2014 Digital Trends And Predictions From Marketing Thought Leaders

What will 2014 bring and what should organizations and individuals expect from the continued digital revolution? These marketers provide their thought-provoking expert opinions. Nancy Bhagat, Vice President of Marketing Strategy at Intel    

We are going to see a huge increase in location-based marketing.  With the rapid proliferation of devices, and the explosion of the Internet of Things, people will be carrying, utilizing, and depending on their devices more than ever.  As part of the increased dependency, there is an increased expectation of services and personalization

Michael Brenner, Vice President of Global Marketing at SAP        
The social, mobile web has digitized information and allowed us all to connect with anyone, anywhere. When we need information, we can find it instantly. But digital disruption is about more than just information. As brands, we need to kill promotional marketing messages and start providing customer-centric information that is helpful to our target customers. But we need to go even further than that if we want to break through all the noise. One of the biggest trends I am seeing involves brands acting as producers – going beyond the publisher mentality and setting up newsrooms and production studios. Netflix (“House of Cards”), Red Bull (Media House) and Amazon (Alpha House) are just the first wave of this emerging trend.
Susan Emerick, Manager of Enterprise Social Strategy & Programs at IBM, co-author of The Most Powerful Brand on Earth          
Cognitive computing is next big digital trend. More specifically, the beginning of a new era, where systems learn and interact naturally with people to extend what either humans or machine could do on their own.  Rather than being programmed to anticipate every possible answer or action needed to perform a function or set of tasks, cognitive systems are trained using artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to sense, predict, infer and, in some ways, think. This will unfold in years to come, helping human experts make better decisions in many capacities. Applying this to marketing and communications will help us better understand, anticipate & respond to customers.
Suzanne Fanning, President of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA)
Competition in the digital space continues to grow as marketers seek out real-time opportunities and intensify their speed of interacting in “the moment.” The key disruptive digital trends we’ve seen successfully join the forces of mobile and social together to reach audiences at the heart of their digital usage. Images and videos have become the go-to viral tactic, and will continue to expand as brands can use visuals to interact with their consumers and the newest group of influencers–visual influencers. Just announced, Instagram is joining the playing field, alongside other messaging apps like Snapchat and WhatsApp, to compete for the main communication channel for consumers to share personable moments. Social networks are hungry for challenges and eager to disrupt the current trends to start a new innovation.
Mark Curtis, CEO of BRANDERATI
2012 was the year of acquisition, large fan/follower numbers, and fast-growing communities. 2013 was a year of engagement and content optimization: marketers realized that vanity numbers were not enough, that to continue to show real growth and solid KPIs they needed to engage their communities in a more meaningful way. 2014 will be a year of advocacy: marketers realizing that with growth of their social communities stagnating and the big content machine churning 24/7 they need a more cost-effective and more impactful way to reach current and new customers long-term in a sustainable way. The next major KPI jump and true business impact will come from very targeted niche communities – passionate (and sometimes highly influencial) advocates – and from marketing with them, not to them.
David Berkowitz, Chief Marketing Officer of MRY        
Marketers are going to have to come to terms with disappearing social media. This is much bigger than Snapchat. So much content shared today is private, and it often disappears, so marketers aren’t readily able to track and target such consumers. Expect marketers to explore new, creative ways of reaching consumers who prioritize privacy.
Noah Elkin, Principal Analyst, eMarketer         
Smartphones and tablets have effectively become the center—and integrating components—of consumers’ multiplatform lives. In that sense, though, mobile is more than “the new desktop.” It has a role with far greater significance than simply serving as a substitute computing device. This shift is reflected in quantitative terms—in the amount of time consumers spend on their mobile devices on a daily basis—and qualitatively in the way these devices have effectively become the remote control for consumers’ lives and work.
This shift has also affected the path to purchase in dramatic ways. And that is, and will continue to be, hugely disrupting for marketing. Consumers’ ubiquitous connectivity now means they are, in effect, always in the consideration phase for purchasing something and rarely more than a tap away from jumping from a physical store to a virtual store, or from one online merchant to another. Consciously or not, consumers today are always in the market for something. As a result, marketers need to try and continually engage prospective buyers to consider their brand, product or store, whether the purchase ultimately takes place in a digital or physical venue.
Dave Kerpen, CEO of Likeable Local and the NYT bestselling author of Likeable Social Media and Likeable Business
Facebook has changed its news feed algorithm which resulted in the decline of the organic reach. Twitter is a public company that must drive revenues. Google Plus has introduced ads. In 2014, we will see increased pressures on companies of all sizes to pay to sponsor their posts to get more visibility, as getting consumers’ attention in social media becomes increasingly difficult. This will be hardest on small businesses, who obviously have fewer resources than big brands. Social media will increasingly become a pay-to-play channel.
