A STORY OF DIGITAL MARKETING

Digital History

Did anybody expect for Newsweek to go totally digital in its production? Most of us really didn’t see that one coming, but after the first of next year, the magazine giant will be available in only a digital format. This is probably a pretty big clue for the rest of us on what to expect in future trends in the world of digital marketing. Even though our world is largely digitally based, it was not always that way and it had a seemingly insignificant start.

THE WEB 1.0

The digital age as we now know it began with the Internet and the Web 1.0 platforms of the early 1990s. This was a rather static world in which users could get the information they desired but it could not be shared on the web. There was no such thing as interaction, as the only activity was reading of content. In 1993, we saw the entrance of the first clickable banner ad and by the next year, Hot-wired, had begun to purchase huge numbers of banner ads. This was really the first step in getting us all shifted over to a new digital age. This was the start of the online marketing. Because of this steady shift, the year 1994 saw new technologies.

THE BIRTH OF GOOGLE

New technology began to make its entrance into the digital marketplace after about 1994 and in 1998, Google was founded. Blogger came soon after in 1999. About this time social networking sites began to be birthed and Blackberry had launched their own mobile email program. My Space was one of the first social sites to arrive on the social scene and Facebook came soon afterward. It did not take too long for companies to realize that these presented them with some excellent opportunities and soon these social sites became new way for businesses to communicate directly with consumers. Businesses began searching for new ways to implement web marketing strategies so that they could capitalize on the new digital platforms.

It did not take long for Google to start expanding and improving their internet search engine. Savvy marketers soon learned how to implement search engine optimization strategies in order to improve the ranking of their sites. Google also added options like Ad-words and Ad-sense to marketing potential. It wasn’t long until Google figured out how to analyse content that was entered in a query in order to target users with ads relevant to their interests. Google was not actually the first ones to incorporate targeted ads, but they did help develop algorithms which helped search results become prioritized

THE COOKIE’s

.Advertising networks soon began to develop ways that they could capitalize on some of these new developments and the “cookie” came on the scene. The first cookie was actually developed in an attempt to analyse user’s browsing habits. But since its inception it has evolved into a useful part of the e-commerce sector and allows marketers and businesses ways of collecting literal user data. Amazon still uses this method for targeting its audiences and offering them products based on previous searches. This was a huge impact on the digital marketing world.

ENTER THE WEB 2.0

The Web 1.0 slowly evolved into the Web 2.0. In this new digital world, audiences were no longer passively taking in information; but instead, the internet became a sort of super highway where users could directly interact with both other users and businesses. The Web 2.0 became a social world at last. In the early 2000s, numerous networks and social platforms were developed which allowed users to connect and interact. By 2004 we saw the rise of sites like WordPress, LinkedIn and finally Facebook. It was not long before social media became a thriving entity and we saw more sites like Digg, Skype, Flickr, and Gmail all make their appearance. By the end of 2004, internet advertising in the US alone brought in around $2.9 billion. By 2005, YouTube had entered the playing field and now there are more than 3 billion hours spent watching YouTube videos each and every month. In 2007, the iPhone began to change the web one more time and everything began to shift to cater to the mobile user. By 2010, mobile marketing alone brought in approximately $650 million.

DIGITAL MARKETING IN INDIA

Today in India, a country of over 1.25 billion people, every working professional is obvious to be familiar with digital marketing, whether he he’s a part of it or not.

Simply speaking, digital marketing is the way to promote your products or services online. As per Digital Media Institute, it’s targeted promotion of your products or services using digital channels, like SEO, SME, SMS, email, Social Media Marketing, PPC etc. The very next year, 1995, public access to internet was inaugurated in India.

The next come “Jerry’s guide to the world wide web” after which Yahoo got 1 million views online within its 1st year. This made the wholesale massive change in the digital marketing space, with other corporate optimizing their websites to raise to higher ranks among their competitors’ websites.

Another dramatic change in digital marketing came in India after Google came into being. Later Hotmail came in India that became so popular that Microsoft paid hefty sum to buy this. The internet world took a new trend in India when Google ousted small search engines from this virtual world, for it was no match with them in terms of quality. In the year 2006 with 40 million internet user in India, the search engine traffic increased many times. Microsoft too climbed the bandwagon and launched live search in answer to Yahoo and Google.

But no search engine abled to give tough time to Google, which started Ad-words, Ad-sense, cost-per-click advertising scheme, that attracted a lot of Indian businesses. Because Google focused on the relevant contents, to which their rivals didn’t pay much attention.

Then came onto horizon Web 2.0, where Internet users became more active than before. With this, many internet users in India, especially businessmen started interacting with each other, and a term coined known as Super Information Highway. As a result the flow of information – increased many times. According to the statistics, India’s digital market reached to a stunning figure of $3.9 billion in 2009.

The time business trend was about to change dramatically when social network began to emerge. Myspace, which came in 2003 worldwide, was the pioneer in connecting people. With its advent, Indian businesses saw new opportunities to expand their businesses and got more customer reach. So, the trends of capitalization cost and investment also took a new turn, because businessmen felt more ease to connect to people rather than using search engines.

Cookies were yet another milestone in the online marketing industry. Advertisers in India began to look for other ways to showcase their content. One of these was to constantly track the user trend and his likeness by attaching cookies to emails. One would estimate with following statistics that how much potential there is in Indian social media marketing.

 Today, there are most 241 million active Facebook users in India, among whom 80% access it via smartphones; 200 million Indian Whats-app users; 33 million Twitter users, with 76% through their smartphones; 50 million users of LinkedIn, 67 million Instagram active users etc.

The digital market is in a steady state of change Therefore, as digital marketing grew rapidly in the world, in India too it rose that much. Today, world tech and ecommerce giants like Amazon’s net earnings are worth billions of US dollars in India. Therefore, digital market is prevalent in India’s market as retail market does and is keeping on changing.

What’s next?

It’s very difficult to understand that all these changes have occurred in only 2 decades. Digital marketing has changed drastically, and will continue to change. Web marketing remains an essential part of SEO campaigns and provides numerous tools and strategies. There are a few of the original search engines that are no longer in existence and it is very important that SEO and digital marketing specialists keep up with the latest trends that continue to shape our digital future.

In 2016, social media continued its rise with more than 2.3 billion active users and more than 1.9 billion active mobile social users worldwide. This large amount of potential customers has prompted 83% of all marketers to take advantage of social media marketing in order to boost sales, promote brand identity, increase social media followers, engage with prospective customers, generate qualified leads and so on.

Social media marketing can do so much for your business than just update your followers with boring status and sales-related updates. Social media can also help you and your business connect with and learn from your potential consumers and the industry leaders.

Simple activities such as liking or replying to comments, responding to private messages, retweeting, or even commenting when it matters can lead to relationship building, which is essential for your business as it can help retain consumers and form connections with the industry leaders that can help you.

For many, social media is not an advertising tool but a way to connect in a meaningful way which is a huge advantage for any company who want to get their name out there. With these advantages, there’s no doubt that social media is an indispensable part of today’s digital marketing landscape. And with the New Year, there are some impending social media trends that are bound to affect your strategy and campaign performance.

Here’s the takeaway of the social media marketing trends you must watch out for:

1. Live-streaming video

2. The rise of chat-bots

3. More expiring social content

4. Merging of social media platforms

5. Harder acquisition of organic social traffic

6. Virtual reality and Augmented reality

7. More personalized content Increased usage of social influence rs