We're more than halfway through 2012—it’s time to review what online trends have taken off, what’s fizzled out, and where we are going in the last half of 2012.
Deals & Rewards
With the IPO flop of Groupon and many companies not finding ongoing new customer acquisition through these deal sites, many are running these once or twice and then giving up. Instead they are finding that promoting deals on their social profiles and through email is the way to continuously engage with their fans and find repeat business.
Mobile Advertising
Currently, Mobile really needs to be broken down into smartphones and tablets – both of which require very different marketing tactics. Smartphone advertising continues to flourish with real time deals, local check in sites like 4square and entertainment. Fewer people are using their smart phones to simply browse the internet like we saw over the last couple of years due to more people having adopted the use of tablets for browsing the internet. Either way fewer companies are investing the time and money in making an expensive m. site if they have not already done so.
Social Media
Social media continues to grow with companies focusing on customer engagement, content generation and analytics. Here are some key takeaways to focus on in the remainder of 2012.
- Listen to and learn who their customers are
- Engage in conversations with customers through social media
- Explore new social sites like Google + which have a small adoption rate, but have a large effect on SEO
Like in years past, the prediction that email would die in 2012 hasn’t come true and many companies have found email is continuously their best performing marketing tactic. In 2012, companies are working to combine email and social media together to integrate both marketing mediums as a way to improve ROI and conversion.
Analytics
Companies are working to understand who their customers are to better engage and market to them. With the continued explosion of social media, many analytics platforms have worked to integrate social analytics into their reporting platform. Just look at Google, Marketo, Salesforce, and Omniture. Companies are looking to these analytics platforms to not just spit out numbers, but provide actionable data to help them make smarter business decisions.
Review Sites
Reviews and review sites like Yelp, Google Places, Angie’s List etc. continue to be important. As consumers are deciding which products to buy or companies to do business with they search these review sites to compare companies before deciding who to go with.