Jeffrey Hayzlett, primetime television show host on Bloomberg, author of bestselling books The Mirror Test and Running the Gauntlet              
If 2013 showed us anything it’s that content is king and in 2014 those who use it wisely in their marketing plans will succeed. Marketers can capitalize on content in the upcoming year by making it compatible across all screens and distributing across their social platforms.  Using new mediums like video to engage target markets and sharing content via social media using OPM (other people’s money) will drive awareness for brands and put them ahead of their competitors in 2014.
Aaron Strout, Managing Director at W2O Group, co-author of Location-Based Marketing for Dummies     
As wearable technology (Google Glass, fitness bands, Samsung Galaxy Gear) becomes ubiquitous in 2014, the amount of data created will provide a treasure trove of insights for marketers. Not only does it let marketers know where their customers are but when and how fast. Obviously there is a huge risk here given the sensitivity of the data but the trick here is for marketers to provide the right value in exchange for this invaluable data.
Vala Afshar, Chief Marketing Officer for Extreme Networks, co-author of The Pursuit of Social Business Excellence    
Customers are the lifeblood of any company, and in 2014 businesses will need to find ways to engage with their end users in more meaningful ways.  Online communities are one such way.  Forrester reported earlier this year that there has been a 25% increase in community usage for customer service in the past three years. In 2014 expect to see companies leverage communities as a forum for customers to share their voice and also get answers to their most pressing questions from not only their peers, but also support and product experts at their vendor of choice.
Donal Daly, CEO and founder of The TAS Group, author of four books including Account Planning in Salesforce           
The dispersed nature of the cloud economy is shaping the personal and corporate lives of all users. We are wired to a software ecosystem that’s guiding our every move. Apps are increasingly smart, context-aware, and location-sensitive.  The fusion of personal and work life is now a mandatory feature of systems that support either of those two personal modalities. These are exciting times. However, we are worried about the untrammeled big data hype that is largely focused on uninformed correlations rather than smart questions. We predict a lot of pain.
Jay Baer, digital marketing consultant and author of the NYT bestseller Youtility       
Several trends and technologies will reach maturity in 2014 spawning considerable disruption, but I believe native advertising will have the greatest impact. It’s a back to the future scenario. In the 1950s, product placement and “this episode of Your Hit Parade is brought to you by Lucky Strike Cigarettes” was the norm when companies wanted to reach prospective customers. We then steadily moved away from integrated advertising, bifurcating the content and the sponsors that paid the freight. Led by news/information websites (including Forbes) and fueled by social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram and Pinterest, native adverting is back and 2014 will be the year that Advertorial 2.0 becomes a major part of the marketing mix for most companies. This has far-reaching implications for consumers, authenticity, journalism, marketing budgets, and the role of agencies and whether the future is more “social” or more “media.” I’m betting on the latter.
Augie Ray, a former Forrester analyst and Voice of Customer professional                 
In 2014, the Marketing Department will fall out of love with social media and responsibility for the medium will shift even further into other corners of the organization, such as PR and Customer Service. Of course, Facebook and Twitter still own too much of consumer time for marketers to ignore them, but a focus on paid media will increasingly eclipse earned media in marketing strategies. The drivers for this transition have been in place for years, from marketer frustration with low engagement rates on Facebook brand pages to hashtag campaigns that backfire to desperate social stunts like fake account hacks to auto-responder embarrassments. The best value brands can provide in social in 2014 is to listen, co-create with customers, integrate social into the product experience, furnish customer service, educate and evolve for the growth of the sharing economy, and in most cases, these are responsibilities that fall outside the marketing department.
Joe Pulizzi, founder of Content Marketing Institute and author of Epic Content Marketing     
In 2014, branded content marketing will be everywhere.  You’ll see more brands launch their own content platforms, similar to what we’ve already seen with P&G, Adobe and Coca-Cola.  But it won’t stop there.  Native advertising continues to roll and we’ll be seeing more branded content in our favorite media platforms as well. And that’s not the half of it.  I believe that in 2014 you’ll see a number of larger brands actually buy media companies in a “build it or buy it” scenario for content marketing.
Mitch Joel, President of Twist Image, author of CTRL ALT Delete & Six Pixels of Separation
One should pay attention to BitCoin and Virtual Currency. Imagine this: Facebook has over one billion connected people. What would happen if they initiated a BitCoin-like offering? Why not have people from all over the world on a peer-to-peer currency platform instead of dealing with regions and currency converters? Sure, BitCoin is probably a bubble, but make no mistake about it: in a digitally connected global world, having one unified, safe and secure digital currency is going to be something that we’re all going to have to pay attention to.
Adam Kleinberg, CEO of Traction       
A perfect storm has been brewing in digital. In recent years, HTML5, device proliferation and high speed internet have become ubiquitous. At the same time apps have changed consumer expectations from a digital experience. Marketers, meanwhile, are starting to broadly recognize engagement as a primary KPI in digital. The resulting trend is a convergence of the disciplines of UX and brand storytelling. UX design can do more than adapt to behavior, it can shape it.
