What Small Businesses Can Achieve by Embracing Marketing Technology

Technology has streamlined communications between businesses and people. Here’s how small businesses looking to engage audiences and scale content creation can adopt new marketing technology.

The technology we use to communicate, spread ideas, and find new customers is constantly evolving. In the last two decades, the internet dramatically changed how we access content. Today social media and mobile increase our ability to communicate and provide new opportunities for small business marketers to connect with people.

However, the current environment for small business marketers is not without challenges. The ease with which brands communicate has created a crowded market. Consumers see and hear thousands of marketing messages every day. As a result small business marketers have to balance the need to create more content without compromising quality, all while staying on budget.

Achieving this balance requires you to scale content creation processes, and that’s where you need the right tools.

Technology’s Role in Scaling Your Marketing

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There’s no getting away from the fact that content creation is a largely manual process. Someone has to think up the strategy, plan the content calendar, create the content (writing, filming, illustrating), and then edit it to perfection. Finished? Not quite. You’ve still got to publish and promote your content.

The number of steps involved in the content creation process makes it very difficult to scale. As with most small business activities, effective marketing is about how much you can accomplish with available resources. Expanding upon your existing resources with technology can scale up your team’s productivity.

Technology can help:

• Automate workflows. Technology enables your team to do more with the same amount of resources. This makes processes more efficient by automating certain tasks.
• Improve targeting. Reach and engage specific demographics with precise, targeted messaging. Promote content to your ideal audience that’s customized to their unique tastes and interests.
• Localize content. Technology expanded the capabilities of the gig economy. The gig economy allows marketers to connect with localized creative talent and produce highly targeted content at scale.

Even with the right technology, there are limits to how much you can scale. The why, the what, and how you create content is as important as the volume you produce. The right technology improves your reach and targeting, but also provides quantifiable metrics for each of your campaigns. This helps you measure the effectiveness of your content marketing to better scale with efficiency.

Competitive Advantage of Marketing Technology

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Technology is an equal opportunity solution for scaling content processes. What this means is that your small business can access the same tools and strategies as your competitors. Choosing the right marketing technology tools to scale your content creation could have tremendous impact on your success.

In a competitive marketplace, it’s not enough to create content through conventional means. Many brands, especially small businesses, are reluctant to adopt new tools or resources into their creative processes. Your competitors may be slow to incorporate new technologies, techniques, and tools into their workflows.

This is where the savvy, up-to-date marketer has an advantage. New tools and technology frequently bring productivity and cost benefits to the operation. By embracing the latest technology, you can gain a competitive advantage over competitors.

New Social Media Marketing Technology Updates

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When news of Facebook’s meaningful interactions update hit the web in January, brands were naturally concerned. Mark Zuckerberg promised that in 2018 users would start seeing more posts from friends, family, and groups, and less content produced by businesses. Facebook’s ongoing shift away from organic promotions means businesses must rely more on paid options to connect with people.

This is part of a wider trend by social media platforms to improve how users interact with content. Instagram implemented a similar algorithm, encouraging marketers to produce content more likely to be welcomed and trusted by audiences.

The updates came on the heels of troubling news for social media platforms. A poll conducted by HubSpot revealed that, on average, approximately 40% of users considered social media ads to be “very untrustworthy” with a further 15% finding them “somewhat untrustworthy.” Overall, fewer than 15% of users found them “somewhat trustworthy” or “very trustworthy.”

Audience perceptions of paid social campaigns are alarming to executives at social and digital networks. More changes to platform algorithms will continue to roll out, which may affect how you market your small business on these platforms. Brands that tell authentic and engaging stories are more likely to earn positive responses from social ads.

Marketing Technology Features in 2018

As part of social media’s continuous evolution, platforms will make new updates throughout this year and beyond. The updates we can expect in 2018 include:

• Instagram Nametags. Similar to Snapchat’s QR codes, Instagram Nametags enable businesses and users to promote their account using a scannable nametag. The Nametag could be printed on merchandise, posters, leaflets, or almost any other physical media. This removes the need for users to search for Instagram handles.
• Expansion of Instagram Video. Video content engages audiences more effectively than other static forms of content. Recognizing this trend, Instagram will expand video capabilities on the platform.
• YouTube Adds TV As Device Type. According to official YouTube data, Smart TVs are driving a big increase in users who watch YouTube on their television screens. TV screens are now the fastest growing screen to watch YouTube content. As a result, YouTube will add TV screens as a selected device type in AdWords and DoubleClick Bid Manager so that advertisers can target customers with different creatives.