Well, it’s been a wild ride this year – for Wolf & Key and for digital marketing as an industry. At the beginning of this year, we took on the term “intentionality,” and we’ve been living by it. We’ve grown – personally and professionally. We’ve made amazing, scary, rewarding changes to the company itself. And we’ve loved every minute of it. Looking back to the start of 2019, we’ve changed. And that’s okay. In fact, it’s great.
And digital marketing has changed, too. So much so that we’re writing a blog about it.
Brand Activism
Conscious consumers ruled the purchases this year, which is why brands that aligned themselves with social causes saw great feedback and caused several viral moments. This is always a precarious line to walk, but with brands from McDonald’s to Volkswagen turning towards social issues in their ads, it’s definitely a powerful trend.
Virtual Reality
Virtual and augmented reality didn’t arrive in 2019, but its role in digital marketing certainly blew up. From Snapchat advertising horror movies with augmented reality filters to companies creating virtual reality experiences to promote their products. Technology advances are made every day, and it’ll be exciting to see how they continue to impact digital marketing efforts into the next year.
Social Media
Social media saw yet another rise in usage this year, with Instagram beating YouTube as platform-of-choice for users and brands sharing influencer content. YouTube has long been the powerhouse when it comes to influencer marketing, so this showed a huge shift in where time is spent online. Twitter, on the other hand, which saw a decrease for many years in a row, had a huge comeback this year. This is likely due to users’ ability to receive news and more in real time on the app. Facebook, as has been the case for years in a row, found growth and remained powerful as one of the biggest online platforms.
There were a lot of changes in digital marketing (and at Wolf & Key) in 2019, and these are only a few of them. What trends did you see? Let us know below, and we’ll see you in 2020.
