6 Trends That Will Rule The Tech World

As we travel past the half point of 2016, we marketers should look back at the technology trends that have already made their mark on this year! They will serve as a foundation for a smarter future. Virtual reality, artificial intelligence and smart cars have made their appearance to the main stage in 2016. This is thanks in no small part to the hardware becoming commercialized and cloud technologies making way for multi-functional computing.

Back in early January at CES, the world’s largest annual tech convention, the number of vendors dedicated to cars, wearables, robots and drones was higher than ever before. The convention was estimated to be equivalent to the size of a whopping three-and-a-half football fields’ worth of space for smart-car technologies alone!

This convention set the stage for a 2016 of technology companies expanding into new niche markets, such as healthcare and auto, as their software products and services become increasingly ubiquitous.

Based on these developments, we’ve identified six trends that will rule the tech world!

1. Virtual and augmented reality

In 2016, virtual reality finally got its chance to shine on a consumer level! Meanwhile, augmented reality continues to prove itself in the workplace. CES predicted 46 gaming and virtual reality exhibitors to attend their convention which was an increase of 68 percent from last year.

Juniper Research predicted there would be a “watershed year for VR.” So far, 2016 has seen the launch of Facebook Inc.’s FB, Oculus Rift, the first consumer-level virtual-reality headset that doesn’t require a smartphone like Alphabet Inc.’sGOOGL, Cardboard and Samsung Electronics’ 005930, Gear VR.

HTC Corp. and Valve’s Vive VR headset will also hit the market next year. The launch was postponed in December of 2015 when developers experienced a “very, very big technological breakthrough” that made the initial version obsolete, according to Engadget.

In addition to the new hardware, 2016 will also experience an increased focus on VR content in gaming and entertainment. The development of consumer-level 360-degree cameras has empowered amateur filmmakers and game designers access to virtual-reality shooting.

Meanwhile, augmented reality, which became a larger topic of discussion this year after Microsoft Corp.MSFT, showed off its not-yet-released Hololens headset at a product event. Eventually Microsoft released their newest innovating product in July.

At CES, vendors are expected to showcase real-world applications for these augmented-reality headsets. The new invention is going to enhance a person’s task on the job by interposing digital images like a map or instructions on top of objects in their surrounding environment.

2. Wearables

Apple Inc. made people feel comfortable with the idea of wearing tiny data-collecting computer screens on their bodies with the April 2015 launch of Apple Watch. In 2016, it’s expected for more players to hop on this trend, and newer devices to be more capable.

At the convention for CES, there were at least 33 exhibitors showing off wearable technology. This was nearly triple the 12 in 2015! These devices were outfitted with sensors and showcased in ways that prove their applications in health, fitness and the enterprise market.

Soon, these devices will be able to connect directly to the Internet, without needing to tether to a third-party mobile device. This will enhance the stage for embeddable wearables, such as Chaotic Moon’s biometric tattoo, or tech tats, which attach to the skin much like a temporary tattoo.

3. Smart cars

At 200,000 square feet, automotive technology set the record of having three-and-a-half football fields’ worth of space at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show!

While it still may be some time to see fully autonomous vehicles, there has been recent movement from both a technological and regulatory standpoint that might help make 2016 a stand-out year for smart-car tech.

Last December, reports suggested Google and Ford Motor Co., could join forces to create a joint venture that will develop self-driving vehicles with Google’s technology. Meanwhile in California, regulators unveiled a proposal that would require licensed drivers to be present to operate an autonomous vehicle.

It will take a few more years for cars to become fully autonomous, but 2016 will likely be a year of partnerships between tech companies and auto manufacturers as they work toward the development of fully-autonomous vehicles.

4. Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) is similar to the tech that powers Windows’ Cortana and iOS’s Siri and machine learning technology, which powers Google’s search engine. AI will continue to be incorporated into technology products. These learning technology devices will also be included in services and software in 2016 as mobility remains front and center. AI will continue to find its way into robots as well.

At CES, there were at least 23 robotics exhibitors spanning 10,000 square feet, an increase of 71% from last year. Their robots spanned everything from at-home cleaners and companions to retail assistants similar to SoftBank Group Corp’s, Pepper robot, which rolled out across stores in Japan earlier this year.

