Snapchat is great for social media marketing, and it is here to stay in 2017. Before today I never really recognized Snapchat as a social media marketing tool, until I realized that...well they are. I myself follow many companies on this social media application. At first I only used Snapchat to talk to friends, then I started to follow celebrities and lastly companies started to use the it as well in order to deliver information about products, keep their fan base alert, and release updates. Snapchat is one of the fastest growing social media networks and has over 100 million active users every single day. So if you were thinking of marketing on any social media network, this would be it. In a way snapchat is all of social media put together, where you can take pictures of your activities, videos of live events (which many companies do) in order to get an insight of what goes on behind the scenes, or deliver private content to friends. Snapchat is easily my favorite and most used social media. There are several ways companies can use Snapchat in order to market. For example if I am Nike and I am in charge of their Snapchat I would provide live updates, insight to behind the scenes, hold contests in order to keep my fan base active and involved, and even partner with other companies in order to expand my fan base. There is so much to do on Snapchat that it would be crazy for companies not to be on it.

Just recently I found myself joining one of the biggest trends of 2016. I went to Best Buy to look for a new TV. When I was looking around, a relatively new technology caught my eye. I've seen them before and was amazed when I first saw what they can do. Instantly I wanted an Apple Watch. I was so caught up in everything it was able to do that I bought it when I didn't even go to the store with the intention of buying one. Apple watches and wearable technology have been taking over the past few years and rightfully so. They are the future of technology, being able to do everything at your wrist without even needing a phone. Some of the many things they can do are send text, make calls, access the internet, and use apps. There are even watches that look fancy like regular watches but are smart watches. They have all kinds of watches depending on what your style is . Although wearable technology is not a necessity I believe that it is a major upgrade from before. These watches can do more than you think and can come in handy for multiple things. I believe this is a look at what is to come in the future.

One of, if not the biggest trends of 2016 is live-streaming. I have experienced live-streaming first hand from Twitter. This year Twitter agreed to a contract with the NFL in order to stream 10 Thursday Night Football games. This has been a huge success for Twitter as they reach out and attract a bigger audience by doing this. Along with football, there is Periscope which is the most popular live-streaming platform where anyone can share what they are doing at the moment. This changes how social media works because people are use to posting what they are gonna do or what they did and now people can share with millions across the world on what they are currently doing. I have seen NBA players use this platform in order to show their workouts, or even concerts being shown. I believe this is a great new way to promote as long as companies find a way to utilize it in their favor.

Marketing Trends: Voice Search and Commands

Every year new advanced phones come out such as the iPhone and new samsung phones, which are competitors. A relatively new feature in both of these phones are voice search or assistants, such as Siri and Cortana. Siri and Cortana are the names of the digital assistants on these phones which help you with searches or pretty much anything you need. These digital assistants have become a big trend and now apple and samsung are fighting to see who has the better digital assistant and which is more responsive. When they first came out they were hard to use, weren't user friendly and hard to function. As the years have past they have gotten more advanced and are much easier to use and they actually come in handy a lot of the time. With these digital assistants every company is always trying to one up each other. The new thing included in these digital assistants are keyword search, which is searching for something based off a key word that you use to describe what you are looking for. It is important for every digital assistant to include this and much more if they want to stay at an even pace with the competitors as this is becoming a huge factor into which phone consumers purchase.