7 Technology trends shaping the future of society

Technology trends shaping the future of society

Augmented Reality-Go Beyond:

Augmented reality it’s a digital technology which overlays digital information into our existing surrounding thus enhancing our on-screen experience. Although this idea has been around for years making appearances here and there, it is now that it has gained momentum. Much of which can be attributed to Pokémon Go. In its peak, it earned a massive 10 million dollars/per day in new revenue, which is the result of the pandemonium it created. Thus, bringing augmented reality to front running digital marketing trends.

With the end of 2016, approximately 3.5 billion AR apps were downloaded. This shows why there is a hustle among top companies and developers to create more advanced and user-friendly AR apps, games and experiences.

AR allows marketers to transform a static object, such as a printed advertisement or magazine cover into an immersive 3D experience. It benefits’s including increased brand awareness increased customer engagement and bringing digital to the real world, AR could be exploited in many ways to heighten online marketing and increased ROI.

Tech companies like Sephora and Modiface, are already enjoying the benefits of AR, by launching virtual makeup tools. Even the furniture giant, IKEA has launched virtual furniture tool and upcoming interactive shopping malls will take online shopping to a whole new level.

Be There With “VR”:

Virtual reality is a concept which will revolutionize digital marketing. Each and every brand can make use of it in some way or another way to market their products and services. Companies are working around VR, as immense opportunities still lie ahead of them to develop VR and market their products and services.

A blog by Onit digital predicts that VR will overtake all forms of digital marketing in the following years and bring those technologies out of shelf which will alleviate VR experience.

Virtual reality has some high –end users, like Tom’s, Mercedes, The New York Times, Lowe’s, Game of Thrones and Samsung, etc., who have found some unique ways to use this technology and have immensely benefitted from it.

But it will take years to fully realize the fruits of VR and make it available to all and not just a few targeted customers. Nonetheless, it will be fascinating to see how marketers tame this deeply engaging technology to attract customers and increase their brand value.

Machine Learning Algorithms – Let Your Machines Do The Thinking:

Many would say that machine learning is not new, but what it is & how it is being applied today can surely be termed as the rebirth of machine learning.

Previously, machines were programmed to look into a particular set of data & execute the programmed function. What’s new is that the new machine learning does not need to be specifically programmed to do so. It is closely related to big data & AI. Machines themselves learn from the available data & thus do not have to be manually told to do a particular task. Many practical uses of this new-age machine learning are already in place. The most popular of all being Facebook’s news feed. It shows you what you are interested in and if you click on a particular page, the machines learn and show you more related pages.

Similarly, Amazon‘s Netflix shows your preferences on the basis of the movies and TV shows you have watched. Machine learning reduces the need for human intervention thereby adding both efficiency & value n the system. It has immense potential in many fields including banks, government agencies, healthcare & of course marketing & sales.

Pen Is Mightier Than Sword, Machines Even More- Marketing Automation:

As automation continues to increase in the industry, it is starting to make its mark in online marketing too. Many softwares are coming up which allow organization and syndication of social media posts on the likes of Twitter and Facebook and then writing contents just like a human. This not only saves money but makes marketing job easier and straightforward.

What it lacks is humanity. We can’t solely rely on software to study customers and provide content. People aren’t always predictive but their behavior keeps on changing, thus making the work done by the software eventually fall bland and non-engaging which alienates the readers. An interesting article by Business 2 Community website also makes the same point.
Moreover, one misses out on the social aspects of clients, which often presents those facts that only a human can identify. Thus marketing automation should be assisted by other strategic technologies which can boost its function and reduce its potential drawbacks.

Earlier the cost of building the software outweighed its return. But now it’s easily available to all B2C and B2B companies. Moreover, integrating marketing automation software with the company’s existing CRM system benefit’s both marketing and sales efforts creating better visibility for both.

IOT- Your World, Online:

Internet of things is an umbrella technology which once in full effect, transforms all the sectors worldwide. It costs a lot in its belt. Quite simply, internet of things means that all the things including gadgets & appliances will be connected to each other via the internet.

Imagine the world, where your alarm would know when you wake up & it will accordingly signal your geyser to turn on & the coffee maker to start. Your car will know where to go & which best way to take as it will be told by your calendar. In your office, your office, your printer will know it’s running low on ink & so it will place an order on its own.
This concept travels far and wide & the world is slowly embracing IOT with much more still to come.

In the online marketplace, IOT will prove to be a game changer as it has roles to play in all the elements of marketing including product, price, place & promotion. It would enable real-time monitoring thus helping in better supply chain management & logistics.

Big Data-Information & Inference:

Up until few years, decision making by the business was solely done on the basis of loose data available through various sources and most of the time, the manager took a shot without ensuring back-up. This changed when internet rose to power with social media and e-commerce platform was recreated with the new backup system.

Today a huge amount of data is available to the companies. Accordingly, big data analytics is the analysis & interpretation of huge data to determine & help in decision making regarding customer preference, hidden correlation, market trends etc. Big data analytics is recently undertaken by various major companies worldwide along with many third party companies like Cisco & IBM which provides analytics services.

Handling big data is very tough due to its vast magnitude. Therefore proper & powerful algorithms are required to properly sort & thus provide useful information to assist in decision-making. Apart from that, the challenges in using big data are privacy issues & absence of proper infrastructure to collect & sort the data. Currently, many companies are successfully using big data & it surely has potential to transform digital marketing in future.

AI Assistants: From Ok Google To Hey Siri:

For all those sci-fi lovers out there this term is as old as any. But lately, we have slowly been realizing the reality of artificial intelligent assistant. Artificial intelligence provides automation of various data which also includes analysis of the big data. While all companies have data, they need someone to analyze and form useful information from it. This is where artificial intelligence steps in. While you could manually do this, there is no need to mention that it would take your lifetime and even your analysis can be proved wrong as well.

AI automates many things in today time but still, it hasn’t reached its full potential. The most basic AI that we are aware of is, of course, Apple’s Siri, Google’s Cortana and now Amazon’s Alexa. Apart from this, self-driving car, smart homes, sensors and much more constitute AI. It has created a revolution in the marketplace as AI provides a personalized shopping experience to customers, like Amazon. It shows you your items of interest and at the same time, it is being used to provide that human touch that was lacking in e-commerce.

While you may be interacting with AI on a daily basis, a lot is yet to come your way.