We met up with Dennis Yu and Logan Young from BlitzMetrics, social media guru’s, to discuss their learnings and top tips for 2018.

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Anthony: “What was your biggest lesson in digital marketing in 2017?”

Logan: “Focus on the fundamentals, because things are changing so often.  

Facebook is releasing new features, and other channels like Snapchat, have started advertising now as well. It’s easy to chase ‘the new thing’, but I think the core principles that drive sales and conversions are still what people should focus on learning, and also understanding how to implement on any channel.”

Dennis: “There’s so much data, there’s so many tools and so many changes – it’s easy to get distracted. But when you focus on the strategy of your goals, content and targeting, those are the things that have always produced.

If your goal is to drive more revenue or more leads, look at what’s already done well for you and try to get more. Don’t be distracted by all these different things that pop up.”

Anthony: “What is your top tip in digital marketing for 2018?“

Logan: “It’s all about video – I think video is the best way to tell a story, which is the best way to sell a product. Everyone is watching on their phones right? So you don’t need high quality, it can be super informal like we are right now. Anyone can make a video. Just pull out your smartphone, point it at yourself and tell your story – and that’s my focus for 2018.”

Dennis: “We’ve heard that video is key, but if video truly is key, that means you’ve got a video editor in-house, that means you’re creating video as your core content strategy, not something on the side. It means you’re boosting video, and that your analytics are all around video. How do you actually adopt that? Because you know that video is the most engaging thing out there.

So if a picture’s worth a thousand words, a video is worth a thousand pictures.

How do you make any kind of video that you know is gonna resonate with people? That has high authority, that doesn’t look like a TV commercial, that doesn’t look like a landing page that someone else has made.

This means that you as a marketer, agency person, advertiser – you have to create the content. You cannot have someone else diet for you, you can’t have someone else, you know, lose weight for you. So you can’t just throw this to some tool or some agency.

And that’s gonna cost people in 2018.”

Anthony: “What are some of your favourite reading resources?“

Dennis: “I like The Exponential View which is by Azeem Ahzar, whose a friend of mine. That is where I get all the latest when it comes to things like AR, VR, the future, and Amazon, and Facebook. I almost never follow what’s going on in the world of digital by what the other Facebook and SEO and Google people are saying.

I don’t listen to any of that, because I want to be a couple steps ahead, and I think the best way to do that is you see what’s going on in the world of like, Robert Scoble, when he’s talking about AR and VR. What are those kinds of impacts? Cause if you’re only reacting to whatever the latest changes are, it’s just too noisy.

The same kind of thing is something with Ben Thompson – he has a weekly blog, which is free, called Stratechery. And he’s analyzing the strategic issues between Google, Facebook, Amazon and the other guys and there’s a talk out there called The Four Horsemen. You can look at that on YouTube.”

Logan: “I like to let Facebook choose for me. I just engage with the best content and let Facebook give me more and more of it.”

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Tags: social media, video