French company Blue Frog Robotics has already released pre-orders for social robot called Buddy in 2016 that claims to interact with “each member of your family.”

5. Drones

Drones covered 25,500 square feet and had 29 exhibitors at the CES convention, more than quadruple the number of vendors as last year. Drone exhibitors showcased smarter drones, such as drones with tracking technologies, or those with additional sensors to more accurately read their environment.

This comes as drones continue to move into the consumer market, with the Federal Aviation Administration predicting that more than a million of the devices could be sold this holiday season.

The FAA is expected to introduce final rules for commercial drone flight in 2016. In 2015, it moved to enact rules that require operators to register drones of certain sizes. It also approved drone research flights for a number of commercial customers, notably Amazon.com Inc., plans to launch a drone delivery service called Prime Air over the next few years.

6. Self-charging phones

New technologies – some of which were showcased at CES – were designed to enable phones to charge through wavelengths. At CES, Ossia Inc. and Japanese telecom company KDDI Corp., showcased a product called Cota, that will automatically recharge mobile phones at a distance, similar to how WiFi transmitters deliver data from routers to devices.Cota serves as a central hub, sort of like a wireless router, that pushes out targeted energy through wavelengths to charge devices without having to plug them in or place them on a pad.

This follows existing technologies that take advantage of smartphones’ wireless charging standard, known as Qi. The company Qi Wireless, for example, produces pads that charge phones when placed on them.

Other companies, such as Israeli startup StoreDot, are interested to introduce instant charging and longer-lasting batteries. The company is pledging to showcase a battery next year that would charge a smartphone in 60 seconds or less.

This Article Originally Appeared on http://digitalmarketingsapiens.com/6-trends-will-rule-tech-world/

Top 12 Social Media and Search Engine Marketing Trends In 2016

Social media and search engine marketing are the two constantly evolving trends with plenty of changes that prompt shifts in consumer and marketer behavior. In order to succeed, you should adapt to these changes and employ the latest and most effective strategies.

Here are 12 social media and search engine marketing trends taking place so far in 2016 and what you should do to stay ahead of the curve:

1. Mobile optimization is a must!

In 2015, mobile generated more traffic than desktop and laptop search. Typically, everyone used their smartphones or tablets to find information online. Business owners must cater to the needs of their mobile audience to generate leads and increase conversions.

If your website still isn’t optimized for mobile, then you might be at risk of losing potential consumers

Be sure you use responsive web design to provide the best user experience to your visitors regardless of the device they’re using.

2. Voice search introduces huge changes in keyword research.

Digital assistants have become more popular among mobile users over the past couple of years, their success has risen due to their much improved functionality.

Siri, Now and Cortana are making the lives of users so much more convenient. However, this presents a new challenge to marketers as they must now optimize for voice search.

People use different search terms when speaking versus typing. Voice searches lean toward long-tail keywords, so be sure to include these terms to increase your chances of ranking.

3. Local SEO will be crucial.

With the launch of My Business, Google places even more importance to local SEO.

There has been a fair share of significant changes in how Google presents search results for local terms. Different search elements are used to provide immediate information regarding local businesses.

It is imperative to have your business listed on Google to improve search visibility. Google My Business is a great place to get started, it allows you to control multiple accounts from one central location.

4. Social posts receive higher rankings.

A clever move for businesses is ranking their blog posts and universal assets (videos, images, news, etc.) on the results pages. Don’t forget to rank your social posts as well.

Many marketers are already utilizing social media to gain more visibility in search engines. When customers enter your company name, you must make sure that your social media profiles are seen on the first page. This should be further leveraged for your reputation management and monitoring. Various social media sites also now encourage long form content, most notably Facebook with their revamped Notes feature.

5. App store optimization is crucial.

One study shows that in 2015, 52 percent of time spent online was on mobile apps. This shouldn’t come as a huge surprise, as people tend to prefer using apps over surfing mobile websites due to better functionality.

If you have a business app, optimizing for the app store is crucial to enhance visibility. A large amount of apps get created every day, making it more difficult than ever to stand out.

