This is a guest post by Anita Sambol from Point Visible.

These days, social media and other online mediums are main sources of information for quite a lot of people, if not all. There are plenty of blogs and websites that talk about the most random stuff you could imagine.

Despite that or maybe precisely because of that, content creation is not an easy job. Creating useful and interesting content takes a lot of time and effort, along with some creativity and imagination.

It’s true that you can talk about almost anything but that doesn’t mean every topic will reward you with the same level of engagement. The best way to ensure you’re on the right track from the start is to base all of your content-related decisions on a quality target audience analysis. That way you won’t have a mismatch between what you want to talk about and what your audience needs and wants to read, watch and consume.

All of your communication should be consumer-centered and revolve around their needs, not yours.

Trust in media is at an all-time low. In fact, trust in government, business and NGOs as well is at an all-time low.

According to the findings of the 2017 Edelman TRUST BAROMETER, a person like yourself has become more trustworthy and listened to than anyone else. Peers are just as credible as technical experts and academics.

What this all tells us is that individuals matter more than institutions and that valued communications nowadays is peer-to-peer not top-down institution-to-peer.

This, in turn, explains one of the most important daily human activities: how we make choices.

The way we make decisions has fundamentally changed. We’ve become a lot more sophisticated and we feel empowered to go online, do our research, talk to friends, read and ask for recommendations on social media, tweet at companies with questions, and expect immediate answers. We don’t want to be marketed at; we want to make choices on our own, based on our online experiences.

Content is the name of the buying game today.

2017 flew by!

I didn't even notice how the end of the year came because so many things happened last year in my professional and personal life such as getting my dream promotion at HubSpot, signing a book contract with Wiley about Inbound PR, snorkeling in Iceland in January, seinig a leopard in South Africa, learning to make sushi, making a ton of new friends and in total, checking in at Dublin Airport 15 times  to make trips.

When reflecting on my year, my blog is an important piece to think about as well because it's a big part of my life. It's now been 6 years since I started it and I've been publishing a new post at least once a week every week ever since.

It was this blog that led to my book so I'd like to show you the most popular blog posts of 2017 as well as a few charts around traffic performance and online sources. 

The Most Popular Blog Posts on Iliyana's Blog Published in 2017

Next to the marketing trends for 2018, you need to pay attention to the social media trends as well. 

As Stephen Waddington says in his 2018 PR reflections, social media is maturing. It's becoming a lot more visual and in the moment, especially with short video messaging, however, it still has its challenges specifically around fake news and transparency. 

But with all those new developments, networks, features, and tools, what is really here to stay?

Social media changes in the blink of an eye so what can you trust? 

As I always say, you need to focus on what's going to work for your business and your own goals so that you get the highest returns. 

To give you some ideas on what you could pick from and what you need to pay attention to in the world of social media in 2018, I sought out an infographic from Filmora that highlights 9 social media trends. Take a look below: 

9 Social Media Trends in 2018 [Infographic]

Just a couple of weeks left until 2017 is over. What a great year, wasn't it? 

We saw the rise of AI and live video and the slow death of ebooks and organic only on Facebook. Exciting times! 

I'm sure everyone is deep into 2018 planning so now is the time to review what's worked for you in the past year and decide what to focus on for next year and beyond. 

In your considerations, you need to think about what's happening in the marketing world and pick which trends to jump on based on your goals and priorities for the year. 

You can't always do everything so you need to be selective and choose what's going to bring you the biggest return. Technology and digital can't do anything for you unless you have a strategy and a measurement plan at hand. 

To help you plan for next year, MDG Advertising have created a very good infographic that dives into the 5 big marketing trends to watch in 2018. Take a look below: 

5 Big Marketing Trends in 2018 [Infogpraphic]