With digital marketing seen as a highly volatile industry, we all can t help but wonder how it will change in 2016. After mobile and social media largely dominated this year, what should marketers expect next?

Here are some predictions on how online marketing will take shape next year, based on the biggest digital trends we ve seen this 2015.

1. Interactive content takes the spotlight.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise, especially now that everyone s aware of how short a digital native s attention span is. Modern media consumers are veering away from long articles and heavy texts particularly because most of them seek entertainment on the web.

In 2016, it seems that interactive content will take the spotlight as the primary component of a digital strategy. To reach more customers, these are some of the content types that could work:

•     videos
•     infographics
•     quizzes
•     podcasts
•     GIFs

Such types of content are easy to digest, attractive to viewers, and generate more shares and backlinks compared with articles.

 

2. You may need to shell out more money.

We saw the rise of paid online advertising this year, and we can expect this trend to enter the mainstream in 2016. In social media, for example, it s becoming more difficult to distribute content among other users. You have to pay in order to reach your target audience. This doesn t only pose threats to your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. It also requires you to increase your budget for online marketing.

 

3. Collaboration will allow brands to have a wider reach.

In digital marketing, you can t stop right after you ve created and posted a piece of content on your website or social media accounts. To gain a wider reach in the online community, you must build a network consisting of followers, influencers, media staff, and your other colleagues.

You can work with your network to create user-generated content or have people share your content with their followers. If you’re not going to collaborate with other industry members, you won t be able to rise above the noise preventing your customers from finding you.

 

4. Influencer marketing is a must.

Put simply, influencer marketing means having someone influential talk about you online. They may re-post your content, tweet about you, or mention your brand in one of their articles. By doing so, they re promoting you to their circle, and this allows you to reach more people and expand your community.

The bottom line is you wouldn t be able to thrive in a competitive industry without relying on your network. To get your brand out there and connect with more customers, it s best to create a digital strategy that maximizes the capability of all your marketing tools.