An inside look on the latest digital marketing disruptions: 3 points to take away from the latest digital marketing disruption webinar

Marketers are no strangers to change. Yet the drastic changes in Apple's iOS 14 privacy-focused policies, users' migration to newer social media networks, and WhatsApp's recent privacy policy scandal have a lot of marketers scrambling to keep up.

In a recent webinar hosted by Fimmick titled "Fimmick Booster: 2021 Digital Marketing Disruptions - MeWe, Signal, iOS 14", CEO Willy Lai dived deep into the challenges that marketers were expected to face in 2021 and offered advices for brands to prepare for the upcoming challenges of the digital marketing industry.

1. The rapid rise of MeWe

Recent concern over the freedom of speech and user privacy on major social media platforms have caused users to go for newer yet more privacy-focused social networks. MeWe is benefited from this "social media user migration". Should brands follow their customers and jump ship?

Lai's advised marketers to look at the situation from different angles. Opening an account is easy, but building a brand presence on and generating returns on investment from a new platform would take time and effort. Is MeWe's rapid growth sustainable? Does its user base match with the brand's target audience? How to transfer followers smoothly from one platform to another? How to promote on the new platform without the aid of ads? These are all things to consider.

2. On WhatsApp and its business solutions

WhatsApp has recently lost millions of users after a poorly-executed terms of service update. The backlash was so great and WhatsApp had to delay the update to May 2021. What is the future WhatsApp? Should marketers include WhatsApp in their marketing plan?

Lai's advice to marketers is to learn more about WhatsApp and its competitors' offerings, particularly regarding their business solutions and marketing potential. Conversational commerce is gaining in importance, and soon a reliable and flexible messaging platform would be crucial to brands hoping to engage and convert customers online.

3. On anti-ad tracking privacy measures and their impacts

Digital advertisers had long relied on personal identifiers such as cookies and device IDs to measure, analyse and optimise their ads. However, Apple's iOS 14 anti-tracking measures mean that marketers drastically reduce targeting efficiencies, leading to much higher advertisement costs. What should brands do?

According to Lai, marketers' immediate course of action should be conducting a marketing health check to estimate the impact of Apple's recent updates. Brands might also consider adapting data marketing solutions in preparation of a cookie-less and IDFA-less future.

About Willy Lai

Willy is the Co-founder & CEO of Fimmick, an award-winning digital marketing agency with over 140 digital professionals in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Willy has consistently delivered outstanding innovative digital and social media marketing strategies, and mastered big data analyses for various multinational brands, winning Fimmick and its clients' projects numerous awards. Furthermore, he actively shares his digital knowledge and insights with local and overseas institutions, and now he is a guest lecturer at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

This article is contributed by Fimmick.