2013 Here today Gone Tomorrow – Digital Marketing Predictions for 2014

With our 2013 Digital marketing recap in the books - we are now looking ahead at what 2014 will bring.

Google's Knowledge Graph is creating more feature-rich search result pages that turn our experience into more of a discussion and fluid channel for users to find content without leaving Google. Hummingbird will help answer your questions in Google before you even have a chance to ask them. The new content created by brands will need to contain markup that Google can parse and ultimately incorporate into their search result pages. It's not about whether companies post quality content, but more of a matter of how it's formatted and distributed.

Content marketing in 2014 is going to be full of image-rich, data driven content. We saw a lot of content being created in 2013 with images - whether it was .gifs, infographics or memes. Content was being published in a way that was more visually appealing to the consumer and 2014 is going to be no different. Brands are going to need to get creative with their own content production - so be ready.

In 2013 we saw a new trends in the social media landscape with the release of Facebook search, Instagram videos/direct messaging, and even Snapchat. Social Media is going to take an even larger percent of marketers focus in 2014. To stay ahead of the curve, companies will have to start being diverse and using different social platforms to be creative in order to set themselves apart from other brands. Paid social ads will continue to generate a deep user engagement and we will see brands investing more money and time in getting their ads displayed via different social networks. We will see promoted posts on Facebook, sponsored tweets on Twitter, sponsored stories on LinkedIn, promoted pins on Pinterest and new Instagram ads all become likely mainstays in the marketing arsenal.

mCommerce, or mobile marketing, is going to be key in 2014. We saw a huge shift in mCommerce from 2012-2013 and it's going to continue to boom in 2014. Customers are increasingly more likely to type in their precious 16 digits on their phone, than ever before. There is a widespread use of smartphones and tablets, with 28% of website traffic now originating from mobile devices, companies will have to jump on the mobile bandwagon if they haven't already. Consumer phone usage and smartphone adoption is continuing to rise, and in 2014, marketers will need to ensure that the brand experience is the consistent on a smaller screen. Studies show that 61% of people have a better judgment of brands when they offer a good mobile experience.

Companies are able to gather more location based data and use this information in real-time to target to their potential consumers. There are many tools available to help marketers better analyze the data that is being gathered to help pave the way to start acting on "Big Data". We will see more marketers onboard with Data Management Platforms like [x+1], Turn, and Knotice.

We are excited for 2014 and can't wait to help usher our clients into the future and take advantage of some of these new technologies.