Last week Mary Meeker dropped her highly-anticipated 2017 Internet Trends Report. After doing a happy dance and charging through the 350+ slides like Usain Bolt on Red Bull, we shared our Top 5 Takeaways for Digital Marketing. But what is the best way for small to medium-sized businesses to act on these stats to optimize their own marketing? We’ve put on our thinking cats (mine was a Calico) and found the best ways to improve your digital marketing right meow:

1. Go Mobile – Adults’ spent an average of 5.6 hours a day using digital media in 2016 – more than 3 hours of that time was spent on mobile devices. I know what you’re thinking and yes – cat videos really are that engaging. Regardless, time spent with media on mobile devices is still increasing at a faster rate than ad spending – creating a 16B opportunity in the United States alone for mobile advertising. That means meow is the time to invest in mobile media and advertising. From mobile-friendly to mobile-responsive websites, emails, apps and advertising – your information needs to cut out the fluff and target users on the go.
2. Adapt your Ads – People prefer incentive-based and skippable ads over other formats, with mobile-app pop ups and pre-roll reported as being the least desirable. Make sure your ads add value without making viewers rage quit. 
3. #FanFavorites – Ads are evolving rapidly with successful brands utilizing organic, user-generated content (UGC) and data to drive brand engagement. In fact, effective UGC can generate 6.9x higher engagement than brand generated content on Facebook. Make time to follow and engage your audience with re-grams, re-posts, and re-tweets of their social praises. No raving fans yet? Try a contest or competition to reward followers for showing your products or services in creative, fun ways and don’t be afraid to like what they have to say.
4. Facebook Takes Over –  If you haven’t already noticed, everyone from your grandfather to your neighbor’s designer dog is on Facebook…the dog keeps taking all my likes, that little bitch. If your business is not advertising on Facebook yet, you might want to up a notch. Facebook’s ad revenue grew 62% in 2016 and 26% of Facebook users surveyed that click ads have made a purchase.
5. Creepers Are Cool- Location-driven advertising is advancing and everyone from Google to Uber is learning how to use this technology for their own benefit. The ability to track users, deliver relevant ads according to their location and track outcomes are shifting the dynamic between online marketing and offline commerce. An easy way for small businesses to start using this idea for their own marketing is by tagging their location on social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram and encouraging their users to do the same. Facebook ads also offer advanced targeting to advertise to people in your area.

Ready to create your own plan of action to win users in this new media landscape? Call the marketing gurus with DAMN Advertising today to design an innovative digital advertising + marketing campaign for your company!