Book excerpt: Almost every marketer wishes they had a crystal ball so they could peer into the future and see what's hot in the coming year. Unfortunately, most of us are not clairvoyant, but we can usually look at certain current trends and predict which will have staying power. We can also look at emerging technology and how it can be used to further our marketing mission. In this report, we will be looking at what has happened in 2018 and how it will affect 2019,and How 5G will affect and increase connectivity with a variety of devices far beyond smartphones that could mean that hardware such as augmented reality smart glasses and mobile devices , in the spirit of 5G structured readied home could be used more widely . As a result, social media marketing can move away from conventional responsive design, with the goal of creating more participative visual content with some sort of more graphic capabilities to explore and use. . We will also look at the trends in tech, search engines, and technology and automation. Top Trends in 2018 Live video has become increasingly popular. Seeing is believing for a target audience. They also like to feel as though they know the businesses that they are dealing with, and that they are run by real people who are not just out to make money. Looking inside the business and looking into product creation are just a few of the ways to build a relationship with your audience. The Smartphone boom continues, with marketers trying to connect with their prospects in a range of ways, including text and apps. Chatbots are being used more and more to open and maintain a dialogue with customers, and deliver valuable marketing information. Facebook Messenger got a much-needed overhaul and marketing push. It is now a much more convenient tool and a handy chatbot if you set it up correctly to respond to trigger words. Facebook lead ads can be one of the fastest ways to grow your email marketing list - provided that you use attractive images, write a good ad, and automate the process of adding the new names to your list to save time. It's also good for generating leads for Salesforce.com and other customer relations management software. Everyone loves a good story. Using storytelling in marketing offers a structure people are familiar with and leads to satisfied customers getting a vision of living happily ever after. Influencer marketing is growing in popularity as more marketers try to connect with their target audience. Influencers with a large number of active followers could be the gateway to a lot more traffic and profits. Even if you pay the influencer to post your content to their followers, the return on investment can be considerable. Small business owners are catching on to the wonders of remarketing. Facebook pixels are easier than ever to use to track customers from your site and try to convert them from browsers into buyers. Some marketers report a conversion rate as high as 75%. The secret? More customized, varied content, rather than the same messaging they have already seen and acted upon. The most recent Google algorithm (formula) change hit on August 1, 2018. Google states that it was intended to give credit to worthy sites that were not getting as much attention as they deserved. While it still looks like a lot of Wikipedia, there have been some changes in placements. As always, the best way to optimize your content is to write naturally. There will be a couple of changes coming up that will affect sites in 2019, and which are worth paying attention to. Let's look at the landscape for 2019 next.