12 Global Trends Every Marketer Needs to Know

The evolution of technology has made us more connected than ever before. Having said so, marketers today can no longer get too carried away with their old, one-dimensional marketing strategies to triumph their business. As we enter the digital era, evolving global digital marketing trends have made it more imperative for marketers to adopt and integrate new marketing strategies in a whole slew of new platforms and technologies.

That’s true; Social Media is our new reality.

As a good marketer, one has to value new opportunities more than anything else. With the world changing more significantly than we already know, social media is the current wave for savvy marketers to be successful at meeting the demand of potential customers, particularly, millennials. Whilst it is now the big thing among the tech savvy generation, more and more marketers have the potential to invest and focus on unconventional approach to building sustainable marketing strategies. Social media makes it more possible for businesses to innovate, improve efficiency, and master skills beyond their experiences to come up with good ideas.  

In the following article, Cameron Brain from everyonesocial.com shares the top twelve (12) Internet trends that every marketer should be aware of. 

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We're not Even at 50%

Hard to imagine (maybe not), but we haven’t even reached the 50% mark for global internet users. You can probably see why Facebook and Google want to deploy drones to beam Internet to places like Africa. At present, North America, Europe, and China are largely saturated. India is up next, along with the rest of Asia Pacific.

India is The Next Major Market

In 1995, there were only 35 Million internet users, primarily in the US and Western Europe. Today there are 3 Billion, and China is the primary reason for this growth. What surprised us is, India is up next. In fact, India recently surpassed the US to become the Number 2 global internet user market behind China, and its growth is continuing to accelerate (over 40% year-over-year). To further elaborate, five (5) years ago, India’s internet users only occupy 7%. However, at the end of last year 2015, it has approximately increased up to 20% of India’s population was connected to the internet at the end of 2015. Five years ago the number was 7%.

50% of Global Smartphone Owners are in Asia

The Global smartphone adoption may be slowing (currently at 21% year-over-year, globally), however as marketers, we should be aware of the fact that in the US or Canada, it represents a small fraction of total smartphone users (somewhere around 10%). Currently, there are over 50% of global smartphone owners are in Asia.

China and Asia Growth in a Picture

In 1985, over 63% of global GDP ($19T, at the time) came from North America, Europe, and Japan. In 2015, 63% of global GDP (now $114T) came from China and emerging Asia. To put things into perspective, the photos taken back in 1987 and 2016 about Shanghai, the fastest-growing city in the world, gave a significant comparison about the growth in China. That explained the amount China spent on infrastructure alone in the last six years (2010 – 2016) has surpassed what they spent in the previous 30 years (1980 – 2010).

There are 5x More Android Smartphones

As an Apple / iPhone customer for many years, it’s hard to imagine that there are more than 5x as many Android phones being used globally. Further and for the first time ever, iOS phone shipments actually declined last year, while Android device shipments continued to grow by over 10%. This has then increased the awareness for all marketers to consider about the mobile strategies for their marketing plan.

Adblock Usage Way Up, Especially on Mobile

If you’re a marketer, chances are adblocking software has hit your radar in the last year or two. A double digit percentage of internet users employ these solutions; some sites report ad block usage as high as 40%. Well, these are some bad news for paid advertisers: it’s getting worse. There are now more people employing ad bloc solutions on their mobile devices than there are on the desktop. No wonder “native ads” are all the rage.

Video is Bigger than You Thought

Consider this for a moment: there are 20% more video views per day on Snapchat than on Facebook. In total, Snapchat received 20 Billion video views per day in Q1 2016. Based on their growth, that likely means they’ve reached something like 12 – 13 Billion views per day at present. And few days back, Instagram keeps up its pace by introducing a new feature – Instagram Story that allow the users to share photos and videos as their day-to-day story. Simple amazing. 

Remember the Chewbacca Lady? 

Remember that lady in the car wearing the Chewy mask? Well, it was the most viewed Facebook live video of all time, with over 153 Million views in just one (1) day. Further and because she mentioned Kohls a couple times, where Kohl’s had received an unexpected marketing boost, making its app (Kohl’s) to the number 1 ranking in the US iOS store. 

15x More Photos Shared Per Day than Five (5) Years Ago

Visual mediums are dominating shared content on the internet and there are really only two (2) companies that generate the bulk of shared photos: Facebook (Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp) and Snapchat. We have over 3.5 Billion images shared on a daily basis, up 15x from only five years ago. There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that the internet is becoming increasingly visual.

Messaging Continuing to Grow, Bigtime

Hard fact: Twitter and Linkedin not only have the least number of monthly active users, combined they don’t even reach the top three (WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and WeChat).  While growth has largely plateaued with the former, the top three plus Instagram continue to see 25% annual growth. Remember when Facebook paid $1Billion for Instagram? It’s now worth more than 40x that.

Self-Expression for All

Emojis are so five years ago. Heck, photo filters are so five years ago. Gifs and lenses are the new way to creatively express yourself on social media and a great way for brands to insert themselves into conversations. Consider these numbers:

• Taco Bell Cinco de Mayo lens on Snapchat received over 224 Million views, with an average session time (amount of time a Snapchatter played with the lens) of over 20 seconds.
• Gatorade Super Bowl lens on Snapchat garnered over 165 Million views with the same, 20 seconds average session time.
• Iron Man Filter from MSQRD on Facebook garnered 8 Million views.

Duh: Those born after 1981 prefer chat and social to phone and email

For millennials will be the future leaders in the world, it is crucial for marketers to adopt the right way of communication channel to reach out to their target audience. Almost everyone owns a digital device that is connectable to the internet now, thus, this has increasingly become the go-to communication channel for business, transactions, and everything else. 

Inspiration: 12 Global Trends Every Marketer Needs To Know Now

Chia Yi Jing | Bubbling with enthusiasm, bright ideas, and confidence, Yi Jing set foot in the PR world with Orchan Consulting, where she was offered permanent employment after a successful internship. She is determined to make her mark in the industry, and her bosses know that she will.