2016 was definitely a big year for digital marketing. More brands – even those who are notoriously conventional with their marketing and operations – entered the digital marketing landscape with creative campaigns and interesting approaches. There are new social media platforms that gained popularity among users (and marketers) and we have a number of other trends happening across the year. What are the top digital marketing trends we’ve embraced this year? That is what we are going to explore in this article.

Video and Video Influencers

There is no doubt that video is huge this year. Businesses from small to gigantic are using videos to get their key messages across. There are also more video influencers than ever, especially with platforms such as YouTube, Snapchat and Instagram Stories now more popular than ever.

Video marketing is a particularly interesting trend this year. Instead of pushing product information and the usual review videos, brands are more aware of the importance of quality contents. There are plenty of great stories shared in the form of videos, with subtle product placement and immense attention to the audiences’ demands.

Working with influencers is also a popular thing to do. You can see the way larger brands such as GoPro, Samsung and Sony are working with influencers on YouTube and learn a lot from the campaigns.

Personal Relationships

Gone are the days when businesses rely on canned responses and robot-like communications. Well, some are still taking the old-fashioned approach, but many brands are now more personal on social media. Brands are interacting with users like never before, answering questions and igniting responses more fluidly.

This trend can be seen on almost all social media platforms. Twitter may be struggling as a platform, but brands and users are actually using Twitter to interact with each other a lot. Users started to communicate with brands for more than just asking questions or getting help. The same level of interaction can be seen on Facebook and Instagram.

This kind of interaction allows brands to develop stronger bonds with their customers. Placing a character in front of the brand – such as a person appearing in several of the brand’s YouTube video or an administrator for social media accounts – takes those bonds to a more personal level.

Emphasis on Mobile

Having a mobile-friendly website is now an absolute must. Over 60% of today’s traffic comes from mobile devices, which means a site that doesn’t function well on smartphones and tablets is actually losing a lot of visitors. Search engines are also ranking mobile-friendly websites higher in smartphone and mobile search results.

On top of that, we’re seeing a new trend of creating an app to help unify a brand’s digital marketing efforts. The reason behind this boom in mobile app creation is because search engines now index apps and their contents the way they index websites.

When an Android user search for Domino’s Pizza, Google will now display the suitable app for ordering Domino’s. The extra exposure and fluid user experience that apps can provide are great reasons why apps are now so popular.

These are just some of the digital marketing trends we’ve seen in 2016. Based on these shifts, however, we have a strong feeling that 2017 will be an even more exciting – and challenging – year nonetheless.