As we are getting into the new year, companies are in full swing in producing all kinds of content. As far as the new content being set out is concerned, this content will be what will pave the future for businesses online.
Yes, there will be new trends and content will continue to adapt and change. But there will be some trends that will persist as we continue to move onward. My advice is to use this article as a guide in two ways:
- First to familiarize yourself with popular trends in content creation.
- And second, to select some for your content marketing strategy moving forward.
With these in mind. Here are some trends to leverage while you can.
User-Generated Content (UGC)
Today, about 85 percent of consumers find that UGC is the most influential form of content over brand content.
There’s no doubt how popular it is amongst marketers but what is user-generated content?
Putting it in layman’s terms:
It’s content that has been created and then published by unpaid contributors. Often times, these contributors are fans who are promoting the brand instead of the brand itself promoting itself.
UGC takes on all kinds of shapes and sizes. These can be blog articles to websites, images, testimonials, and social media posts.
You can kind of see them as word of mouth except they are placed on the internet at large.
So how can your company leverage this sort of content? Well you can take a page from Coca Cola. Over the years they launched a campaign called “Share a Coke”. Through the campaign, they encouraged people to find a coke with their name and share it on social media.
People jumped at the opportunity and started to take selfies with their named coke. As a result, Coke received plenty of viral content marketing for their brand.
What you can do for your business in this area is the following:
- First, identify what your audience likes about your brand. This could be your content, but if they have preferences towards some products, you’re in a better position.
- Second, get them to be sharing by asking them to share.
Video Creation
I’ve said in the past that video is where it’s at and it’s key to leverage it. That still rings true as people today have expectations that the brands they love are getting out and creating videos.
On top of that, video is powerful and is by far the best medium to keep people’s attention. If you need an example you can look to live streams. Today, 80 percent of those in a live stream say they’d rather watch a video (live or not) over reading a blog post.
Video is the way to get people to engage with your brand these days. And while creating content can be challenging, there are plenty of strategies to consistently make content. Here are some ideas:
- One way you can start is if you’ve got plenty of blog posts, consider converting them to videos.
- Recycle content in other ways. A question for a customer or from social media could prompt you to create a detailed video talking about the problem. You can also turn to sites like Quora to get video ideas.
- Look at the various styles of videos that you can create and create original content stemming from those styles.
Put An Emphasis On Quality Over Quantity
While this strategy is a general industry rule, it’s still a good one to follow. As our attention spans become shorter and technology is improving, people are putting more focus on quality.
Quality can come in all kinds of forms, but many people associate quality with personable and visually pleasing. This doesn’t mean that you need to get a top of the line camera. Today people expect brands to be transparent, and authentic.
With this in mind, as a content creator, you want to still strive for consistency and for what you’re putting out to be quality. Posting too much can overwhelm audience and make it harder to follow. If the quality is too low people will have a tough time keeping their attention on you.
Podcasting
Over the past decade, listeners of podcasts have tripled according to Statista. That number is only expected to grow over the next few years too. This fact isn’t what inspired my podcast, but it could be for yours. Best of all, if you’re already making videos, chances are you’re equipped to do a podcast easy.
The only thing that I will say is that while the market is clamouring for audio content, it’s important you create from the heart. Don’t get into podcasts for the sake of it. Make sure you can create content consistently and that people would enjoy listening to.
In other words, approach podcasts the same way as any other marketing aspect of your business.
With that in mind, here are some other tips:
- Make sure you are focusing on one specific topic. Sure that topic can stretch out in several ways, but it should have a theme.
- Remember you can recycle these too. You can convert articles into podcast episodes and vice versa. Also if you got video footage you can turn these into audio only easy.
Data-Driven Content
No matter what kind of content you put out there, make sure that it’s paying attention to trends but also is data driven. What I mean by data driven is that what you are putting out is based on the data that you have of your audience.
While it’s important to back up our facts, the data-driven content I’m talking about is based on your own analytics. This data should be able to help you in determining what kind of content will work for you and what won’t.
Data-driven content is a powerful thing as it can help you to determine what is the best way to present something new and exciting to people. What is the best method to not only maximize revenue, but also make it relevant, still have good creative control, and has personality. Your data will be able to tell you.
The only thing outside of that I’ll recommend is make sure you’re keeping an eye on your analytics once every four to six weeks.
Personal Content
While we try to make our brands personable, we can take it one step farther. I’m not suggesting that you talk about your personal life, but rather give people a tailored experience with your content.
What’s nice about this trend is that with marketing automation picking up, it’s easier to create personalized content that can be delivered. If you want more detail as to what this content really means, consider this article from Core DNA.
Keep It Topic Focused
Lastly is keep the article focused on a topic. The algorithms of search engines change all the time so it’s important we stay up to speed. One way to keep up is ensure that the content you are putting out there is central to a topic.
Not only that but it pays to have several pieces of content focused on the topic at hand. The idea with this trend is that have different content but have it under the same umbrella.
For example, if you’re operating a health food store, you can cover topics on foods that boost energy, help with sleep, depression, or other health or mental issues.
If you’re working as a marketing consultant, you can talk about marketing trends, effective marketing strategies, or poor marketing examples.
Keep On Creating
The idea with these trends is to keep on creating. There are all kinds of mediums to try out. Whatever you do, make sure the content is quality and that you keep up the consistency.