Happy New Year!
Out with the old and in with what to watch.
Your Top 2014 PR, Marketing, Mobile, Tech, Life Trends Guide
Here’s a look at what’s trending as being trendy in 2014: 3D printers, narrowcasting, privacy, crowdshaping, pastels, and Her.
To give you a more panoramic perspective, this all-in-one guide rounds up PR, mobile marketing, tech, consumer electronics, meetings technology, events, fitness, home design, fashion and the movies. The 2014 consumer trends infographic is from trendwatching.com.
Each category links to more details. To save you time, and to encourage more reading at the original article site, you’ll find a clip with commentary in each category.
What? What you want to see is not on this list? Google your topic + 2014 trends to get your research going.
What types of trends will you be tracking this year?
PR and Marketing Trends in 2014
Let’s start right out with PR and marketing, shall we?
Christopher Penn from Shift Communications blogged about six PR trends for 2014. Here’s a clip from number four, PR’s role finishes transforming into media generation.
PR professionals should expect to see themselves blogging, doing content creation and content marketing, managing paid media campaigns, managing social media and mobile media channels, working with media buys and display advertising, working extensively with brand journalists, helping inform search marketing, and generally going where the audiences are. Most important, PR professionals will need to focus on having an audience, having conversations with audiences, and having that audience be portable among different forms of media.
Hey PR pros – let’s get chatting in the comment box about how you accomplish all of this. What do you need the most help with or want to know more about?
Mobile Marketing Trends for 2014
CIO.com reports on six mobile marketing trends to leverage in 2014, including narrowcasting.
“Narrowcasting is the counterpoint to the broader reach of major social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, and an emerging trend in mobile marketing,” says Mark Sawyier, founder and CEO, Bonfyre, the developer of a private photo sharing app and group texting app.
Narrowcasting gives brands “the ability to target fewer individuals who are significantly more qualified, usually based around events and shared experiences,” he explains.”With organic reach waning on broader social media channels, content with context has never been more important.”
Mobile Marketing for Small Business in 2014
In 2014, CIO.com says don’t discount social media in your small business mobile marketing strategy.
According to Matthew David, chief digital strategist of Compuware’s Mobile Solutions Group, “Today, more than two-thirds of Facebook users access the service via mobile at least some of the time, and more than one in six people exclusively use mobile phones to access Facebook.” Boost your mobile marketing strategy by complementing it with the real-time aspect of social media, he says.
Forrester’s Top Technology Trends for 2014 to 2016
Forrester’s Top Technology Trends To Watch: 2014 To 2016 puts mobile applications at the top of the list for the third year in a row, while mobile platforms dropped from a steady No. 2 spot down to No. 5. Cloud and big data for real-time climbed to spots No. 3 and No. 4, respectively.
Gartner’s Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2014
What’s technology without strategy? Gartner’s top 10 strategic technology trends is a must-read. You’ll get insights into how technology is reshaping business and communications. Here’s a clip from Gartner’s press release about one the the top trends, “The Internet of Everything.”
The Internet of Everything
The Internet is expanding beyond PCs and mobile devices into enterprise assets such as field equipment, and consumer items such as cars and televisions. The problem is that most enterprises and technology vendors have yet to explore the possibilities of an expanded internet and are not operationally or organizationally ready. Imagine digitizing the most important products, services and assets. The combination of data streams and services created by digitizing everything creates four basic usage models – Manage; Monetize; Operate; Extend. These four basic models can be applied to any of the four “internets” (people, things, information and places). Enterprises should not limit themselves to thinking that only the Internet of Things (i.e., assets and machines) has the potential to leverage these four models. Enterprises from all industries (heavy, mixed, and weightless) can leverage these four models.
7 Consumer Trends to Run With in 2014 from TrendWatching.com
Trendwatching.com gives you future vision with seven consumer trends to run with in 2014.
I like the concept of crowdshaping. Another trend to watch: no data as 82% of global consumers believe that companies collect too much consumer information.
How do you think #bigdata will react to #nodata?
Where will you incorporate #crowdshaping in your marketing and PR strategy?
Trendwatching.com says there are two kinds of CROWDSHAPING to watch (and run with):
• SMALL CROWDSHAPING: Real-time shaping (and reshaping) of a service around the preferences of the people in an office, a restaurant, on a plane: any space right now.
Consumers might not care about the tech that makes CROWDSHAPING possible, but they will care about increased relevance – via the accommodation of their own preferences – and a novel mode of discovery via the newly-experienced preferences of their peers.
• BIG CROWDSHAPING: Services intelligently reshaped by the aggregated data on the preferences or behavior of large numbers of consumers.
One next step for good, old-fashioned crowdsourcing. Consumers get a more functional, efficient service shaped not by opinions of the crowd, but around the way people really behave. And – unlike with many existing crowdsourced solutions – they get it effortlessly, via passive sharing of their data. That’s what IBM promised when it CROWDSHAPED bus route improvements in Africa.
