What is the point of producing incredible content if we are not able to put it in front of the eyes of our target audience? I am sharing some writing tools to promote content efficiently and easily. These may not be the tools you have heard most often in some instances, but they are the ones which I use and have discovered over time. 

They offer simplicity, efficiency and do not fluff your entire budget.

Facebook 

To all honor, the first of many tools to promote content effectively is Facebook. But not just any method of publication. I'm talking about Facebook ads here. In recent years, Mark Zuckerberg's company has placed prominently under the box of publications on your professional page, a button with the following text: "Boost this publication." 

This is an easy way for you to revitalize your content effectively but also, to "give" money to Facebook. For those of you who want to improve their performance using this method of promoting content, can utilize the Facebook Business Manager. It is another tool developed by Facebook but which allows having more statistics, a history of its advertising and a few additional parameters to target the right audience. A tool which must be known.

Buzzsumo 

Buzzsumo is a tool that allows you to study social trends on a particular keyword. Following a search on a particular keyword, you will have access to the list of people who have shared the most popular articles on this topic. 

Subsequently, then, you have to contact these people and offer them your content on the same subject since obviously, they have an interest in it. It's a little bit longer to get it done, but since you share your content with people who are already "pre-qualified," the game is worth it!

CoSchedule 

CoSchedule allows you to share your content on all social media platforms. All in an automated way but customizable at a time. For example, you can present the same blog article from several different angles, presenting it with a different presentation text each time, changing photos or incorporating a new video for each type of publication.

Days are gone, when people are given the impression of "spamming" because we share the same article several times. Thus, we reach a wider audience since we approach bits of the content from varying angles.

Sumo 

Sumo platform offers lots of credible tools for content promotion. However, the most useful features for me is the share button and list builder. Its list builder ensures you to have popups to capture emails of your site visitors, and this now can be converted to marketing leads. Social buttons are displayed on pages which notifies users of the number of shares the post have, and this is an excellent social proof.

Ahrefs 

Ahrefs is much easier to use than to pronounce its name, lol! But it is a tool that ensures you situate yourself beautifully compared to your competitors. With Ahrefs, you can easily follow which are the links that point to the website of your competitors and thus be able to try to connect to these sites in turn since their interest in content like yours is obvious.

IFTTT 

IFTTT (or If this then that) is a tool that allows you to automate the publication flows as much as possible. There is also Zapier which can help you with similar tasks. Definitely, tools to analyze closely with all the options they offer.

Google Alerts

Google Alerts is a rather basic tool, but with multiple uses: it allows to monitor its e-reputation, perform a competitive watch but also to curation. Just create an alert on a keyword that interests you (e.g. "content marketing") to be informed of the latest news on the subject.

Pinterest

Pinterest is a social image sharing network that can also be used as an excellent curation tool to find and share visual content.

Hootsuite Amplify 

This smooth platform is developed with just the goal of revitalizing your social reach. Its logic is to urge your employees to distribute your content.You can also keep track of who has the most shares and also which post of yours is most successful.

Netvibes 

Netvibes is a complete solution for aggregating your news, social networks, and favorite sites and tracking them from a personalized dashboard.

BuzzStream 

Buzzstream portrays itself as a content marketing CRM. Building and managing all of your contacts can be done with this platform; it even has the email sending feature. Email templates can be created and also tracked with this cool tool to ensure that the emails are opened and also note when links are clicked.

Other Honorable Mentions 

The Old Reader

The Old Reader allows you to gather the sites of your choice and to organize them freely by theme or by interest. You can then read and share relevant content with your community very easily.

Quuu

Quuu, is a platform where you submit your article and it will be shared across hundreds of linkedin, facebook and twitter accounts. Content producers pay to use this platform to share their contents, while sharers are these social media users who want to keep their profiles active with relevant contents.

Storify

Storify allows you to enrich your own posts with external content: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Giphy, Flickr, Getty Images, Soundcloud, Tumblr, Google, etc. You can also search other sources to find the appropriate content. Once the ideal content is found, users can drag and drop it into a document. 

