Now that school is out and vacation season is in, content marketers and content creators can’t simply rely on people to be on their mobile devices as much as they were in the winter months. Therefore, it becomes even more important for content marketers to create and deliver content in ways that demand consumer attention. Take a look at this week’s Content Radar for some ideas how.
Annual Internet Trends Report touts voice, freelancing, China
Reports come and go throughout the year, but there is one report that marketers have come to trust to help them align their marketing efforts with best practices year after year — Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends Report. As luck would have it, the new report dropped last week during Recode’s Code Conference.
The report is full (like 280 slides full) of trends, best practices, and other findings that can help guide your content marketing and content creation efforts over the next 12 months. But, if you had time to read a 280-page report, you probably wouldn’t be here. So, let us take you through a few of the important findings:
Voice has arrived
It seems that for years we have heard that voice is the next big thing. It seems like that prediction is now coming to fruition. Perhaps nowhere is this more true than with the number of Amazon Echo installs. In 2016, 10 million Echo devices were installed. By the end of 2017, this number had tripled to more than 30 million.
Amazon reigns supreme on product searches
More product searches start on Amazon than anywhere else — a lot more. In fact, nearly half (49 percent) of respondents say they begin their product searches on Amazon. Roughly 1/3 use search engines — mostly Google — and 15 percent say they begin their searches elsewhere.
Freelancing is growing incredibly quickly
Though writing certainly makes up a large part of the freelance market, the number of freelance opportunities are increasing thanks to brands like Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, and Etsy. Since 2014, the freelance workforce has grown by more than 8 percent, whereas the overall workforce has only grown at 2.5 percent. Nearly 4 out of 5 survey respondents said that technology has made it easier for them to find freelance work.
Global web usage growth is slowing
The last few years have shown tremendous growth with the number of people starting to use the internet, but 2017 saw a significant drop in percentage growth, even though the overall number of users increased. More than 3.6 billion people are now on the Internet — or half the world’s population — but the year-to-year growth percentage dropped under 10 percent for the first time.
The Chinese market is huge
Five U.S.-based companies make the top five most valuable private internet companies (Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Facebook), but nine of the next 15 companies on the list are Chinese internet companies, with Alibaba topping the list for the Chinese. In all 11 of the top 20 internet companies are American and nine are Chinese.
iOS 12’s screen time app will make iPhone users extremely aware of their mobile habits. When a user accesses the app, it indicates how long a user is spending with each app, how often the user picks up the phone, and which apps are sending the most notifications.
A Jurassic-sized Amazon ad is teaching a lesson in marketing creativity in Los Angeles. In a partnership between Amazon and ‘Jurassic World‘, interstate travelers are invited by a gargantuan box on the back of a semi to ask Alexa what’s inside.
Instagram finally is explaining how its algorithm works. In a meeting with reporters, product lead Julian Gutman explained that interest, recency, and relationship are the three main factors that determine what users see in their Instagram feeds.
Facebook continues to lose popularity among U.S. teens. In fact, only about half of teens (51 percent) claim to use Facebook, whereas 85 percent use YouTube, 72 percent use Instagram, and 69 percent use Snapchat.
