Covid-19 created widespread disruption throughout industries, highlighting the importance of taking tangible actions to establish and provide favorable, technology platforms and environments for both employees and customers in order for businesses to survive.

We Are Social’s and Hootsuite’s South Africa digital trends for 2022, published earlier this year, provides important insights which will assist marketing managers in monitoring, preparing, and adapting marketing strategies in line with user behavior and trends across digital platforms and technologies.

We studied We Are Social’s digital trends for South Africa 2022 so that we can provide you with guidance on critical factors to incorporate within your digital marketing to transformation plan, since many companies are still adapting within this digital world. We Are Social is credited with all statistics and graphics used in this blog.

South Africa’s digital marketing trends and what it means for your business

With a population of 60.40 million people in January 2022, there are 41.19 million internet users, up 1.2 percent (494 thousand) over the previous reporting period. However due to the complications brought about by Covid-19, and at the time of research into internet adoption, We are Social indicates that the reported figures may be higher than what is reported.

For business today this means that one cannot be without an online presence.

Better Internet Connection Speed

The median internet connection speed for mobile increased by 5.54Mbps (22.2%) to 30.54 Mbps and for fixed internet connection increased by 12.96Mbps (77.3%) to 29.73 Mbps, according to data published by Ookla.

This is an important consideration for any business digital marketing and operational platform and channel. As users become more accustomed to faster internet, their expectations for a good experience and an excellent performance of your website is on the rise. A slow downloading website has two significant drawbacks, namely:

1. The likelihood that your potential customer will not have the patience to wait for your website and content to download is high. Leaving your website they will move onto the next website that will offer them a better experience and the solution they are in search of; and
2. Because your website is crawled and analyzed by Google, a slow-loading website indicates that users will have a negative experience with it. This undermines Google’s trust and trustworthiness, as they seek to match their customers’ search queries with a website that provides a solution and a positive experience.

Responsive Website Design

The graphs below demonstrate the explosive rise of mobile technology. A responsive website that adapts to various mobile, laptop, and desktop screen sizes is critical for a positive user experience.

Another ranking aspect in search engine optimization (SEO) tactics is responsive website design, which helps Google understand your website’s experience.

Browsers

Why would browsers be an important consideration for business? Not all browsers are created equal.

Chrome is the top browser given its fast load time for websites. Monitoring trends across browsers and ensuring that your website is optimized for the most popular browsers, or browsers that your target market uses is essential to ensuring the best experience for your potential customer.

Search Engine Marketing & Optimization

From the three images below, it is important to understand what the main reasons are for using the internet. The top 5 factors include:

1. Finding information
2. Researching how to do things
3. Finding new ideas and inspirations
4. Staying in touch with friends and family
5. Researching brands

Given the foregoing facts, and as an SEO Agency in Cape Town, we can’t express how important it is that your website be found within the search engine’s index. For the extended, long-term period, adopting and implementing search engine optimization and search engine marketing strategies will become an ongoing and increasing trend. The optimal search engine optimization methods include participating in this strategy as soon as possible to ensure that your website acquires authority and ranking within search engine indexes. Google dominates the search engine market share, as shown in the graph below.

Read up about local SEO strategy here.

Because the graphics above illustrate that search engines are used to find information, the data below show that before making a purchase decision, a potential consumer will conduct online brand research using search engines. Consider your potential customer’s content requirements and how your brand will generate confidence and credibility, which will inspire your website visitor to take the next step and convert into a qualified lead.

Read our blog that answers the question about why SEO is important and how to use SEO to grow your business.

Consider our SEO Services webpage to find out more about our SEO processes and how we can assist your business with professional SEO Services.

Online privacy and security

Users are just as anxious about their privacy and security as businesses are about the security of their online systems, networks, and programs. In today’s world, it’s vital to take the best possible precautions to protect your company’s assets, including the safety of your customers’ or website visitor’s data.

All businesses must adhere to POPIA and provide users with information on their privacy policies and processes for the protection and handling of personal data. Other important considerations include safeguarding your website with an SSL Certificate and taking other and additional steps to protect your platforms from cyber-attacks and threats.

Digital Marketing Advertising trends

The figures presented above, as well as the complete research (available here), show that internet access is increasing and that mobile technologies are rapidly surpassing desktop. In order to achieve the best results and return on investment from digital marketing and advertising strategies, we anticipate the need for websites to be responsive, optimized, and focused on providing the user with an amazing experience.

In summary

We encourage businesses to become more customer-centric and to adopt the strategies and technologies required to compete online in light of these findings. the ability to attract, engage, and convert will be the reward.

About Ignite Media

Ignite Media is a B2B digital marketing agency in Cape Town helping companies overcome marketing and sales challenges, achieve efficiency, sustainability and growth. Our goal is to help you solve complex problems in ways that serve and achieve business, brand, technology and end user goals. Reach out to us today if you’d like to discuss these findings in more detail. .