1. More local brands on your Social Feeds
We can
expect that there will be more local brands on digital media landscape within
the period of next six months. The budget allocated for digital media will
increase by another 5% at least but online advertising on Google AdWords and
Facebook Advertising will suffer from the falling Rupee rates. At the moment,
you would see about 1 sponsored content out of 10 posts on your Facebook
Newsfeed and Instagram timeline. Hopefully there won’t be any increase in the
number of sponsored contents that you see on your timelines unless Facebook
changes their algorithm.
Also
you will see more pre-roll ads from local brands on YouTube which you can skip
after 5 seconds if you are not interested in watching the whole.
2. More cluttered local websites
There
is only handful of local websites in Sri Lanka where you can directly advertise
and have a considerable amount of traffic. So as a result, all those websites
are getting more cluttered during the seasons with all the direct placements
and rich media advertisements and gives a bad experience to the users. Hence,
they should come up with a plan to keep their websites less cluttered and speed
enough to load fast.
Same
time, this matter will open a space for new local websites to come forward and
beat the giants. There is a vacuum for online local contents in Sri Lanka and
if the enthusiasts come forward and build up some websites, those sites will
become a hit for sure.
3. More Innovative Campaigns
Digital
media industry is like an island which is not being discovered totally. There
is a great potential for innovations and creativity. We can expect more content
marketing campaigns and especially online video content which will promote
brands and products subtly.
4. More people on the digital island
Currently
there are about 6 million internet users in Sri Lanka and the penetration is
25.8% according to internetworldstats.com. There was a buzz about increasing
the mobile broadband rates in Sri Lanka and it will affect the growth of number
of internet users.
Probably
by the end of 2016, the number of internet users in Sri Lanka will grow by
another 0.5 million to 1 million and certain external factors will affect in this
growth like Google Project Loon and government decisions.
According
to Facebook, there are about 3.5 million Facebook users in Sri Lanka with a
penetration of 15.9% and we are expecting that there will be about 4.5 million Facebook
users by the end of 2016 with the current rate of growth.
5. More contributors
Contributors
for digital media landscape are quite less in Sri Lanka. Most of the contents
are created by publishers like Wijeya News Networks, Hiru Networks or other
gossip sites. There are quite few individuals who create new contents which
appeal to the local audience.
Gappiya,
Nawran and Podda are couple of those contributors who create their own contents
in audio and video format. They have built their audience without any help of
big media companies. This will encourage other people also to get themselves on
the bandwagon and become contributors rather than being a mere consumer of
internet.
