Digital Marketing is central to the communication strategies of companies and organisations, actively contributing to their success.

Digital Marketing has evolved greatly in recent years and its use has widened. Staying informed about its trends is essential for clearly and objectively defining communication strategies.

As usual, I have once again chosen and analysed the main digital marketing trends for the coming year:

Voice search

Voice search already accounts for more than 20% of searches globally and is a fast-growing trend because of the simplicity, ease and speed with which a user can obtain any kind of information.

This comes with the growth of virtual assistants such as Google Assistant, Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa, which are constantly introducing innovations, making them ever more intuitive to use in any user's daily habits, with strong interconnection across multiple devices, whether at home or at work.

Several data points indicate growing interest in SEO strategies for voice search, where artificial intelligence also plays a major role, as it can understand the intent and context of a given user and deliver more accurate and personalised results.

Digital micro-influencers

The trend of using digital micro-influencers is increasingly strong in companies' digital marketing strategies, becoming almost mandatory because of the results it generates. Digital micro-influencers will be among the major drivers of the brands of the future.

Digital micro-influencers are seemingly ordinary people with a good reputation in a specific niche. On average they have between five and ten thousand followers on social media and usually generate more mentions and, as a result, more attention and engagement. They usually share content they like in a natural way and attract people with the same interests. Most become experts in a very specific subject, thereby attracting brands from the same market segment.

Despite having fewer followers than the big digital influencers, digital micro-influencers still perform well. A recent study by Jonah Berger, a professor at the Wharton School, and the agency Keller Fay Group shows that micro-influencers have much more persuasive power than digital celebrities. The study, which involved 6,000 American micro-influencers, concluded that users identify more with micro-influencers and found that 82% of respondents are more likely to follow their recommendation than that of a major influencer.

Artificial Intelligence

It remains one of the main trends, very broad across the most diverse sectors. It works on the basis of algorithms that allow machines to learn without being explicitly programmed for that purpose.

Artificial intelligence is used nowadays in the most diverse ways, from customer experience based on purchasing behaviour, internet or social media activity, to the use of bots that automate tasks that follow a pattern, such as companies using them to respond to customer requests by simulating interaction with a human.

These are the three main trends that, in my opinion, will make a difference in the coming year in digital marketing and will greatly boost the results of companies and organisations.