At Storify, these are mobile modules based on your own content and external content. Your own texts can be highlighted as in a text editor. Once the message is ready, just click on "publish" and the article will be published in Storify. 

Before the content is put online, the service asks the user whether the cited authors, graphic designers or photographers should be informed, a particularly useful function when it comes to increasing the scope of a publication. There are several ways to reach your target group: users can cast their story on Twitter, Facebook or Google+, for example. 

For marketing professionals, the most interesting is to copy an embed code and publish it in their own blog, if the HTML editor allows it. The export function offers even more possibilities. The full article can be edited in HTML, XML or JSON. If you use WordPress, you can also use plugins to integrate the content.

Viral Content Bee

This platform is very similar to a platform called Triberr which we also reviewed in more details below. Its ideology is just to share other users content, and in turn they will share yours.

Edgar 

Unlike Hootsuite and TweetDeck, Edgar is a social media sharing scheduling platform with unique features which differs from the above-mentioned platforms. Whereby the other platforms require that you add new content if you aim for more sharing, Edgar actually reshares your old contents and never stops sharing. It helps just in case any of your fans missed an update.

Quora

There is no stupid question! This is the principle on which Quora is based: behind each knowledge, there is a question. When registering on the Q & A portal, users decide which topics are of interest to them. To do this, there are a large number of proposals. Then the service asks the users to inform the sector in which they work or study. 

Registration is complete, and you can begin to review the questions, read the answers and participate yourself as an expert. This is indeed the principle of Quora, which is not in itself a curation tool of content, but which can quite well be used as such to gather content.

For content marketing, it is important to keep an eye on the interests, preferences, and needs of the target group. Quora offers a very good approach: what kind of questions does the community ask in a thematic area? Knowledge is useful for both curating content and creating unique content. But Quora's answers can also be used for curation of content. 

As with Reddit, the best and most appropriate answers are placed at the top, so they are directly visible. If the content curator finds them compelling and wants to share them with their community, they can do so by pressing a button on Facebook and Twitter or via a direct link.

Quora has an interesting feature since the founders (two former Facebook employees) have many celebrities among the participants in their platform: for example, actor Stephen Fry, AOL founder Steve Case, Hillary Clinton and many others influential people in their field. Of course, it is possible to provide answers yourself. This allows you to establish yourself or your company as an expert in your field. It is also possible to have your own blog on the platform.

Sniply

Inserting links to external content instead of attracting potential customers to their own site is a problem faced by many entrepreneurs and marketing experts who use content curation. The Sniply service offers a solution to this problem. The platform allows its users to create a call-to-action button that appears in shared content and links to their own website.

How does it work? First, the content curator creates a CTA button. He can customize his appearance (small button or footer wider), then enter the address of his website and the text of his choice. Than the actual curation begins, where the web content is inserted into the clearly arranged dashboard. With one click, Sniply creates a new link. If it is shown on social media instead of the original link, the CTA button always appears when the linked web page is displayed. By scrolling through the content, the reader never loses sight of the curator's recommendations. To facilitate snipping, the platform presents users with a browser extension. The links created can be dispensed via a buffer or Hootsuite, and directly on social media.

Sniply presents another useful additional feature: the tool also functions as a link reducer. The snip (so-called hyperlinks) that has just been issued by the service is always a short link in the format "snip.ly /…". However, some users don't like this type of links because they transform the website to which the click leads. Therefore, you can also use your own domain. To do this, the name servers must direct to Sniply.

The link created by Sniply has even more advantages: since the redirection to the content is always done via Sniply, the tool can analyze the behavior of the target group. Sniply Analytics collects data such as clicks, conversions (that is, the number of visitors who have followed the CTA button), and time spent on the website, or bounce rate. You can also use custom scripts to link other analytics tools, such as Google Analytics. The A / B test is the perfect marketing tool to improve statistics. You then insert several variants of buttons for the same link. The system automatically presents the different versions and determines which one gives the best results. However, this is only possible with the paid version.

