Media Trends to Know for 2014

Joe Weinlick
Posted by in Communications & Media


As you plan ahead for next year, it’s important to take into account the newest media trends so that your company maintains its edge. After all, clients are much more likely to choose you over another business if you know what’s hot in the marketing world. With that in mind, the following paragraphs contain information about the latest media vogue and how you can make it work in 2014.

The social media craze—which began in a flurry of tweets a few years ago—is set to remain center stage for the foreseeable future. Instead of a passing fad, the digital media trend has suddenly dominated traditional advertising strategy both online and offline. Every company, it seems, has a Facebook page. If it doesn’t, it probably wants one—which is where you come in.

Sites like Twitter and Facebook have turned from convenient little places to share family photos into full-blown consumer portals. Case in point: nearly a decade after its foundation, Facebook went public in 2012, with a projected $141 billion net worth. Despite a controversial first year—punctuated by tumbling stock prices—the company rebounded. On Aug. 26, 2013, Facebook’s stock prices closed at $41.34 per share, bringing the company's market capitalization to $100.6 billion.

According to recent media trends data, inbound digital marketing is the way to go. Instead of bombarding customers with banner ads to achieve sales, companies are progressively turning to inbound marketing, bolstered by strong social media presence, as a developmental strategy. Inbound marketing, as the name suggests, is more concerned with building brand awareness than it is with flashy gif-ridden ads.

For a long time, media trends and online sales have been dependent on click-through rates. Sites like Facebook make it easier and cheaper to channel traffic because they give businesses a niche in the growing digital world. In this respect, Facebook company pages can be seen as the equivalent of real estate. If they nestle into the online high street, companies become familiar to consumers, who are then more likely to purchase product.

Media trends like this increasingly connect companies to international consumers. Facebook alone currently has more than 1.19 billion users, spread over every continent on Earth. Even China, which banned the social hub—along with Twitter and a number of other “sensitive” sites—in 2009, recently announced plans to relax its block in a free-trade zone near Shanghai.

Google recently updated its crawler software to base page rank on content quality, rather than quantity. Google’s new algorithms—known as Penguin and Hummingbird—have pushed many online companies down the search-rank totem pole at a particularly sensitive time of year. Of course, that's good news for you: your communications company can render itself very useful in the aftermath.

With all this in mind, it has become more important than ever to generate user-friendly, globally accessible content. High-quality educational articles, blog posts, and informational snippets are an integral part of the newest media trends. If you keep the user experience in mind as you create and implement marketing strategy, you'll boost your chances of success in a consistently competitive industry.

                                                                                                                       

(Photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net)

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