Are you thinking of starting a business in 2018? Want to get your business up to speed? These are the top business trends for 2018 that you need to sign up for.
2018 is a year of the future. Not a distant, remote future, but the future that a few years ago we imagined would come. Now we are in that future.
At the technology level, the advances are impressive; and at the marketing level, it is clear that consumer habits and customs are changing by leaps and bounds. It’s time to know where business is headed.
What is to come? What are the keys to success? Today we’re telling you about the most important business trends for 2018.
1 – Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence is increasingly used for repetitive actions where a high level of efficiency is required. Also to interpret large amounts of data, something that a human would take a lot of time and resources to do.
The great trend is the use of IA in companies aimed at enriching human action. In 2018, companies will use Artificial Intelligence to enrich human interactions and the user or customer experience.
But the IA will also be more and more present in our future as a tool to replace human beings in simple tasks that do not require their emotional precision to be successfully executed.
EXAMPLE: There are already companies that provide Artificial Intelligence-based personal assistants for as little as $300 or $400 a month. Such agents are able to effectively perform all the tasks previously reserved for personal assistants or secretaries: booking flights, scheduling meetings, scheduling meetings, editing content for blogs or programming content for social media, among other functions.
2 – Attendance takes on more weight than virtual attendance
It seems that people are a little tired of the distance from the Internet.
There is no doubt that social media has been a real revolution, and it has succeeded in bringing together whole communities that would not otherwise have found a way to stay in touch or to organize themselves.
But virtual life is no substitute for real life, and the second trend on our list is a good proof of that. People are increasingly asking for a face-to-face complement to this whole life that takes place on the web.
Thus, the face-to-face events, the congresses, and talks, the concerts and festivals… All of them are going to be big business in 2018.
If you’re in one of these sectors, get ready to work like never before. And if you follow the news in your sector, whatever it is, you’ll find that people don’t stop attending events to get to know other people in their own community face to face.
If you have a physical store, don’t hesitate to organize face-to-face meetings: presentations, showrooms, VIP passes, etc. People are increasingly willing to make efforts (and pay money) to make real contact with the communities they care about.
3 – Live video content
On the Internet, the most consumed medium is video. And, of the video, the most popular and the one that will have the most future projection is live video or live streaming video.
The live video instantly connects brands to their communities and makes them much more accessible and close. It also has a component of immediacy and urgency, and calls to interrupt everything to follow it immediately.
How can you apply live video to your business?
You have so many ways. From live videos with questions and answers on Facebook Live and Instagram Live, which go directly to your brand’s social media communities, to webinars via Google Hangouts, to live event streaming via Periscope.
4 – Act for the community and not just for the buyers
The Internet has given consumers a host of tools to research and shop in an ultra-informed way.
Today’s consumer is someone who comes to the sales staff with extensive information about the product, the prices available, the brand and the store from which he or she plans to purchase it.
He has his sights set on the company and knows perfectly well whether it is a posture or whether the company has real values and is consistent with them.
For all these reasons, as a brand, you must go beyond tactical business thinking from 2018 onwards. Don’t do or offer things of value only to your customers: make sure your contributions add up to the community your customers belong to.
It is time to consider your contribution as a brand to society. Of all the things you get from her, what do you give back? Do you have any responsible actions in mind?