The other day, my colleagues at Ensemble, a digital services alliance, were doing our planning for next year. We were discussing the key trends we were each seeing in the market, for our various digital skillsets. I figured it would be useful to share those key trends with all of you, to help you with your business or marketing planning for the year.
Top Startup Trends (courtesy of Red Rocket)
- The explosion of wearable technology and the internet of things
- The rapid growth of mobile devices, applications and usage (especially overseas as their primary device)
- Big Data is becoming Big Insights, with sophisticated analytics and CMO's evolving into CIO's
Top Venture Capital Trends (courtesy of Red Rocket)
- More and more companies are successfully tapping into crowdfunding sources, putting pressure on VC's
- Venture capital firms are moving towards the poles, either very early stage or very late stage (less need for middle)
- Super angels and angel networks are taking share from traditional venture funds
Top Social Media Trends (courtesy of SocialKaty)
- Images and short videos will become the go-to viral tactic, more than textual content
- The importance of being positioned as a domain expert through
Google + Authorship - You must serve all mobile platforms, to effectively meet the social needs of younger generations "Y" and "Z"
Top Search Engine Trends (courtesy of Loud Interactive)
- Deeper geo-location focus of Google's algorithm is requiring localized link-building in your target markets
- Growing voice-activated searches from mobile devices means more need for "long tail" Q&A based keywords
- Post Google's Hummingbird update, they are now emphasizing "context" over "content" (less about keywords)
Top Public Relations Trends (courtesy of WalkerSands)
- Quality trumps quantity in terms of getting the attention of key media or bloggers (make it relevant and newsworthy)
- PR has become less about mass releases, and more about contributed articles by thought leaders on target media outlets
- Content is still king, but now in multiple formats: blogs, white papers, case studies, articles, videos, webinars, events, etc.
Top Technology Development Trends (courtesy of Ora Interactive)
- Responsive web design has become the bare minimum starting point, to optimize for multiple mobile devices
- Make sure you leverage the full capabilities of iOS7, as there are many new features therein to help startups
- When building native apps, start with iOS, but don't leave Android far behind (you need both, given growth of each)
I hope you found these learnings useful, and that you employ business, development, financing and marketing strategies that can best help you tap into these trends, to better grow your business.
George Deeb is a Partner at Red Rocket Ventures and author of 101 Startup Lessons-An Entrepreneur's Handbook. For future posts from George, please follow him here or on Twitter at @georgedeeb.
