What’s Hot in Digital Marketing?

The thinking behind our new summary of the latest, most critical developments in digital marketing

You'll know that Digital marketing develops fast. Really fast. So, it can be really difficult keeping up-to-date on the latest developments from the marketing platforms like Google and the social networks. Businesses and marketers who are agile can take advantage of testing the latest tools, techniques and insights to get an edge on their more laggardly competitors.

Given the rate of change, when we launched Smart Insights, one of our key aims was to help advise marketers on the digital marketing techniques that are most relevant to their personal and business success or, if you prefer, to help prevent you drowning in content. Some updates are critical and will massively affect marketing outcomes, others are interesting to know but unlikely to greatly affect your day to day activities or bottom line. So we look to make the call on 'What's Hot and What's not' rather than just reporting all developments as new as many digital marketing sites do.

Which resources are available to keep you up-to-date

We've worked hard to stay true to this aim of providing a 'one-stop shop' to help marketers keep in the loop about the latest developments using a range of content types and formats exclusively for our Expert members including:

• Weekly updates to our Digital Media options cheatsheet
• Regular updates to our Benchmarking statistics compilation
• Exclusive 'Digital-in-depth' webinars for Expert members
• 'What's New' sections within our Digital Marketing elearning module
• New or updated content every week for all Expert member best practice guides

We've also looked to support our Basic members too through our Weekly Digital Marketing Essentials Newsletter and @SmartInsights alerts] on all social networks.

We are always updating our range of expert guides so that they remain relevant to the latest digital marketing trends. Yet even though we publish new updates every week, the industry moves so fast that it can be hard to keep track of exactly what has changed, and what you need to know.

Introducing our 'What's Hot in Digital' feature for all members

To address the dual problem of a fast moving industry and a firehose of content about new platform changes that is unceasing and often conveys little value, we have created a new feature for all Members.

The 'What's Hot in Digital' monthly summary will highlight the key digital marketing news of the month, and key platform changes on the major social platforms. This will allow busy marketers to keep up to date with major developments at a glance, avoid missing major updates and mean less time keeping up with marketing news.

To make it quick to scan we've split down our 'Whats Hot in Digital' summary into a series of sub-sections so you can see major news and platform changes at a glance. Here's a quick step-through the features.

1. The Smart Insights View

This section gives you the key posts from us and our team of expert commentators. We only select the most important and best posts of the month, so everything here will directly aid your marketing strategy. Commentary gives you a quick 5-second briefing on they key points, and you can always go in and read the articles for more in-depth analysis.

2. The BIG platform changes

This section will give you a low down on the major changes to the key marketing channels that you use every day. Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and more.

3. Sharing your questions and comments

We love stimulating discussion and answering your questions here at SmartInsights. So we give you our pick of the very best discussions of the month. This means you can see how the industry is reacting to certain trends.

4. Our latest analysis and recommendations for Expert members

Dr Dave Chaffey gives his pick of the finest new and recently updated Expert Guides to help you prioritise and follow best practices for your digital marketing.

If you are already a Smart Insights members then check out the latest Whats Hot in Digital. There will be new posts for every month to keep you in the know.

If you're not a Smart Insights member but think this handy summary of the months digital marketing news would be of value to you then consider joining Smart Insights. You can sign up as a basic member for free, so it won't cost you a penny. If you really love the content been need more in-depth marketing advice then our expert membership may be for you. Check it out if you're interested.