So we’re a few months into 2018 and it’s been a wild ride. There’s been plenty of shakeups and changes in marketing, especially in content marketing. We’ve said it before that content is one of the best investments you can make and in 2018, there’s new changes in how you create and distribute content that your audience can enjoy. Here’s a look at some trends that are set to become major players in the world of content marketing for 2018. How many of these have you started to notice in campaigns?
Macro vs Micro
We’re still in the midst of the big wave that is influencer marketing. Using big influencers to promote awareness of your products is pretty commonplace. That’s why instead of approaching household names or celebrities who command huge social media followings, the focus is now on micro influencers – those with a smaller social media footprint but come across as wholly real and command an audience who pay attention to their every post. Using micro influencers is a great move for brands because they feel more authentic; it’s easier to believe they actually use the products or services they feature on their social media channels. Transparency is more important than ever and partnering up with micro influencers is a realistic and effective approach for businesses looking to step up their engagement.
Local-First
This year is shaping up to be the year of the local, the year where companies figure out that creating content that appeals directly to local audiences is far better than reusing the same content in a dozen or more markets. There’s value in crafting an Edmonton-first approach!
Personalization
Services are getting better and better at data-driven customer personalization; Netflix divulging that the artwork you see for shows and movies on their service is personalized on your watching history is next level. As the personalization process continues to improve and technology continues to provide more robust data and insights, expect things like content recommendations and email campaigns more personalized and optimized than ever.
Video, Video, Video
How many times have you heard the phrase ‘pivot to video’? Expect to hear it often in the future as more organizations embrace the power of visual content. Visual content won’t replace the need for quality content based around the written word but it will complement it. Between the explosion of formats like virtual reality, live-streaming and 3D and the continued growth of social media platforms that embrace video like Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube, the writing is on the wall: figuring out just how to attract customers to look at your content via video and engaging with mobile users is imperative.
Chatbots
The chatbots are here and they have us surrounded. They’re ubiquitous, capable of gleaming awesome customer outreach and are really fun to interact with. But besides serving as a direct conduit for companies to engage with consumers in a friendly, casual manner, consumers can now directly subscribe to Messenger bots and receive messages from it like an eNews or push SMS campaign. It’s great because they’re free to customize the time of day and frequency of messages sent and avoiding email entirely means a far more personal approach – a big reason chatbots are taking off the way they are.
Storytelling is King
Longform is great but thanks to Google’s search engine guidelines emphasizing that useful content is necessary for better rankings, quality longform content is even better. Storytelling is an engaging medium capable of pulling off some hefty surprises – have you seen National Geographic’s socials lately? You can find the main tenets of storytelling – have a good hook, find an interesting angle and put the story first – present in each post. The mood for 2018 will be: less posting but devote plenty of depth. Think about this with every piece of content you write: is what you’re doing telling a story? Does your content have a narrative? Does it engage with your audience on a deeper level?
So with that in mind, keep your eyes out for interesting trends because who knows what else 2018 has in store for content marketing?
