Our Predictions For The State Of Digital Marketing 2015

Emails are delivered 90% of the time, while organic Facebook posts reach 2%, and many in the industry believe that the figure has further to fall. The return from social as a stand alone channel is getting harder to extract, even while global audience sizes (total users, on mobile and desktop) increase.

Anyone spending money on social strategies was rightly skeptical a few years ago, but now the evidence is clear: social is simply not enough. Not as a stand alone strategy, not as a key growth channel.

Email, on the other hand, has a consistently high ROI: 4300%. Which means, for every $1 spent, brands get $43 back.

And yet, social does have enormous value, when used the right way. Social listening gives us audience insights that were never possible before. Know when your audience is using your keywords, talking about subjects related to your campaigns, and then gear your marketing towards their needs, wants, and dreams.

This year has seen a growing number of brands, nonprofits, and publishers using this approach. However, we are convinced this is just the start. Here’s what some key members of our team expect to happen in the new year.

Roz Lemieux, CEO of Attentively:

“We expect 2015 to be the year influencer marketing comes into its own. As a way of amplifying content and driving campaigns forward, when you combine social listening, content and influencers you unlock a powerful new channel within the marketing mix. As our wonderful clients have been discovering this past year, there’s enormous value to be gained from this approach. We look forward to 2015 when influencers will factor more prominently in social and content marketing.”

Cheryl Contee, Co-founder of Attentively, CEO of Fission Strategy:

“Continued changes in Facebook’s algorithm as they attempt greater monetization will going to persuade organizations that they will need to be strategic in jump-starting organic reach & conversion rates through social ads. Attentive.ly can help make sure social ad dollars are targeted for maximum impact with minimum spend.”

Artie Patel, Vice President of Business Development:

“Companies will increasingly use their own audiences on social media as a distribution channel for their content. Facebook and Twitter posts are getting seen less and less these days. Proactively targeting your content directly with your audience and getting them to post to their followings will greatly benefit digital teams. It will drive more engagement and increase visibility of their content. ”

Cindy Mottershead, CTO of Attentively:

“Big data science methods such as social physics and machine learning will model how social networks of people behave and interact and then use these models to create actionable intelligence. These models will accurately predict patterns of human behavior and indicate how to influence these patterns to increase engagement.”

The key to building your social community is to send highly targeted, paid Facebook posts, reinforce your social message with email and build your community around content (and sites) that deliver real value.