2025 Digital Marketing Trends: Practical Application
Season: 2 | Episode: 23
Published: June 30, 2025
By: Byer Co
This episode we talk about a blog post by Mira Mikati titled "7 Digital Marketing Trends Dominating 2025," published by Byer Co., outlines key shifts anticipated in the digital marketing landscape. The article highlights the growing importance of AI and human collaboration, the power of dark social channels, the continued reign of short-form video, and an evolving approach to SEO emphasizing helpful content. It also stresses the value of authenticity, the necessity of leveraging first-party data, and the emergence of community building as a central marketing strategy. The piece offers practical advice for businesses looking to adapt to these future trends in order to stay competitive.
Link: 2025 Digital Marketing Trends: Practical Application
Keywords: SEO,digital marketing,Lead generation,marketing trends,dark social
Episode Transcript
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Welcome back to Digital Rage, I'm Jeff, the producer here at Byer Company.
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This episode we talk about an article by Mira Makati, exploring 2025 digital marketing
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trends.
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Combining AI with human collaboration, dark social channels, short form videos, and helpful
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content and SEO.
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Companies have been successfully generating increased visibility and qualified leads.
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Mira offers advice for adapting these trends, so let's get into it.
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Welcome to Deep Dive.
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We take a set of sources today.
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It's a really insightful article and basically pull out the key knowledge you need.
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That's right.
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Keeping you informed, efficiently.
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No fluff.
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Exactly.
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Today we're plunging into, well, the top seven digital marketing trends for 2025.
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Yes, based on an article by Mira Makati over on Byer Co site, it just came out April
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23rd.
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And the goal here isn't just, you know, listing trends.
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It's about understanding how they actually work, how you can think about using them.
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Right.
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Practical impact.
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So if you want to get ahead, but maybe you're feeling swamped by all the info out there,
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this is for you.
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We want those aha moments.
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Those useful takeaways.
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Okay, let's kick things off.
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Trend number one is fascinating.
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It's this balance.
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AI gets smarter, but people still crave human connection.
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Hmm.
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It's a real duality, isn't it?
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AI is incredibly powerful now for, say, scaling content, running analytics.
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Personalization at a huge scale.
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Huge scale.
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But the article stresses and it feels right.
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You still desperately need that human oversight.
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Absolutely.
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For brand voice, for strategy, for that, that spark, AI doesn't get your brand like you
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do.
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So give me some examples.
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Where is AI shining?
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Well, think first drafts of content.
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Customer segmentation slicing up your audience really precisely, A.B. testing loads of different
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approaches super fast.
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Okay.
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So it's an efficiency engine.
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Exactly.
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It handles the speed, the heavy lifting, but humans, we bring the connection, the strategy,
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the, you know, the actual relationship.
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AI for speed, humans for the heart.
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Got it.
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Okay.
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Trend two, dark social isn't so dark anymore.
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Sounds intriguing.
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It does, doesn't it?
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Really, dark social just means all that word of mouth sharing that happens privately.
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For GNDMs.
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Or Slack?
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Yeah.
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Exactly.
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DMs, private messages, maybe niche discord servers, community forums, places marketers
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can't easily track with standard tools.
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Right.
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That makes sense.
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If you can't track it easily, it feels dark, a blind spot.
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It's definitely a challenge for measurement, but, and this is key, the article points out
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its power, its influence is massive.
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Because it's trusted, right?
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Recommendation from a friend in a DM means more than an ad.
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Spot on.
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Way more weight.
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So even if it's hard to track, you absolutely cannot ignore it.
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Okay.
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So how do we play in that space?
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What kind of content actually gets shared in these dark channels?
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The focus has to be on genuine value.
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Stuff people want to pass along.
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The article mentions things like, really helpful PDFs or guides?
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Things you'd actually save or send to a colleague?
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Chris, Sysly.
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Or those punchy LinkedIn carousels that pack a lot of info can Sysly.
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Short videos, solving one specific problem.
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Content that's inherently shareable, because it's just good.
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Less about metrics.
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More about genuine utility or entertainment that someone would personally vouch for.
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Okay.
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Let's move to trend three.
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Short form video.
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Silt King.
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No surprise there, baby.
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Huh, yeah.
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Seems like it's here to stay.
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TikTok, Reels, YouTube, Shorts, their dominance continues.
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And the Y is pretty clear, right?
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Short attention spans.
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That's a big part of it.
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Plus, motions just inherently engaging.
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It grabs your eye.
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It really does.
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But creating constant video content can feel daunting for smaller teams or individuals.
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What's the practical advice?
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The good news is the article suggests keeping it simple.
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You feel like you need a Hollywood production.
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Thank goodness.
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Right.
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Just use your phone, show some behind the scenes stuff, talk directly to the camera about
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one problem your audience has.
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Authenticity often wins here.
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Though barrier to entry.
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I like that.
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Okay.
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Next up, something that's always changing.
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SEO.
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SEO is shifting.
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Again.
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What's driving this shift this time?
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Well, a couple of big things.
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Search generative experience or SGE, those AI summaries popping up in results.
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Oh, yes.
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See more of those.
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So just how people search, we're asking more natural conversational questions, not just typing
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keywords.
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So the old tricks like stuffing keywords into pages.
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Yeah.
