The Digital Swing of 2024: Is Your Business in Sync?

The internet is a big, restless and complicated place. Online trends come and go like the tide, and it can be hard to keep tabs on something so fluid and unpredictable on a day-to-day basis.

When considering how important the internet has become in the realm of business, the common adage of meeting your clients where they are comes to mind. This usually means making your business goals align with what your clients are doing, saying, and where they’re focusing their attention, whether it’s the newest social media platform or just a particularly topical meme of the week. 

Being the tech-savvy wizards that we are here at Websolutions.ca, part of our job is keeping a finger on the pulse of the online world. This helps us stay in-touch with what’s creating buzz, why it’s buzz-worthy, and where that buzz is coming from. 

There are already countless resources out there telling you how to keep up with the latest trends and ensure your business remains relevant on the digital stage, so instead of oversaturating the pile even more, why not dive into some of the most popular trends that have already taken 2024 by storm?

Continuing on its rise towards complete global domination, the popularity of mobile devices has reached unprecedented levels as of 2024. In fact, it’s projected that by the end of this year, over 5.5 billion people on Earth will own some sort of mobile device - that’s almost 70% of the world’s population! 

What’s more, the worlds of content creation and e-commerce have also embraced mobile. As much as 77% of all e-commerce transactions are projected to be done through mobile devices by the end of 2024, and over 50% of all content online is currently consumed on a phone or tablet. 

That is an astronomically large amount of people using phones or tablets, and it sends a loud and clear message to any business looking to get their digital foot in the virtual door: your business must be mobile friendly if it wants to survive. 

This sentiment is something we’ve already adopted as a core philosophy behind our services at Websolutions.ca. When we’re designing websites, ads or even social media posts, we need to make sure that someone interacting with them on their phone is having just as good of an experience as someone using a traditional desktop. 

Encouraging our clients to consider the magnitude of mobile’s popularity in their business strategies is one of the most effective ways of keeping our clients - and ultimately us - relevant in today’s digital world. It’s been said before, but it bears repeating: phones aren’t going away anytime soon.

For decades, it’s been a given that when you wanted to find something online, you simply Googled it - after all, Google receives nearly 90 million visits every single month, cementing its status as the world’s “default” search engine. But among the younger generations like Gen Z, this flagship tool is beginning to lose some ground to an unlikely force: TikTok. 

Recent studies are telling an interesting story about how younger people are browsing the web, with one study showing that over 70% of Gen Z prefer using TikTok when searching for things online. And it’s not just for entertainment; these searches include everything from recipes, music, and fashion to world events, political news and even academic resources. 

There are a few reasons why this shift might be happening, but a big one is certainly the short-form nature of TikToks. These quick and surprisingly well-produced snippets of content can get a tonne of information through the screen in record time with basically zero effort on the part of the user. In a world that never seems to slow down, that accessibility is undeniably alluring. 

Of course, there’s also the personalization aspect of the platform. Many TikTok creators become recognizable personalities and build huge, loyal followings. Listening to your favourite TikToker hype up a brand or product as an entertainer sounds much more appealing than reading some dry, cookie-cutter review that may or may not have been written by ChatGPT. 

What does this all mean? Well, for any business hoping to tap into that Gen Z or Millennial market, engaging with TikTok is pretty much essential if you hope to catch any momentum. Accept TikTik into your business strategy and maybe you’ll become the next viral sensation (YMMV)!

Are brick-and-mortar stores dying out? Not exactly - but that doesn’t mean the shopping landscape hasn’t completely changed over the past decade. With online retailers like Amazon turning mind-bendingly short delivery times into the norm, it’s no wonder that e-commerce has seen such a huge boost in popularity. 

Quite frankly, there are simply too many advantages to e-commerce for the average consumer to ignore. From blistering fast delivery times, the ability to shop from your couch, the sheer variety and availability of products, and of course, lower costs across the board, it’s nothing but win after win for the consumer when they opt to shop online. 

As both website builders and digital markers, we’ve become intimately familiar with e-commerce and its impact on the industry. This rapidly growing market is becoming much more commonplace, and it’s an easy sell to any client of ours looking to enter the world of online business.

That’s because the pros of e-commerce don’t stop with the consumer. With e-commerce, businesses are able to reach a significantly wider audience, enjoy lower operational costs than a brick-and-mortar store, and gain access to invaluable data and analytics about their customers that physical retail just can’t compete with. 

 If you’re in the business of selling a product, you really can’t go wrong by investing in an e-commerce platform. The pros outweigh the cons tenfold, and your investment is all but assured to pay off in the long run. 
Of course, if you’re looking to get your feet wet but aren’t quite sure where to start, investing in a digital marketing agency like Websolutions.ca can be more than worth its weight in gold, too.