5 Social and Digital Trends for 2018

Tiago "Tito" Ribeiro is a global voice in the sector of social networks and digital innovation. Currently, he is working on several projects all around Latin America and the Caribbean, but is established in Uruguay, looking for new opportunities related to digital marketing, planning/strategy, the digital innovation field, creative disruption and research. 

Tito started working with social networks very early, witnessed several important moments for the industry in different markets like Sao Paulo, Lima, Istanbul, Lisbon, Madrid, Amsterdam, beyond the United States and the United Kingdom. He has worked in large agencies such as JWT, Y&R, SapientNitro, AG2 Publicis Modem and Pong Dynasty (FLAG.CX). Tito also worked as CCO (Chief Culture Officer) at lampada.ag and at TVC-Taterka, working with brands like McDonald's, accumulating a vast and diverse experience in various agency formats. 

Here are some of his bets for the direction digital marketing will be headed in 2018.

It is getting more and more necessary to communicate the perspectives of current semiotics. The ‘Breaking Good’ paradigm is a chain of thought that preaches the ‘disruption’ of marketing as it exists today. It is due to create a narrative that contributes to social and cultural changes in society, using communication as the protagonist of this 4th revolution (the revolution of consciousness). This goes against a new trend of capitalism that has been broadly discussed by many CMOs around the world, where companies have realised that they need to contribute to the building of a better world. 

Another point of the ‘Breaking Good’ paradigm is the high-end technology that will contribute to a highly interconnected universe. The challenge for social media and digital marketing in the next few months is to get out of the bubbles and become a hub of connections between people who believe in and share the same ideologies, and thereby create cultural hubs of people who share the same values, overlaid by semiotic codes in a brand message.

Probably the biggest trend in digital marketing in 2018 is the creation of experiences. We can increasingly include the use of virtual reality (VR), 360° videos, computer-generated VR (CG VR), augmented reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR). People are tired of empty speeches and superficial content that makes no sense to their lives. The challenge of creating targeted content for each audience is growing and appearing with more frequency. Especially in the age of hyper-segmentation. 

We must be willing to go beyond content production and start creating true experiences to engage the audience by creating an emotional bond. For this purpose, artificial intelligence prototypes are already being tested to deliver personalised hyper-segmentation strategies. They work through behavioural readings that can create content exclusively thought for each user. The challenge is that now we understand even more that social networks are the main stage for bringing consumers closer to the brand and the best way of doing that is through the creation of experiences. That is why the challenge for next year is precisely to change that key. Stop creating just content and start creating experiences, with the contribution of AI engines or data studies.

Undoubtedly, 2017 was the year of micro-influencers, finding bubbles on the internet and being able to map voices that are influential in a certain community moved the market in such a way that we witnessed the emergence of numerous platforms.

Influencer campaigns have the enormous potential that has even caught the attention of one of the biggest advertising festivals in the world, Cannes Lions, which for 2018 launched its Social Influencer category.

Initially, besides working with three communication pillars: celebrities, influencers and micro-influencers, the main aim of any influencer strategy is to bring the concept of a given campaign closer to the public and this is not an easy task. You must enter in the present of the creative process of the concept and create several paths for this message, so it can be really impressive. A strong opportunity is always to look for different elements in popular culture that can contribute to the success of a given campaign.

One of the great challenges of the communication industry nowadays is the discovery and retention of talent. Many traditional models, the lack of a career path, low salaries and the lack of prospects about the future are increasingly contributing to distancing the great talents of the creative industry. Many companies around the world are reformulating themselves to transform their structures into more attractive ones. Without a doubt, today the most successful companies tend to hire people who have rich cultural experience and who bring to their structure different perspectives in order to contribute to the plurality of the company.

Perhaps this is the big challenge for some creative companies: open their eyes to this diverse world and also invest in professionals with new looks. Another challenge that arises is the difficulty of finding leadership that conveys this spirit of diversity. New leaders are more scarce day by day. Professionals with strong personalities capable of transmitting these concepts to the market, enchanting the client and being firm are increasingly difficult to meet. After all, following the concepts of exponential evolution, our industry will soon undergo another major re-signification, including robots and the use of artificial intelligence in creative processes, and finding leaders who understand the need of taking these structural changes today is a great challenge for any large international group. Certainly the great executives of this generation will not be found in the obvious ways.

I think we will see a large and continuous investment in data, not only in data capture platforms, but especially in the formation of highly prepared teams to extract relevant information about consumers, capable of redefining global strategies. In a market where everything changes very quickly, today the most important factor within a digital campaign is the strategy that is underpinned by in-depth studies.

I still remember when I started working with Facebook. It was 2008, the strategies were very simple, focused on editorial lines and crisis management. Almost ten years later the market has reinvented itself a lot. Social networks have changed the story of how consumers relate to brands and now it is necessary to take a step forward.  

Consumers expect brands to have a more active voice and to achieve this goal it is necessary to build a strategy according to the interests of users. That is why data exists in this industry, to validate hypotheses and contribute directly to the increase of sales of a certain product.