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That's done.
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Pretty much obsolete.
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Yeah.
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Google's way smarter than that now.
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Good riddance, frankly.
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Agreed.
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So if that's out, what's in for SEO in 2025?
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It all comes down to helpful human-centric content, really understanding user intent.
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Meaning.
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Meaning, think Q&A style content.
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Directly answer the questions people are actually typing or saying into search.
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This for those featured snippets, the answer boxes at the top.
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Be the best answer.
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Be the best answer.
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Focus on comprehensively solving the user's problem or answering their question.
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Less gaming the system, more genuinely helping people.
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That feels more sustainable anyway.
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Yeah.
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Okay, trend five.
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Authenticity beats Polish.
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This definitely resonates.
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It feels like a backlash against perfect curated feeds.
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Totally.
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Fatigue, I think, with that super polished, almost unreal online presence.
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People crave, well, reality, unfiltered moments.
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Behind the curtain.
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Exactly.
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It's moving away from flawless appearances towards genuine connection, showing your human.
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So how does a brand do that?
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How do you be authentic without it feeling forced?
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Good question.
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The article has some solid ideas.
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Like introduce your team members.
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Show the actual process the messy bits too, sometimes.
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Okay.
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Come in, you know, drop the corporate jargon.
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And yeah, even using things like relevant memes can actually help sometimes make you feel
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more relatable.
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Huh, the CEO dropping a meme, I can see it.
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Let's talk.
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It's about being less guarded.
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That's a great way to put it, less guarded, more real.
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All right, let's talk data.
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Trend six.
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First party data is gold.
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This makes intuitive sense with all the privacy changes, cookie phase outs.
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It's absolutely crucial now.
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Third party cookies are, well, on their way out.
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So the data you collect directly from your audience, your customers, your leads, that's
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becoming incredibly valuable because you own it, you control it and you have permission.
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Precisely.
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And brands are reacting.
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They're investing more in CRM's customer relationship management systems.
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They're creating smarter lead magnets, building better funnels to capture that data ethically.
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Okay.
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So for someone listening, maybe they feel a bit behind on this.
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What's a good first step?
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The article suggests starting with one really strong lead generation offer, something
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genuinely valuable that your ideal audience wants.
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Like a great checklist or a template or a mini course.
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Exactly.
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Something worth exchanging an email address for.
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Then pair that with a really clean, optimized landing page to make signing up easy.
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And, crucially, nurture that list.
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Treat those contacts like gold.
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Because they are.
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Okay.
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Final trend.
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Number seven.
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Community is the new funnel.
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That sounds like a big shift in thinking.
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It really is.
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Sometimes the whole customer journey, instead of just pushing people through a linear funnel,
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it's about building an engaged group around your brand.
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An ecosystem almost.
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Yeah.
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That's a good word for it.
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These communities aren't just passive audiences.
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They're active participants, advocates, sources of feedback.
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It's incredibly powerful for long term success.
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So how do you actually build that?
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It sounds great, but maybe a bit abstract.
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Well, the article gives concrete tactics, encouraging user generated content, getting
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people to share their experiences with your brand.
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Let your customers do the talking.
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Right.
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Running ambassador programs with your biggest fans.
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Creating specific niche groups for different interests within your audience.
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Using interactive stuff like polls, quizzes, Q&As.
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Things that get people talking to each other, not just listening to the brand.
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Exactly.
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And if you're just starting, think small.
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Host-alive Q&A.
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Run a fun little challenge.
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Spotlight people who are really engaged.
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Make people feel seen.
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Yes.
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The core idea is build a space that you yourself would actually want to hang out in.
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If it feels genuine and valuable, people will come.
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That's a great benchmark.
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So looking across all seven of these trends, AI and human, dark social, video, SEO, authenticity,
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data, community.
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What's the big picture, the common thread?
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I think the overarching theme really is that the winning strategies in 2025 are deeply
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rooted in understanding human behavior.
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It's not just about the tech.
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It comes back to people.
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It always does.
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It's about building trust, providing real value, being relevant to your specific audience,
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understanding what they actually need and care about.
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And that connects right back to why someone's listening to this.
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Yeah.
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They want to stay relevant, competitive.
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So it's reassuring in a way that midst all the change, the core is still human connection
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and value.
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Absolutely.
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If you focus on those human-centric elements, you can navigate all this complexity much
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more effectively.
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You build something lasting.
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Okay, so just to quickly recap our deep dyes, we hit the AI human partnership, the power
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of dark social, short form videos continued rain, the SEO shift to helpfulness, authenticity
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over polish, first party data as gold, and community as the new funnel.
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Seven big trends for 2025.
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Which leaves us with maybe a final thought for you, the listener, to chew on.
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Go for it.
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Well, considering this push towards both AI efficiency and the deep need for human connection,
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how might you, in your own work or business, uniquely blend those two?
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How can you use the tech and deepen the human element to create something really meaningful?
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That's a really powerful question to consider.
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How to blend the efficiency and the empathy.
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Definitely something to think about.
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We hope this deep dive gave you some valuable insights and practical ideas.
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Thanks for joining us.
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Reach out to us at jbuyer.com for comments and questions.
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Follow us at buyer company on social media.
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And if you'd be so kind, please rate and review us in your podcast app.