Triberr 

Triberr allows you to find the right person for any subject. And popular people, often called influencers, can significantly increase the reach of selected contributions if they share them.

Registration is very easy via interfaces to your own social media accounts: Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn are available. Then users can join the tribe, or tribes, that is, communities of interest. However, there are still several tribes with different orientations within a division (for example, "design" or "podcasts").

To make the overview easier, you can only display tribes with a certain range (calculated from the number of Twitter followers of members) or a minimum number of members. However, before users can become members themselves, they must first be "simple" followers. Only then can the leader, that is the creator of the group, promote the follower to the rank of a member if he wishes. This system guarantees the quality of the contributions in the tribes.

Triberr not only provides a moment to learn about influencers but also provide the option to broadcast the content. Contributions emerge in the feed of each member. In addition, you can share your own contributions in social media.

Those who particularly appreciate the content of a member of a tribe can even switch to Auto-Share, and automatically forward each of its contributions to their own subscribers on social media. Beyond curation and content marketing, Triberr is particularly interesting for the influence marketing.

Marketers can use the podium to create campaigns that bloggers can join and then write about the brand. An algorithm makes it possible to select the most suitable influencers. Triberr can also deal with contracts and the payment of influencers. In principle, the service is wholly free. Both Lite and Prime subscriptions offer the same features, but their reach is increased in each case: with premium versions, you can create more tribes, connect more blogs and social media accounts to your profile, and import more messages.

BrokenLinkChecker

Again, this is a technique that is not quick to achieve but is still quite simple despite everything. It is simple to analyze with the help of tools like BrokenLinkCheck for example, broken links on a site for which you would like to have an inbound link. 

Once you have done this exercise, first provide the information on the broken links on the site. Then, suggest to its owner links from your site that can replace these broken links. It's a safe bet that they will agree to do so in return for the service rendered.

Marketing automation has been a hot topic in recent years, and with the deployment of new, less expensive and more accessible solutions, SMEs can now take control of techniques previously reserved for large groups. But besides being a fabulous time and energy saving opportunity, marketing automation is also a way to spawn more leads and move your small business to the next level.

In 2015, Insight estimated that 80% of the users of automation solutions had seen their amount of leads increase and that an increase of 417% of the average revenue had been recorded for the companies having implanted this type of marketing. No doubt this type of practice can be beneficial for any business.

There are, however, varying ways to implement automated marketing actions, but here are some ideas that will put you in the infernal machine. 

What is Marketing Automation?  

The term "marketing automation", also called "automated marketing", is a set of techniques and tools that enable a company to automate certain marketing actions and marketing campaigns throughout the task of prospecting, lead generation on the web and sales.

The Principle is Simple: make the most of the traffic generated by the various web supports to maximize their efficiency, by setting up automated mailings or other lead nurturing techniques, and also automatic statistical follow-ups.

Concretely, marketing automation supports sales forces by providing new prospecting opportunities, but also by optimizing the resources of existing customers to generate more sales. It makes it possible to reach the prospects in a more precise way and especially at the right moment of their reflection, and consequently to provoke a commitment faster than if one had a "manual" approach of things.

 What Tools?

One of the main logic, why SMEs are reluctant to implement automation strategies, is a lack of financial resources to implement the various IT tools needed for the effortless orchestration of operations.

However, some relatively inexpensive solutions can quickly integrate some campaigns of automated emails or social networks, also statistical follow-ups. In addition, and if you aim to integrate more complex automation solutions, it is better to address a specialized and reliable partner who will put the processes in place for you to avoid errors or technical failures.

Automated marketing has a lot of advantages and can be used in different ways to support the growth of your SME. We have identified 6 effective practices to tailor this automated marketing to your small business:

Automation as a way to Welcome Your New Registrants

The first thing we can say is that one of the goals of marketing automation is to support the sales funnel that you have designed for your site and for your web content in general.

