I have not been paid or incentivized in any way to promote Digital Summit, in fact I paid my admission fee just like everyone else. Digital Marketing speakers share their expertise from SEO, social, email campaigns, content, strategy, and more.

My Past Digital Summit Recaps

• 3 Key Marketing Lessons from Digital Summit 2017
• Top 5 Learnings from Digital Summit: Content + Social Fall 2018 Atlanta

2019 Marketing Trends from Digital Summit

Here are my top 3 trends from this year’s Digital Summit.

1. Not just VIDEO, but marketers need to produce LIVE video.

Randi Zuckerberg, creator of Facebook Live was our opening keynote speaker. She spoke about her career (including her time at Facebook), and her first Facebook live broadcast. (Only her parents watched.) Lesson: Don’t give up too quickly. She went from 2 viewers to Katy Perry announcing her “California Dreams 2011” world tour on Facebook Live.

Why LIVE video?

87% of marketers are now posting videos on social, saturating social networks. According to Georgia Dahle, Hootsuite, consumers ‘expect‘ video in campaigns today.

According to Randi Zuckerberg:

Live content creates perceived scarcity.

Audience numbers are dropping for everything except for live events.

We are all media companies.

Randi Zuckerberg also advised us to invest in an audio strategy. She specifically cited Amazon Alexa as a game-changer, especially for mobility challenged people and young people.

2. Voice is the new whitespace

Now that Amazon Alexa and Google Home have reached critical mass adoption in the US, audio has become the new video.

What are forms of audio that we are consuming today? Answer: Streaming audio PODCASTS

Gabe Tartaglia, VP, Pandora announced, “The Sonic Revolution is Here,” during his speech at Digital Summit. “We’ve reached saturation of the eyes. It’s now the colonization of the ears,” according to Rishad Tobaccowala, Chief Growth Officer, Publicis Groupe.

Content creators are turning to podcasting, and consumers have recently increased their Podcast Time Spent by 131%

With podcasting, almost anyone can get their content on Amazon Alexa and Google Home.

What if I don’t have a podcast?

If you don’t have a podcast currently, then Mark Deal, Podcast Guest Academy, will give you a few pointers on how to ask and apply to be a GUEST podcaster on other people’s podcasts. Guest podcasting could result in 3X the exposure and conversions as blogging.

While we’re on the subject of Alexa & Google Home, why is now the time to get into voice?

Very simply, smart speakers (Alexa & Google Home) are our window into Artificial Intelligence, providing an elegant and multimodal method to cut through the noise and perform transactions, according to Jason Snook, PhD, CapTech Consulting.

3. Influencers are the new celebrities.

Remember the “good ol’ days of marketing?” When we focused our energies on TV, radio, and direct mail? If we needed instant credibility, just hire a celebrity to endorse our product. Expensive, but extremely effective. That was then, this is now.

We are now in the age of authenticity.

Buyers are looking for subject matter experts they can relate to and trust, aka Influencers. Influencers are a great way to increase your backlinks and social mentions, raise sentiment, and SEO.

According to Influencer Marketing 101:

• Conversions increase 3 to 10X when brands share content through influencers.
• 62% of 18-24-year-olds would buy a YouTuber-endorsed product (vs. celebrity)
• 80% of marketers find influencer marketing campaigns effective
• 84% of marketers say they would launch at least one influencer campaign in 2018

But this “influencer marketing” sounds too good to be true!

There are major challenges to implementing a successful influencer marketing program including:

• How do I find influencers specific to my industry? Unfortunately, 84% of marketers find influencers manually versus influencer ID tools.
• Posers. I was personally mortified when I saw this video of a legitimate influencer when he found out that someone was impersonating him in an attempt to get free 3D printers.
• Influencers work hard to maintain their authenticity and may decline opportunities that don’t fit their personal brand or personal opinions.

Overall, influencer marketing is still relatively new and now is a great time to start (or continue) identifying legitimate influencers in your industry and developing relationships.

2019 Digital Summit Atlanta featured an all-start lineup of speakers, too many for me to mention them all. Let me know in the comments if you’d like for me to follow up with content / recaps around email, website, social, and or SEO.