What a year… but what’s next for content marketing?
This most tumultuous of years is drawing to a close. Touting the last 12 months as mankind’s annus horribilis has become so familiar as to be a cliché – and with the maelstrom of deceased celebrities and political turbulence left in its wake, it is not difficult to see why.
Content marketing, however, has defied the downward spiral. All indications suggest that the industry finds itself in a stronger position than ever before.
But there’s no doubt that 2016’s turmoil has had knock-on effects for content marketing, necessitating readjustment in 2017.
Fortunately, Content Desk is here to help. Read on to find out more about the trends and developments that will dominate content marketing in the coming year.
Innovative influence
Marketing with influencers isn’t just getting bigger – it’s evolving.
A recent survey by Orbit found that using influencers to drive blog traffic has grown in popularity for three years in a row, and shows no signs of slowing down.
Linked to this is the growing phenomenon of brands finding new ways of projecting their influence outside traditional advertising techniques. Frantic sales pushes are giving way to inventive, content-heavy campaigns, with brands enlisting the help of Hollywood directors and actors to show off to consumers.
Methods of influencing consumers have turned a corner – influencers are more important than ever before, and brands are using them in an increasingly sophisticated way.
Revolutionised reality
It’s been a whirlwind year for enhanced reality of all kinds. Augmented reality took over the world in the summer with Pokémon GO, and virtual reality has snowballed into a billion dollar industry.
The gaming industry is currently leading the field and many a stocking will be lined with headsets such as the Oculus Rift and Playstation VR come Christmas Day.
But the world’s content giants are throwing money at the possibilities presented by this growing format. The question for content marketers is not if it’s worth investing in, but just how they’re going to do it.
Awe-inspiring automation
Unequalled content quality delivered straight to you at superhuman speeds – not, in fact, a summary of Content Desk’s successes from the past year, but a prediction of artificial intelligence’s potential in the next.
Robotic content marketing isn’t always the well-oiled machine that its advocates might like it to be, as the US election showed. From chatbots to automated Twitter accounts, there is refining to be done.
But that refining will likely move faster in 2017 than ever before. Brands of all kinds are increasingly realising the importance of sophisticated automation at a time when consumers and content marketers alike must navigate the web’s ever-growing content deluge.
Dismantle duplicity
2016 was the year of fake news. Now content giants are fighting back, and it looks like the pendulum will swing the other way in 2017.
With Mark Zuckerberg personally promising a crackdown on false content on Facebook, and new analyses flooding in highlighting how widespread the problem is, all the signs suggest the fake news bubble is about to burst.
Playing fast and loose with facts passed under the radar in 2016, but content marketers of 2017 will eschew authenticity at their peril.
Valuable videos
Predicting that video is going to be the next big thing in content is hardly a trailblazing insight, but its unstoppable growth and diversification means video content in 2017 presents content marketers with a wealth of new challenges to get to grips with.
Video will account for nearly 70% of all consumer internet traffic in 2017, while the ballooning popularity of live streaming in hitherto untapped markets shows no signs of slowing down.
Failure to adapt to consumers’ preferences for video content of all kinds could spell peril for content marketers stuck in their ways.