At the base of this implementation, it will be necessary at first to imagine a way to retrieve contact details to build a qualified database. This can be done by setting up a newsletter registration form, or providing downloadable content such as a white paper, or downloading your mobile application to retrieve certain information from your target audience, and of course their emails.

Sending an email to your new subscribers is typically a case where marketing automation can help: instead of generating your welcome emails manually, you will be able to create an automated email that will be sent automatically after each registration or download to validate the registration of the prospect and communicate the benefits that it will have to be part of your community.

As a result of this registration, do not hesitate to automate a series of emails every few days to support the prospect and bring him relevant information for him. This can be for example an aid to the purchase or the use of your mobile application. The goal here is not to lose contact with the person, and it is precisely this automation that will be able to meet his needs quickly and efficiently.

Automation as a Stimulus within Your Sales Funnel

Nothing prevents you to go further in automating your marketing to reach your prospects at all stages of their commitment to your business. To do this, you will need to segment your database in a relevant way: it is now possible to automate its segmentation in an evolutionary way according to the evolution of the relationship of the consumer with your company. This dynamic segmentation will make it possible to adapt the actions so that the client goes to the next level in his commitment.

Lead scoring will allow you to spot where the prospect is in your sales funnel; this consists of assigning a score based on different criteria based on the demographic or behavioral data in relation to your content that characterizes the lead.

For example, a prospect who has opened your last email campaign or viewed your last blog post is a qualified prospect who will likely be converted to a client quickly. It's up to you to spot these different opportunities and create automated campaigns based on your own sales channel.

This principle can, for example, be adapted in the context of an abandonment of purchase: a prospect who would have abandoned the ordering process after the validation of his basket. You can automate a specific campaign for this type of prospect by sending a discount coupon or a limited offer in time.

In this context, marketing automation will make it possible to convert a "lost sale", and if possible within two hours of abandonment.

Do not hesitate to set up complex scenarios specific to your activity and to match DRIP campaigns to best adapt to the behavior of Internet users. DRIP campaigns are understood to mean a series of messages sent after a particular action of the prospect.

This can be for example an email after an order, then a raise 6 months later to encourage the customer to recommend on the site. These automatic channels can obviously concern emails, but also other media such as messages on social networks for example.

These are closely linked with the sharp monitoring of your leads through specialized software.

Automation for Relevant and Personalized Communication

 Email marketing has evolved significantly over the years and now offers new marketing opportunities that must be taken advantage of, especially if you manage an SME that communicates essentially through this channel.

Personalization is one of those opportunities because a well-designed, personalized and smartly directed e-mail campaign can easily increase your opening rates and conversions. Today, personalization goes far beyond simply specifying the recipient's name: your emails can deliver personalized content in real time.

You will be able to integrate the content of your target's residence, the opening time and even the type of device used by your target to read your email. This is all the more important as the content of your emails can adapt responsively to the user's screen.

Automation to Promote for a Future Event​

Another way to implement marketing automation is to develop communication around specific events you want to promote. A very good example would be to create a succession of emails to communicate on a webinar or any other event that you want to set up.

We can imagine in this context, a first email to encourage registration, then a reminder a few days later for prospects who have not yet registered, even an offer for those who have expressed an interest in your content without going through the registration process.

We will have the same logic for the promotion of an eBook, the communication of a special sale or participation in a trade show. This practice can also be adapted to the commercial relationship: for example, by offering some "hot" prospects a date of appointment to make the link with the sales force.

Combining your campaigns with your own CRM tool can also be a great idea for automating customer follow-ups.

Automation to Offer Privileges to Your Loyal Customers

 Why not give your loyal customers the benefit of automated referral systems? Rewarding its customers helps to increase the rate of re-purchase and the phenomenon of word of mouth. Automated communication with discount coupons can also prevent your loyal customers from going too quickly to competition.

Some companies even send e-mails to wish their customers a birthday. This is indeed the perfect time to send a personalized email with a special offer on this occasion.

