We use January as a time to review the past year, the developments, the triumphs, the trends and of course, the fails. It’s also the time of the year where a predictions are made for the year ahead; last year predictions were made for 2018, digital trends, tech trends, business growth predictions, so in the interest of growing and learning, this digital trends blog will be taking a look at the hits and the misses of 2018!
Which digital trends predictions have or have not made it?
Digital Trend #1 Artificial Intelligence
AI is one of the greatest phenomenons of recent years, pegged for big things in almost every digital trends blog in 2018, to change all areas of industry and 2018, although we’re sure AI has by no means peaked yet, was a successful year. It was predicted that AI would begin and continue to be incorporated into a wide variety of apps; one of the most popular and pioneering adapters of the technology has to be Snapchat whose use of AI has been early, constant, mainstream and fun!
Digital Trend #2 Chat & Apps
The use of chat interaction between brands and individuals was growing prior to 2018 but was set to continue to grow, and did. The use of chatbots is a topic which raises mixed views, as to how effective they are for customers. Customers want more say, more interaction with brands and, in a digital world, a simple, convenient way to do it, this much we know. Apps such as Whatsapp have so far been a little like uncharted territory for communicating with customers, and therefore minimally used for this purpose, despite its over 1.5 billion users (2018). However content , brand content, will be shared via these platforms, ‘dark social platforms’, so why not actively utilise it? This trend didn’t explode as predictions would have had it do last year, but it did develop, increase conversation on the topic and prepare it for a strong 2019.
Digital Trend #3 Data
Data was a big topic last year, while some of this was predicted, much of it was brought about by the many data breaches which were experienced by big brands. Facebook was probably the most publicised and included the harvesting of millions of users’ data, closely followed by the changes to GDPR, introduced in May 2018 and regulated the way in which data is collected and stored.
The way in which data is used also developed last year, data is collected with everything we do online, and it can be used to personalise our experiences and target more relevant marketing materials towards us!
Digital Trend #4 Blockchain
Blockchain has so far been, on the surface, a slow developer, the rise of Blockchain has been promised for some years. One of the most spoken about uses of Blockchain is in the financial sector, in which significant development continued in 2018, with possibilities in the sharing of trades, improving its accuracy – increasing the speed of oversees payments between currencies – and smart contracts which can also be used in legal and HR sectors to name only a couple!
A digital trends blog rundown can help prepare and predict for the year ahead, knowing which predictions did and did not develop allows businesses to decide where to focus their energy in a new year, so start planning.