It’s vital to use in-app analytics as well to measure conversions, click through rates and app open rates.

6. Learn the new on-page SEO.

When talking about on-page SEO, what immediately comes to mind are content optimization, internal linking and improving site structure. There are more factors to consider to ensure that your on-page SEO is in check. These include click-through rates, engagement, social signals and relevant content. By measuring these important site metrics, you can see which areas of your site needs to improve.

These are also used by search engines when ranking web pages, better yet look beyond conventional on-page SEO strategies and be sure these factors are included in your next optimization campaign.

7. Sell on social media.

Different social media sites have enabled advertisers to sell directly on their platforms. Facebook and Pinterest, in particular, have introduced “Buy Now” features. This serves as a fantastic opportunity to reach your target audience and increase conversions. It’s a win-win situation since social media users can now buy products without even leaving the app. Without question, more social platforms are willing to follow this method in 2016.

8. Enhancements in in-app functionality.

It’s amazing how much you can do without ever leaving the app. Developers continue to create innovations and include new functionalities to their apps.

Facebook, for instance, introduced a lot of new features last year such as Instant Articles and automatic video playing when scrolling. They are now creating their own digital assistant.

Twitter, Instagram and other platforms refuse to fall behind, promising to have plenty of things in store for their users. By making improvements in in-app functionality, conversion rates are set to skyrocket, so it’s essential to make enhancements in your app to experience a boost in ROI.

9. Take advantage of new publication options.

Facebook created a game-changer when they launched Instant Articles, as mentioned before. This is their way of presenting users with content while ensuring that they wouldn’t leave the app. Instant Articles load measurably quicker than regular web links, thus improving user experience.

Major publishers are now using this feature to reach their target audience. Twitter is about to release a similar feature called Project Lightning. Be sure to check out these new publication options and see how you can utilize them to generate new leads and improve conversions.

10. Videos will continue their dominance.

YouTube still receives a massive amount of hits per day. Facebook receives 8 billion

video views daily as of November 2015. These two facts alone prove how much online users love watching videos. Plenty of studies also show that content within videos have higher engagement rates compared to those that only contain plain text.

Take the next step and find ways to present information to your audience through entertaining videos. Trying to rank these videos on the results pages can also drive a significant amount of traffic to your website.

11. In-the-moment content is bound to remain popular.

 

By nature, social media are “in-the-moment,” with users eager to share what they’re doing as of the moment. Over the past couple of years, live streaming has become very popular. Periscope, the most popular live streaming online platform, allows users to record a short moment of their lives and share it

Snapchat and Instagram have already jumped on the bandwagon. This could mean huge changes in how you use social media. Accustom your business to something new and consider posting in-the-moment updates and take advantage of the fact that millions of online users love this kind of content.

This could mean huge changes in how you use social media. Instead of scheduling posts in advance, you might want to consider posting in-the-moment updates and take advantage of the fact that millions of online users love this kind of content.

12. Dark traffic will eventually become clear.

If your company uses Google Analytics, then you know how frustrating it is trying to decipher dark traffic—the kind of traffic whose source you do not know. Analytics simply includes it under direct traffic. This can affect your marketing campaigns. As a marketer, you want to know as much as possible about your audience.

Thankfully, dark traffic has gradually come to light over the past few months. Digital marketers are expecting that this year will mark the end of dark traffic. This will be possible with the help of analytic tools getting more precise information regarding their source.

This Article Originally Appeared on http://digitalmarketingsapiens.com/top-12-social-media-search-engine-marketing-trends-2016/

5 Marketing Strategy Questions That Small Businesses NEED to Answer

What is the difference between confident entrepreneurs who lead growing businesses and business owners who are trapped in survival mode? It’s simple. A successful business almost certainly has a clear marketing strategy that guides their decision-making and makes everything they do more effective.

Unfortunately, many small business owners get caught up in maintaining their day-to-day business and forget to set aside time for strategizing. Selecting tactics takes time but will improve their performance overall.

