The capability to use marketing tools and technology without having to beg or  pay for attention is unprecedented. It’s a time where you can now build your own  crowd to market and sell to without paying the mass media gate keepers.

That’s social media.

The social media networks are at your disposal and with the right tactics and software you can create brand awareness and access to  influencers and decision makers in boardrooms across the world.

This freedom to take control of your own marketing comes at a cost. The cost  is complexity and time. To be effective it requires using multiple networks,  constant content creation and monitoring and managing.

It’s not just multiple networks and multimedia to think of, it is also about  adapting to new hardware platforms where consumers receive their messaging. This  is no longer restricted to just print, TV and radio but has proliferated to  laptops, smart phones and tablets. They all have their own limitations and  parameters to be optimal.

Within this technology and  media explosion there are many marketing trends that have been emerging that we  should be paying attention to.

7 Marketing Trends

Here are seven trends that all marketers need to consider in their toolbox of  tactics to remain effective and current.

1. Content marketing

The importance and role of content marketing and how it works across social  media, search, multimedia and mobile is becoming a key focus for many brands.  Many companies don’t understand the importance of this trend and how it  underlies almost all digital marketing. Brands such as Coca Cola have recognised this and changed their strategies  to meet the web realities.

Brands have been blinded by the shiny new toy of social media eg Facebook and  think that Facebook marketing is all they should be doing beyond their day to  day habitual marketing that they have been doing for decades.

Read more at http://www.jeffbullas.com/2013/07/16/marketing-trends-you-should-not-ignore/#wzBZl28kebw6bU9g.99