least Big Data analytics will continue to dominate the digital marketing landscape to enhance your digital marketing efforts. Furthermore, since customers are switching to mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets, iPads, etc., cross-device marketing trends will gain momentum to deliver a seamless customer experience across devices.