At the end of the day, strategies are absolutely necessary for businesses that want to improve their functionality and grow. Owners need to realize that their marketing strategy is their foundation for creating awareness, generating interest, closing new sales and contributing customer engagement. Fulfilling all of these strategies will almost guarantee some sort of improvement for one’s business as well as gaining an advantage over their competitors. Another thing for business owners to take into consideration is their marketing strategy guides their company culture, their products and services mix and their pricing.

Not only should business owners consider their marketing strategy but there are other things that can craft a successful strategy. However, these five key decisions have helped small business owners grow their sales and create sanity in their business.

In order for business owners to have effective tactics, grow their business and have sanity in their working environment, they have to decide on the single, simple answer to each of these five marketing strategy questions. Of course, they cannot change their minds and instead stay committed to their answer.

Focus plays a huge factor and is always the difference maker between a business that grows profitably and one that never seems to gain any momentum. Instead of hoping that next email is going to work better, business owners should develop a clear focus and a realistic strategy.

1. Ask yourself who is your target customer?

The first decision in any marketing strategy is to define your target customer. “Who do you serve?” always needs to be answered clearly before you can execute any tactic effectively. What this means is you have to say “no” to other potential customers who might buy from you but who are clearly bad fits for your narrow focus. It may appear as a non-ideal thing to do, but it takes time to develop the discipline, but business owners can’t do effective marketing without it.

Focusing on a well-defined target may make you uncomfortable at first, but stay the course and follow through.

If business owners are spending time and money on marketing but your efforts are not driving enough sales, the problem is almost always that you haven’t narrowed your target market definition enough to be effective. The narrower a business owner defines their market eventually they can focus on those that they can best serve, which leads to more efficiency for an owner’s business.

2. What is a business owner’s category?

Their category is simply the short description of what business they are a part of. What few words would someone say to describe an owner’s business?  For example, Starbucks is “high-quality coffee” Chipotle is “fresh Mexican burritos.”

Most business owners can’t resist over-complicating their company descriptions. This leaves people unsure of what you actually do, which can weaken their marketing effectiveness. Here’s a simple rule: If someone can’t clearly remember a business owner’s category description a month after meeting them, they were never clear about what the owner’s business does in the first place.

Clearly defining the category can amplify a business owner’s marketing and sales efforts. Think of what it would take to be the best – the leader – in your category. You’re not the leader? Then narrow your category definition (or your target market focus) until you are the leader. A focused laser can melt steel at a distance, but the same light undirected has no effect. Be laser-like in your focus.

3. What is your unique benefit?

A business owner’s unique benefit should highlight the one (or two) main things of their product or service that actually delivers (benefits) that targets what their customer really wants, not a long list of all the things their product does (features).

4. Who is the competition?

When someone is searching to buy a solution to a problem, they will quickly make sense of the alternatives to compare against, your competition. However, most entrepreneurs have not specifically defined who their real competition is and don’t focus their messages to create clear differentiation for their buyers. This frustrates the buying decision process and makes business owners marketing efforts appear weaker.

Business owners should have a clear mind about who their biggest competition is. If you are a tax accountant, is your competition really the other tax accountants in town? Or even other CPAs or financial planners?  DIY tax software? Doing taxes manually?  National tax accounting chains? Each competitor type would create different comparisons, so it’s ideal to narrow it down to one or two main competitor types.

5. What does your marketing strategy statement look like?

When you put the five key decisions of marketing strategy in a sentence form, it looks like this fill-in-the-blank statement:

An owner’s company name is the leading category for target customers that provides unique benefit. Unlike competitors, your company does unique differentiator.

Try it for yourself: Fill in the blanks to create the marketing strategy statement for your own business. Get some perspective from employees, friends and best customers. List all the possibilities and then make some decisions. You should feel clarity and power coming through. It will also show you a few things you could stop doing in your business that would create more focus.

Hopefully be realizing answering these marketing strategies you will see why it makes no sense to Tweet, to send a broadcast email or build a new website if you are not clear about your marketing strategy that has laser-like focus? Doing these tactics without a road map, your marketing strategy, will not deliver the right customers and will give you fewer sales than if you had invested the time to implement a focused marketing strategy.

Creating a clear marketing strategy is not what companies do after they become well-known, it’s what small companies do to grow and get bigger in the first place.