Automation for Updates on Social Networks

Marketing automation is not just about email campaigns, it can also be used to manage your presence on social networks. In this case, automation will help you provide consistent visibility and consistency across selected networks. Thanks to some tools like Socially Map or Buffer, you will be able to plan for a certain chosen period of your publications, while applying yourself to stay natural to avoid any "robotic" effect on your publications, and always make sure to offer interesting content and qualitative.

The automation of your publications on these networks will allow you to save a lot of time, but especially to have a strategic reflection of the content that you broadcast.

Now we have discussed market automation, let us dive in really into email marketing.

Automated Email and its Thousand Possibilities

Mailing is still today one of the most powerful marketing levers known. But even though it doesn't start from yesterday, it is the way to use it that has greatly changed. It is no longer a matter of painstakingly compiling a shipment per year to its entire database, but of setting up scenarios to automate the sending of targeted emails in a contextualized way. Discover all the issues related to the use of emailing in our dedicated section.

You Software and the Machine will do the Rest

CRM tool (Customer Relationship Management), marketing automation serves to:

• Prospect new customers.
• To retain current customers.

Unlike traditional mailings, the automated email campaign can be programmed upstream and once. It lasts the time you want. The software will ship it whenever a parameterized case occurs.

The Simplicity of Implementation

You think about your scenarios and write type emails once and for all. They will be able to broadcast without you having to worry about it. Rather simple? Yes. Now concretely how to develop your scenarios? No ideas? Here are some to inspire you.

Examples of Scenarios​ 

The Welcome Mail 

  Align the navigation on your site for the user to create an account, or subscribe to your newsletter. Then schedule the sending of a welcome email. A warm and individualized way to make contact while testifying to your attention.

The Nominative Offer 

On the occasion of this first email, why not slip a special offer or a promotional code? The person has shown interest, give him the boost that will make him decide to consume. Bridging the supply over time can enhance the incentive of your proposal.

The Free Trial 

In some areas, prospects will tend to buy if they could test. They will be reassured, convinced. And once you have opened an account, they will be likely to stay home.

The Punctual Promotion​ 

Do you know the birthday of your customers? Give them a gift! A common practice and always welcome.

The Reminder Email ​

The reminder email is useful in different cases:

• For an Event for Example: It is crucial to promote events to ensure that participants come. Hence the need to send. Save the date and reminders upstream.
• In Domains with Recurrence, as in Health for Checks up for Example: Schedule an email to send each year to your patients for example. A beneficial action for you as for them: playing the role of reminder you make it easier for them and take their follow-up to heart.
• For Subscription Logic: Your customers are used to benefit from your services. But the subscription will expire. It's also your role to remind them earlier so they know it in time.

The News Mail

In your business strategy, email automation is a support to maintain a strong link with your customers. Loyalty is not innate, we must give news, take it. By scheduling the sending of an email to all those not contacted for x weeks, you make sure not to leave anyone.

The Mail to Know the Customers Opinions​ 

  Your customers will be happy to hear from you, they will be more than happy to return. Brand consideration, this email may take the form of a survey or an evaluation. A great way for you to understand their expectations, to better meet them.

The Remarketing Email​ 

When you sell online, you have a lot of information:

• So-and-so was not until the end of the purchase.
• So- and- so has selected such and such products in his wishlist.
• So- and- so has bought such a product but no such accessory.

Take the opportunity to personalize your approach, with an automatic email for:

• Revive basket abandonment.
• Offer a discount on an item of the wishlist.
• Offer a complementary product to the one purchased.

So, inspired? Do you see any application cases to adapt? Very good: Now concretely how to proceed?

Manual

Once you have established your automation scenarios, you need a marketing automation tool to manage them. You need a very efficient emailing tool, it should be used to:

Collect Emails: via a web form or registration pop-up, to associate with your site, blog, or a landing page.

Create Campaigns: a drag and drop feature ensures you create newsletters, mailings, landing pages, and even polls. Some templates elegant and responsive make your content compatible and attractive with any device.

