My Take on the Key Trends for the coming year 2014

1. Key Trends in Digital Marketing for the coming year 2014
 Digital Exceeds traditional marketing budget !!
 An identity based Eco-System : We as humans , have always had an intimate need to express
ourselves.By that very expression we further our identity.Awesomly Smart companies like
Facebook (Time-line), Amazon(Personilized Recommendations) are already taking advantage to
what I am calling as an Identity based Eco-System. The ever growing Digital world of tommorow
be it businness , or consumer will revolve around individual identity .The
one’s(COMPANIEESSSS) who take advantage of this trend will create ways to harness the
concept that showcasing our identity is the MOST HUMAN & PRIMARY OF DESIRES.
 CCA(Content Curation & Aggression ) : If you recall you’ve got mail (It’s a hollywood Movie) ,
you can never re-create the movie . Why? No one is excited to receive an e-mail anymore!! We
have moved on from being an information hungry society , to an information overload society.
But We do need information –New Information every single day !!That is the main reason we
see the rise of website’s such as quora, pintrest ,Lisst.ly,Visual.ly to name a few.Pintrest is
basically nothing but an organization system for images that already exists on the web , but WE
need that system for aggregation , it’s a full on success.
 VIDEO(bedio)=Device Agnostic !! : Do you frankly remember tha last time you said – “ I am
watching a video on the television”, now you must be watching them on ur phone, phablet,
tablet , smart phone. Video continues to become device agnostic!Now from a business POV
Online Video will continue to play a bigger role in the digital SPACE.
 Multi-Screen Revolution : Super bowl , the most amazing & Innovative event , actually defined
the multi-screen revolution perfectly.While people watched the game on their TV , they were
checking on the office mails on the computer , tweeting about the game on their tablets and
smart phone’s,& texting their friend’s at the same time.The number of screens we use will only
increase on time. Now when I Say screen I am not reffering to a Glass Solid thingy, even google
glass for that matter qualifies (just).So Any surface you can interact with can be considered as a
screen. Hence looking for innovations in advertising as the number of screens increase will grow
drastically.

2.  SOCIAL LITERACY IS A MUST : Social Literacy will be a mandate by companies when considering
candidates for any position. It would expand beyond the understanding of the global available
social platforms to make the vast digital landscape a vital part of your proffessional repertoire.
As a Skill Set , Social literacy can be furthe segmented into 2 parts- organizational & Personal.On
the Organizational level – In the thought of strategy , the sheer ability to aggregate &
understand multiple points of data for decision making & Hardcore authentication will be
required. On the Personal Level- people will/should know how to create content , curate
relevant information(cause we love Information as human’s),& To connect people & resources
in the best possible manner.
 A Picture is worth a 1000 words ( I think 1000 is a bit too less) :
The search giant Google , recently released -Authorship, allowing authors to link content they
publish on a specific domain to their Google Plus page and have their picture appear in the
search results.
SoIf you’re blogging, you need to be using this technique as it maximizes visibility, increases
click-through rates and provides a competitive advantage.
The huge growth of Instagram and Pinterest over the past years had further reinforced the fact
that pictures are more engaging. The increased use of info-graphics provides more proof that
image-based content is KEY!!
Articles and blogs with well-placed images that strategically break up text guarantee increased
views. Not only is an image good for increasing interaction, Boom !!It also increases your organic
visibility by using relevant naming conventions alongside the image.
o Take out: If you’re blogging, use Google Authorship and break up your text to hopefully reduce
your word count. In Addition to this Google also uses ‘trust’ as a key metric when ranking pages
for SEO, making Authorship even more important. When thinking about social media, don’t
forget to target image-based sites.
 Location-based marketing
o Advanced marketers have been communicating with customers based on their
location for years, more recently via checking in on Foursquare or Facebook, and
previously via proximity technologies such as Bluetooth.PublicWi-fi can be the next
level , provided we have that level of internet penetration in our country!!
o Consumers don’t have to check in for marketers to target them, we can do so based
on their location via GPS. Google does this extremely effectively via AdWords.
Radius targeting allows you to target your advert to customers within a certain
distance from your business.
o Apple the innovation kings have taken this a stage further with iBeacon, an ‘indoor
positioning system’ enabling an advertiser to tailor messaging to a customer based
on where they are in your shop, office, stadium etc. The options nevertheless are
totally endless, from informing customers in which aisle to find a product to providing
navigational advice to their seat in auditorium, office .
o The real power is when you overlay this technology with demographic and customer
information. Not only do we now know where this customer is but we know who they
are and what they like, so we can target them more efficiently.

3.  Love thy Short :
If you want to connect with audiences, especially the YOUTH, create engaging and bite-sized
stories, heck we all know that.
The growth of Pinterest& its crisp and simple UI proves people want simple.
Google understood this before anyone else – is there a homepage less cluttered or more
uncomplicated than Google’s?
In the year 2014, marketers must be able to tell their story as succinctly as possible.
Now , as consumption of video on mobile devices continues to grow in 2014, short video
storytelling will become paramount. Twitter’s Vine service, which allows users to upload 6.5-7
seconds of video, boasts just under 14 million registered users and has featured as the Apple
app store’s most downloaded app.
This was my short (not so short) take on the key trends in digital marketing for the coming year 