Every January we sit down as a team and talk about what is likely to change for our clients over the coming year. Not grand predictions, just the shifts we expect to affect a restaurant in Hauz Khas, a school in Dwarka, a clinic in Noida or a small online store run from a flat in Pitampura.
Here are the digital marketing trends 2016 looks set to bring that we are keeping an eye on, and a few things we are deliberately not worrying about.
Live video is coming to ordinary pages
Live streaming has been around for a while, but it has mostly been for celebrities and big media. Periscope made it easy to broadcast from a phone last year. Facebook has let verified public figures go live for a few months, and in December it began testing live video with a small group of ordinary users in the US.
It is a reasonable guess that live video will reach regular profiles and business pages in India at some point. We don’t know when, and we are not going to pretend we do. But we are already thinking about what our clients could do with it:
- A restaurant showing the kitchen during a festival menu launch.
- A school streaming part of its annual day for grandparents who couldn’t attend.
- A doctor answering common questions for fifteen minutes on a set evening.
- A boutique showing new stock as it arrives.
Live video will suit businesses that are comfortable being a little unpolished. It will not suit everyone, and that’s fine.
Cheaper, faster mobile data
Airtel and others have been rolling out 4G in Delhi and other cities over the last year, and Reliance Jio has started its service for employees, with a public launch expected later this year. If data gets cheaper and faster, as everyone expects, a lot more people will watch video on their phones without worrying about their pack running out.
What this means for small businesses:
- Video will matter more on Facebook, and probably on YouTube and WhatsApp too.
- Mobile websites will be judged harder. A slow, desktop-only site will feel even worse next to faster connections.
- More first-time internet users, especially from smaller cities and older age groups, will come online through their phones. Simple language, Hindi content and clear calls to action will help.
We are not expecting overnight change. Coverage will be patchy and many people will stay on 2G and 3G for a while. But the direction is clear.
Smarter feeds, less organic reach
Facebook already decides what each person sees in their News Feed, and organic reach for business pages has been falling for two years. We expect that to continue. Facebook added the “See First” option last year, which lets people pick the pages they never want to miss. Twitter has started showing “While you were away” highlights at the top of the timeline. There is talk that more platforms will move away from a simple time-ordered feed.
Facebook is also testing new Reactions alongside the Like button in Spain and Ireland. If those roll out more widely, pages may get a richer picture of how people feel about a post, not just a count of likes.
For our clients, smarter feeds mean fewer, better posts. Posting four times a day to “stay visible” is not a plan. Posting something people actually want to see, and putting a small, well-targeted budget behind the posts that matter, is.
Faster mobile pages from Google
Google announced its Accelerated Mobile Pages project in October, aimed at making news and article pages load almost instantly on phones. It is early, and it is mainly for publishers right now. We don’t think a small business website needs to rush into it this month.
The bigger lesson is the same one Google has been repeating since last year’s mobile-friendly update: speed and mobile usability matter. We will keep working on lighter pages, compressed images and fewer heavy plugins on the WordPress sites we manage.
The Free Basics debate
The argument over Facebook’s Free Basics and net neutrality has been impossible to miss, with TRAI still to decide. We are watching it closely because it affects how millions of new users might first experience the internet in India. Whatever the outcome, our advice for clients stays the same: own your website, keep your contact details current everywhere, and don’t depend on any single platform.
Startups and small businesses getting attention
The government’s Startup India plan was announced last week, and there is a lot of buzz in Delhi around new ventures. We expect more young brands, especially in food, fashion and services, to want a proper digital presence from day one. That is good news, and it also means more competition for attention online. Clear positioning and a recognisable brand will matter more, not less.
What we are not worried about
Some things get a lot of noise but, for our clients, they can wait:
- Building a mobile app for every business. Most small businesses in Delhi need a fast mobile website and a working WhatsApp number far more than an app few people will download.
- Being on every new social network. If your customers aren’t there, you don’t need to be either.
- Chasing every trending hashtag. A forced topical post usually does more harm than good.
- Virtual reality. Interesting to read about, not relevant for a local clinic or restaurant this year.
What stays the same
Many of the basics haven’t changed and won’t this year. Answer your customers. Keep your Google listing accurate. Make your website work on a phone. Post things people care about. Spend money on ads only when you know what you want them to do.
We’ll revisit this list at the end of the year and see what we got right and what surprised us. That is half the fun of doing this every January.