Segment Targeting: a variety of attainability's should be offered to you. It would be unwise to send the same email to someone twice, especially if they read it the first time.

Optimize Shipments: the A/B Testing feature consists in testing different variables, either on:

• The object.
• The sender's name.
• The catchphrase.
• Or the time of sending the mailing.

Expand the Means of Action: the SMS can display much better rates, for information calling for answers or quick reaction, or invitations. Some email automating software declines cross-channel to make the most of the different channels.

Automate: You can fashion your automation scenario directly in the platform as you have created your campaign - drag and drop - to better automate your customer journey by adjusting it to the timing and behavior of each. Thus each email or email cycles will be more precise, better targeted and therefore more effective.

Program: With the predictive sending system, the software should be able to use big data to automatically send each of your contacts your email at the most optimal time.

Analyze the Impact: each of your shipments displays statistics, to evaluate their performance, it is necessary to compare them. The tool performs this tracking draws recommendations for your next actions.

For prospecting as for loyalty, an automatic email is a quick, simple and effective lever. Given its thousand possibilities, you create scenarios that reflect your image while boosting your business strategy.

Digital marketing is an industry in constant evolution. Every month, new changes appear in the world of social networks, search (Google) or content marketing (blogging, videos, etc.). New technologies are coming into our lives. There are various social media platforms, like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc.

Today, it is not enough to be present on a single platform, it is more interesting to integrate several in your strategy. After all, you are not at home. Fortunately, you can combine them (or integrate) together in your strategy. For example, use Facebook, Instagram, and Facebook Ads to promote your blog posts, not to mention optimize your articles for SEO.

You could also turn a blog article into a short video and post it on multiple social networks, adapting the message to meet different expectations on each one. The possibilities are numerous. It's up to you to choose which platforms you want to "play" and see which ones work best for you. In the next few years, also expect to see artificial intelligence invading our world with ever smarter robots, the rise of voice assistants like Alexa, and so on.

However, we will not just list but also explain the top 7 digital marketing trends to follow come 2019, which is expected to drive real growth to businesses. So, sit back tight and enjoy the article.

Video Marketing 

Video marketing is on the upward slope. YouTube, Facebook, and Netflix are fighting to become your second television. Internet users want more video, and it's up to businesses to adapt. Cisco anticipates that 80% of content on the web will be videos by 2019.

I still have other interesting statistics for you, all harvested by Forbes:

• According to YouTube, Internet video consumption doubles every year.
• 64% of consumers are more likely to buy a product online after watching a video of this product.
• Video ads now account for more than 35% of all online advertising spend.
• A third of the time spent online by Internet users is dedicated to watching videos.
• On social networks too, videos are very popular, especially on Facebook and Instagram.

In 2017, Buzzsumo conducted an interesting study that clearly shows that the videos on Facebook can obtain a much higher commitment to other types of publications (images, links). Native videos also appeared on LinkedIn a few months ago and using them literally gives you free visibility.

Lives are also becoming more popular on social networks and more and more businesses are starting to adopt them, even if the transition seems a little more difficult. According to a study conducted by Buffer, only 31% of marketers surveyed had a Live in 2017.

For those who did Live, 91% of respondents used Facebook as a platform to broadcast their Live, followed by Instagram and Snapchat.

Often, when we think of videos, we think of filming ourselves in front of his smartphone and then editing (or delegating). In other words, it requires being comfortable with the camera, a skill that we do not naturally have. And in addition, it requires video editing skills (or money).

If you are introverted, it can seem intimidating. For me, it was. So to get started, I first invested in editing software.

I chose Animoto for its value for money and its many recommendations. The advantage of this software is that you can create professional videos from images or mini-clips in just a few minutes.

This allowed me to get interesting results in terms of organic reach on my Facebook page. To be more comfortable in the video, I also recorded interviews on Skype with screen sharing which I then published on my private Facebook group.

