Marketing In The Modern Age

Imagine yourself living in the 1950′s. If you are a woman, you are in a poodle preparing dinner for your husband. If your a man, your wearing a respectable suite with a fedora. Every woman is cooking and cleaning in the house and every man puts on their finest, goes to work, and comes home to dinner on the table.

Can you imagine yourself fitting into this culture? Probably not. Can you imagine your consumers fitting in to this culture? Probably not. Let’s think about why.

The 1950′s were all about fitting in. Everyone was trying to play the part. They were trying to look and act like a picture in a magazine. That is not true today. We are now all about individuality. Everyone wants to be different, because different is now cool and originality is admired.

So how does your business adapt to this new attitude of not fitting in? Influencer marketing holds the answer. It will involve a shift in strategy. This is not something to shy away from. The world of marketing is now just realizing this shift, so it is important to be part of the transition, or you risk falling behind.

Where Marketing Is Heading

It is clear, we are no longer living in the 1950′s. People are no longer widely influenced by an ideal picture portrayed in a television commercial. People want to feel important, and individuality is a huge way to feel special.

With social media, the ability to share information has become limitless. Consumers are no longer looking to their favorite celebrity to decide which skin cream will make their skin the softest. Instead, consumers look to friends for advice. They look to people who they can trust and have a relationship with. Someone they feel they can relate to on a personal level, not someone they only know only through a television screen.

This new consumer attitude is becoming slowly more popular among marketers. 74% of global marketers reported they will use Influence Marketing as part of their marketing strategy in the next 12 months. That is a powerful number. 74% of business are recognizing this trend, and 26% are already falling behind competitively.

What Channels Should Be Used

Today there are so many channels where we can find consumer attention. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. So how do brands decide where to focus their efforts? Thankfully, the solution is simple. Brands should have a presence on all social media site, but the main focus should go towards video marketing.

Every day people watch hundreds of millions of hours on YouTube and generate billions of views. That is a lot of attention and a lot of eyes all in one place. I know what your thinking, “How does a video of a cat effect my sales?” I will tell you, it doesn’t. YouTube is no longer a place for silly videos going viral. It is a place where communities are built and knowledge is shared.

Video is a powerful tool. People respond to what they can see, and video holds truth for many consumers. 90% of online shoppers said they find video helpful in making shopping and buying decisions.

How To Focus Your Marketing On Youtube

Youtube hold a lot of big name vloggers. Let’s look at PewDiePie for example. He has over 36 millions subscribers. He is one of the biggest vloggers and has one of the largest content libraries on YouTube, totaling in over 8 billion video views.

What does a business do with that information? The first instinct is to try and get PewDiePie on their marketing platform. However, this may not have the effect that the business is looking for. It has shown that community size matters, but not the way you’d think. 54% of consumers agree that the smaller the community the greater the influence.

Why is this? Let’s think back to the 1950′s again. Consumers are no longer interested in the norm. They now want to be outside the norm. Taking advice from a friend, not a celebrity. The best way to reach these consumers is through smaller channels with a more personal feel. The viewer can feel like they are being spoken to directly, rather than just another number in a view count. The effects are powerful. Brand advocates are 50% more likely to influence a purchase. Only 20% of brands currently use advocate and experts programs in their marketing.

So get ahead of the competition and look toward the new trend of marketing.

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