If you need help creating or executing your company’s marketing strategy, reach out to Digital Marketing Sapiens in San Antonio, Texas at 210-582-5842.

This Article Originally Appeared on http://digitalmarketingsapiens.com/5-marketing-strategy-questions-small-businesses-need-answer/

7 Social Media Marketing Trends for Your Business

1. Video content

There are many ways for businesses to utilize video content in their marketing strategies. For example, using educational videos can give businesses the opportunity to instruct their audience as well marketing to them. Explainer videos allow viewers to learn how to use your company’s product. Pinterest, for instance, offers an explainer video that demonstrates the benefits of using its social network. As for entertaining videos, keeping your audience entertained and engaged is important. Using short videos that have a purpose for viewers to share is effective.

2. Paying for exposure

Business are increasingly paying to advertise on social networks. Part of the reason is that organic social reach – those shares you can receive from family and friends – are not as effective in marketing as they once were.

Paying for advertising has the ability to allow you to reach a specific demographic rather than just relying on organic social reach alone. When businesses use Facebook’s advertising platform, for example, you have the opportunity to market to a particular age group, location and other parameters. On the other hand, while a Facebook post may reach some people who are interested, it can easily be shared with people who are outside your demographic and have no use for your product or service.

3. Social shopping

Patterns from previous years indicate selling via social networks is likely to increase this year. To some degree, it already has. For example, the Internet Retailer’s Social Media 500 report said that social commerce rose 26 percent from 2013 to 2014.

Another interesting statistic is that the ecommerce platform in Q2 of 2014, less than one percent of revenue could be attributed to social recommendations. By the time Q2 of 2015 arrived, that figure had increased 151 percent!

In addition, Business insider reported that ecommerce referrals by way of social media had increased nearly 200 percent between the first quarters of 2014 and 2015.

The reason for this growth is that “buy buttons” had been showing up on social networks such as Pinterest and Twitter, which allowed customers to purchase from these sites directly.

It’s incredible to think how much of a difference it can make when social networks include “buy buttons” on their sites and actually have people purchase a certain product right then and there. It’s not strange to think so, since most of the time people are on social or professional networks majority of the day.

4. Marketing Automation

Marketing automation is a software platform designed to help businesses market across multiple channels simultaneously. It is able to alleviate the need to perform repetitive tasks such as sending emails or marketing on social media sites.

This is something small businesses should consider using as some form of marketing automation software to keep up with the growing amount of content they will need to deliver to their customers and prospects.

Numerous options are available, but choose the one best suited to your needs and that won’t break your budget.

5. Facebook’s dominance

There’s no question that Facebook has made its mark in 2016 as the most dominant social media platform.

For those that didn’t know, Facebook’s fastest growing age demographic is people over the age of 55, it’s also the most commonly used amongst Internet users ages 65 and older, up from 45 percent in 2013.

Business owners should consider focusing their marketing efforts to those people who are 55 and older through Facebook.

6. Search

While most people are still using search engines to find information, many are foregoing this route and are performing searches on social media sites instead.

Part of the reason is that users are growing weary of text-heavy search results and gravitating toward visual content such as images or videos, each of which you are more likely to find on social media.

Users also search on social media because they know that they will receive information such as feedback, comments, and reviews from actual users more so than with a search engine. Internet users actually become discouraged searching through search engines because of all of the results it has to offer, when some people just want an answer or a link to the answer at an instant.

Needless to say, search engines are not going away anytime soon, it is important for small businesses to strategize about how they can be easily found both on search engines and in social media.

7. Mobile Marketing

Businesses are aware that having a mobile-friendly website is not a new concept. Marketers have been acknowledging how important businesses need to optimize their sites for mobile users. Nowadays, mobile-optimization is considered the norm and no longer an item to place on the back burner. Mobile searches have surpassed desktop searches, no one could imagine for that to happen, but it did. As a matter of fact, in 2015, Google’s algorithm started to penalize sites that were not optimized for mobile devices.

If your business is interested in implementing any or all of the trends above, reach out to Digital Marketing Sapiens in San Antonio, Texas at 210-582-5842.

This Article Originally Appeared on http://digitalmarketingsapiens.com/7-social-media-marketing-trends-business/