So that's what I advise you to do if you have not started yet because it has been proven that visual content will be a huge boost come 2019 marketing. 

ChatBots 

These bots that make you talk on Messenger. Personally, I feel that it has been barely a year since chatbots really became popular on Messenger. Yet, statistics show that the growth of chatbots is impressive, from 33,000 "only" chatbots in September 2016 to more than 100,000 a few months later.

Chatbots can be used to improve customer service, send content or promotions, etc. Domino's Pizza is my favorite example to show you a clever use of chatbots.

In the USA, if you click on "Send a message", you will be introduced to a chatbot who will invite you to:

• Make an order
• Redo an order placed
• Track an order

You understand you can order a pizza without interacting with someone on the phone, Incredible!

Now, I would like to add 2 things about chatbots:

1. That Remains Permission Marketing 

 Unlike emailing where we receive (often) spam emails, you will never receive an unsolicited message on Messenger from a chatbot. You must first have interacted with the company on Messenger to receive Messenger campaigns, for example:

• By clicking on a link that links you to Messenger
• By contacting the company directly via its Facebook Page

For the second point, if you contacted a company on Messenger, it can send you messages via a chatbot (since you are part of his Messenger contacts). At any time, you can unsubscribe from automatic sequences on Messenger. 

2. People Like to Interact with a Chatbot 

 Chatbots have already been well adopted by the American population, with already over 50% of Americans between 18 and 55 years old who had an interaction with a chatbot.

Another study conducted by LivePerson (5000 respondents) also shows that respondents are quite positive about their experience with a chatbot. 38% of respondents had a positive experience compared to only 11% who had a negative experience.

However, it seems certain that bots will not be so badly received in our society. Another good news: there are inexpensive software programs, like Manychat, to set up your chatbot and create mini-sequences on Messenger, by configuring automatic answers to common questions or queries for example.

Expect to see more companies using chatbots in 2019 and after for their customer service.

Storytelling 

The Stories Instagram can be defined as multiple images or videos assembled together as a slideshow, and set tells a story. Unlike a conventional publication, they have a life of only 24 hours. It is a real "game-changer" in the sense that users can publish on social networks in a more spontaneous way and therefore with less preparation than classic content.

They were popularized by Snapchat and then reposted by Instagram in August 2016. As you can see, Stories are displayed all on the screen, creating immersive experiences.

This is a real success when you count that there are already more than 300 million Instagram users who make Stories every day, almost 2 times more active users than Snapchat. But don't think that only individuals benefit from this trend.

Companies too have taken advantage of this trend since they plan to create more in 2018, according to this study conducted by Later. Companies want to invest their time and money in stories to take advantage of this format that is both authentic and engaging, which in addition allows them to have all the attention of the person, to:

• Humanize their brand
• Show behind-the-scenes content
• Show the progress of a project or the creation of a product
• Teaser of new products
• Make an announcement

In addition, the ephemeral nature of stories means that companies can take advantage of it to make limited-time promotions, most companies also incorporate storytelling in other to bring more customer engagement.

Rise in Cost of Social Advertising 

Yes, you read right and should expect this in 2019. These elements mentioned in this article could well change the situation of marketing in half a dozen years. Because the question for advertisers will no longer be: "how to reduce Internet social advertising rates and be present at low cost on a maximum of websites." But "how to capture the real attention of users by being perceived positively".

However, this paradigm shift should lead advertisers - and their agencies - to rethink their positioning on how to reach people. And at the same time, internet advertising rates increase as the real attention of the users becomes a variable taken into account in the calculation of the prices of the campaigns.

But this increase should not be seen as a problem for advertisers, on the contrary. Tracking, optimization, and targeting will help advertisers focus on impactful campaigns that really affect the users who are their target audience. And thus benefit from an ROI despite the tariff increase.

Website publishers will be able to balance their business model between a premium formula and an ad-supported formula, generating viable revenue, but with better-targeted campaigns, better integrated, more impactful for users and advertising rates.

