The beginning of a new year is the perfect time to reflect on the previous 12 months. 2018 was a big year in many ways, and the digital world certainly didn’t escape the impact of a few significant changes. If you work in a digital role, keeping up with the latest digital trends will help you to hone your skills and knowledge. Whether you’re running a company or offering your digital skills as an employee, it pays to know what’s happening in digital and understand how you can take advantage of recent trends. Take a look at these trends that took off in 2018 to make sure you didn’t miss them.

Dealing in Data Security

GDPR was not so much a trend, as it was something that everyone was forced to do. For many businesses, it felt like a huge pain, but the ultimate goal of the legislation is to put consumers in charge of their personal data – which can only be a good thing for personal security and brand trust. The new EU rules came into effect at the end of May, and it was a mad rush for everyone to get everything in place before then. Even small businesses and sole traders had to make sure they were compliant. Anyone failing to comply could face huge fines. GDPR highlighted the issue of data security, not just for consumers but for businesses too. It made businesses take a good look at how secure their data was and strive to make improvements.

 Brand Safety 

Brand safety is another issue that came to the fore in 2018. With a number of big stories about brands advertising in places that upset their audience, brands are having to become evermore aware of who and what they associate themselves with. However, it’s not always easy to have complete control over your brand when you’re trusting it to someone else. But where there’s a problem, there’s a digital solution. Automated brand safety tools are one of the possibilities for managing brand safety and their rising importance was demonstrated in mid-2017 when one of our long-term clients and leading advertising analytics tool, Moat Analytics was acquired by tech giant Oracle. Throughout 2018, other major ad tech players including Integral Ad Science and DoubleVerify followed suit by launching their own brand safety offerings.  

Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Tech

The rise of AI in all realms of business appears to be unstoppable. While we hope that robots won’t eventually take over the world, we’re certainly happy to take advantage of what they can do for us now. One popular use of AI that is continuing to grow is the use of chatbots. Chatbots are a useful tool that help customer service teams to expand their reach. Chatbots can take care of frequently asked questions and use machine learning to expand their capabilities. Meanwhile, human customer service representatives have time to deal with more serious problems, instead of sweating the small stuff.

 Connected Digital Platforms

As businesses begin to use more and more digital tools and platforms, they can end up with a number of different technologies that don’t communicate with each other in any way. But many platforms are now being designed to connect to each other and integrate with larger platforms. These form new ecosystems that make it easier to store data and keep it secure, save time and be more productive. The integration of marketing and advertising technology is a significant example of this. By combining MarTech and AdTech to make MADTech, important data for marketing isn’t only collected but also implemented effectively too. As MarTech Today puts it, the tools turn insight into action.

There was plenty going on in 2018, and 2019 is sure to bring about plenty of other digital trends too. Keep your eye on what’s happening to stay up to date.