Top Tech Predictions 2014 via Mashable
Privacy protection is one of Mashable’s top 2014 tech predictions.
Expect a new class of privacy protection companies and services to arrive in 2014, ready to meet what is sure to be a growing need.
At Social Media Week Berlin, privacy was a hot topic. I covered a presentation on Internet Life and Safety and was given a book called “Security in a Box: Tools and Tactics for Your Digital Security” from TacticalTech. If you’re interested in privacy, check out their work.
8 Consumer Electronics Show Trends to Watch
Although I’ll miss covering CES this year, I do like to know what’s next in consumer electronics. Connected cars fascinate me; I’m looking forward to learning more at the 2014 Chicago Auto Show.
In this Time article about consumer electronics show trends, you’ll also learn more about wearables, the smart home, 3D printers, curved TVs, laptop/combo devices and digital health advancements.
Connected Cars
All the major automakers will be at CES this year showing off their connected car projects. Some have been at CES in the past, but this is the first year I see them really embracing the show and trying to make a strong statement about smarter cars. These cars’ connections to the Internet will be facilitated either directly via embedded 4G radios or through shared smartphone connections. This is actually a big deal and a highly competitive advantage for automakers if they get this right.
Online Advertising Trends to Watch in 2014
VentureBeat is a great place to track what’s trending in tech. I like their take on online advertising trends to watch, especially mobile ads – a place you need to plan to be in 2014.
There could be no more predictable prediction than calling 2014 “the year of mobile,” but there is one underappreciated trend. That is how much the roster of major players is set to change in the mobile ad ecosystem.
Meetings and Technology Trends
In 2013, I joined Meeting Professionals International-Chicago Area Chapter and serve on the MarComm committee as a liaison to education programming and events.
Because I’ve always enjoyed working with meeting and event planners, and plan to produce more events in 2014, I’m including two takes for those in the eventprofs space.
This one comes from Corbin Ball Associates’ post on 2014 meeting technology trends to watch for in 2014.
Audience engagement becomes a top priority for events.
We are living in increasingly noisy times. We are being barraged with a daily “fire hose” of information that can be very daunting and is often tuned or filtered out. One benefit of meetings is that they take us away from our normal office environment to one where most of us feel a social contract to engage and be engaging with others. Meetings, when reduced to their most essential element, are about bringing people together.
2014 Event Trends
And, here’s one from Event Manager Blog’s 10 Event Trends for 2014.
Seat Them Socially
While the concept of seating guests based on their social connection is not anything new, 2014 will be the year where more event professionals will use such services for their event.
Top 9 Fitness Trends
Who doesn’t want to be healthier and more fit in 2014? I love the idea of shorter workouts, one of WCPO’s top 9 fitness trends. Don’t you?
Fitness experts say 2014 will be a year when workouts become shorter, getting stronger is done the smart way and individual goals are the biggest target.
Fusion fitness will take 2014 by storm as people work to burn as many calories as possible in a short amount of time. If you only have an hour to work out, fusion fitness is for you.
Most Wearable Spring Fashion Trends
As the snow flies and piles up here in Chicago, it may only be wishful to think of spring. Still, here’s a hint of warmth with the most wearable spring 2014 fashion trends from Glamour.
Spring 2014 Trends Straight from the Runways: Pretty Pastels
A rainbow of soft springtime shades reigned throughout the collections. The best thing about the pastel trend? You can pick your most-flattering color and wear it with whatever silhouette flatters (and excites) you. From a minty-green board-shorts suit to a sexy-CEO lilac dress to sporty baby blue bombers, the sky’s the limit on how pastel-happy you want to get.
Home Design Trends
While we’re working on a client’s story about top 2014 kitchen and design trends, here’s one from CBS news that covers the whole house with five top 2014 home design trends.
Perhaps the most fundamental shift in home design over the past 25 years has been the open concept kitchen. In the past, kitchens were relegated to one, disconnected room, generally in the back of a home. Now, kitchens open up into the living space, a trend that isn’t going anywhere.
Movies to See in 2014
In our house, we love movies. Here’s a list of movies to see in 2014. “Her” opens on January 10 and is on my must see list. Let’s get started with January.
Mark Wahlberg plays a Navy SEAL sent on a doomed mission in the based-on-a-true-story tale “Lone Survivor” (Jan. 10). Other films coming out in the first month of 2014 include the “Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones” (Jan. 3), Spike Jonze’s tech-savvy love story “Her” (wide release Jan. 10), Aaron Eckhart in “I, Frankenstein” (Jan. 24) and Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin in Jason Reitman’s “Labor Day” (wide release Jan. 31).
Here’s the Her official trailer.
Over to You -? What – or who – are you watching out for in 2014?
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