Growth Hacking 

If the promise of rapid global growth makes you dream, you should know that the growth in question here is primarily that of your user base. Then the fruits of these first optimizations will materialize, thanks to the time saved by the automation.

An Ideal Strategy to Develop its User Base.  

 Growth Hacking was first developed by start-ups. Like any business, they aim to increase their turnover. But, more than any other company, they must also make themselves known. Who can sell a totally unknown product or service, indeed? Hence the idea of acquiring traffic.

A small example to better understand, Airbnb, you know? Well, to make itself known, this site has resorted to Growth Hacking.

Each ad published on the platform was systematically relayed to another non-partner site but much better known in the United States (Craiglist).

This is how Airbnb now enjoys a global audience.

In this example, we understand not only the concept of "piracy": needless to say that the strategy adopted by Airbnb was not very fair, or even the limit of legality. Fortunately, however, Growth Hacking techniques are not all of this kind.

And Generate Rapid Growth 

Of course, increasing your user base will ultimately boost your revenue. This is not a mystery: the more known and reputable your products are, the more likely they are to sell. Growth Hacking, by increasing your visibility, will give better arguments to your sales representatives. The key is real economic growth.

User Generated Content 

When we talk about user-generated content or UGC (UGC), we generally refer to all content made available online, which would have been produced in whole or in part by end users, and most often traded through social media. The TOS may be videos or product demonstrations, blog posts, photos on certainly specialized platforms such as Instagram, or any other testimonial to promote a product or company. 

These contents are quite representative of the evolution of habits on the web, with the ever-increasing progress of social networks and online communities. Because it's a fact: Internet users are less and less fooled by unfounded advertising messages and they finally have little interest in traditional advertisements touting the merits of products that are not adapted to their own problems. 

On the contrary, an online recommendation is seen as a true validation of the quality of the product and the seriousness of a brand, with consumers trusting themselves to leave honest evaluations of their purchases.

And this is all the more important as the means to share his opinion are nowadays very varied: photos, videos, tweets. It is now considered that 80% of the content available online is user-generated content. But if Internet users find it interesting to consult opinions online, they are also 59% willing to share their opinion with a company against some financial compensation. 

This is an impressive figure that shows that the UGC market is indeed colossal for advertisers. And the consequence of this is obvious: UGCs are a real asset for a brand and many companies, big or small, trying to take advantage of this opportunity to outperform the competition. Now you should expect this trend more in 2019.

Interactive Content Marketing

It can be understood by Interactive content Marketing, the one that uses communication techniques that are based on technological supports such as, quizzes, polls, videos among others.

The advantages offered by interactive content marketing to the companies that use it are: segmentation of its target, since the main tool used is the quizzes, this allows reaching a specific audience and also for the company to get closer to the client in a non-invasive way, there is also the coverage that as previously mentioned is carried out during marketing and this has great coverage worldwide and allows that which the company wants to transmit quickly reach the desired audience; theInteractivity. 

It is also part of the advantageous marketing group, because it allows the company to interact with the target audience and thus create relationships to be able to reach customers more easily and thus sell or offer products or services in a more personalized way and this it leads to an affinity which suggests that it is when a group of individuals has common interests; already in the commercial part, it is when a strong connection with the clients is generated, therefore this advantage is quite profitable since through the affinity with time the relations between the organization and the client are strengthened. 

Since the internet is the main tool, another advantage is used, which is through the use of information channels, distribution and sales, so that through this you can commercialize the products or services managing the creativity so that the experience with the client is more positive and thus the campaigns that are made by this means are very effective. The Branding is extremely important because through it the salient features of the product are shown so that the client is fully informed.

All these advantages lead to interactive content marketing to be an intelligent marketing since through all of them you can offer customers in a personalized way products or services that are looking for at that moment through the distribution channels with which the company.

Conclusion 

We have discussed these digital marketing trends to follow that are expected in 2019 which will surely improve any digital business if done properly. If you haven't started yet with any of these digital trends, it will be great to start now.