Dana Oshiro, Senior Marketing Manager for Code for America            
Although lean methodologies began with auto manufacturers like Toyota, Eric Ries popularized the practice with The Lean Startup. Today, “lean” is no longer just the practice of tech entrepreneurs, but it’s making its way to innovators in non-profit organizations and government bodies – two groups that are benefiting dearly from rigorous test environments, careful documentation and an eye for efficiency. It’s not just social media that is changing old industries, it’s the underlying management and engineering practices of social media companies that are also spilling into a seemingly non-digital world.
Michael Stelzner, founder of Social Media Examiner, host of the Social Media Marketing podcast, author of Launch
Podcasting will continue to grow substantially as more marketers begin to understand the value of reaching people while they are walking or driving via audio content.  Podcast listeners average 20 minutes per episode (which about matches the average commute).  Compare that to any other online channel and nothing matches up. If your business has not considered starting a podcast, now is the time.
Marshall Kirkpatrick, CEO of Little Bird           
Anticipatory computing is like Google Now for everything, serving up information you want before you even know to ask for it, based on things like the language you use, your mobile location and calendar events.  Startups like CircleApp, MindMeld and even FourSquare are exploring it. I expect to see it proliferate rapidly throughout the economy, as the next step in real-time commerce and user experience.  Today, many things we could learn and do are time, effort and focus prohibitive but anticipatory computing will front load our everyday lives with access to recommended information and products we can make immediate use of.
Robbin Phillips, President of Brains on Fire, co-author of Brains on Fire & The Passion Conversation            
With the rise of social media, there has been a trend to structure life around technology in the pursuit of constant connectivity. In doing so, it was inevitable that we would eventually reach a point of max saturation at which people would begin taking a step back to ask themselves, “What is really important to me?” As the “return to real life” becomes a higher cultural priority, we’re going to see people eagerly embracing technologies that empower them to achieve greater balance. As an alternative to surrendering our lives to digital technologies — or surrendering the technologies themselves — expect to see an emergence of more things like the Nike+ Fuelband, Google Glass and the Nest thermostat. These tools make it easier to live better by harnessing the best parts of social and digital, seamlessly integrating and adding value to our lives, hobbies and interests, rather than taking our focus and energy away from them.
Ragy Thomas, CEO and founder of Sprinklr                
The most disruptive digital trend I am seeing that will really begin affecting marketers in 2014 is the ‘Internet of Things’. We already know that we don’t search for content now, content finds you. In 2014, we’re going to start seeing how brands and products find you. Enterprises are now realizing that their own products can be used to connect the brand to consumers, and they will no longer have to use a 3^rd party, such as ad space on a website, TV or radio show, to market their products and services. Imagine if Audi or Chrysler used their own vehicles to connect with a person, forming a real, ‘human’ relationship on their own terms, not relying on any outside source to create a meaningful brand relationship. This will be the future of social and enterprises will begin harnessing this power in 2014.
Scott Gerber, founder of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC)              
Community will become ever more important in 2014 and beyond. With the noise created by social media, meaningful relationship and context are being drowned out. Niche communities created around common interests will thrive so long as they have strong online/offline hybrid models that drive engagement.
Mark Fidelman, CEO of Raynforest, author of Socialized!      
Most social listening solutions on the market today do an adequate job of giving the marketer signals and reports about their industry, competitors, partners and current customers. But it’s up to the marketer to analyze the information and take action. In the near future, these systems will predict how to best reach your customer and automatically notify the sales team or take action on its own to move them further down the sales funnel.
David Deal, digital marketer and social media consultant        
Hoaxes will disrupt the digital world constantly in 2014, threatening to upend our fundamental assumptions of what’s real and what’s make-believe when we interact with brands, the news media, and each other. Hoaxes have always been a hazard of the Internet, but a convergence of “me, too” and “me, first” thinking has created a climate of out-of-control pranks and stunts perpetrated by consumers, entertainers, ad agencies, and brands. We are all media now. It’s increasingly difficult to gain attention amid constant digital noise, which makes it all the more tempting to resort to stunts to gain attention. And an ever-present “fear of missing out,” combined with the ease of online posting, contributes to a culture of gullibility. Hoaxes will make the digital world more distrusting than ever.

Jeremiah Owyang, Chief Catalyst of Crowd Companies, a Brand Council for the Collaborative Economy
The rise of collaborative economy will have significant digital impact as it disrupts business models, companies, industries and economies. In the first phase, the people formerly known as the audience, created media and shared it, we know this as social media. In the next phase, the people formerly known as consumers are creating goods (called the maker movement), and may also share goods (called the sharing economy) which we collectively call the Collaborative Economy. This means people are empowered to get what they need from each other, rather than buy anew. Corporations that want to be part of this new economy must embrace the same strategies and allow the crowd to become part of their company functions.