The pandemic is now in its third month of wreaking havoc on people and their businesses. Many industries are changed forever and how we do business has already seen a great impact. When it comes to content marketing, the change is also inevitable.

What changes have occurred to content marketing as a result of Covid-19?

A shift towards authenticity

No one wants to feel sold to and during these times, that is truer than ever. Consumers want to see the brands they support as being authentic and honest. They want to see what those brands are doing to help them solve their problems. They are no longer buying just because something is on sale.

“This is not the time to hard sell, it’s not the time to talk about you, it’s time to talk about me. Help me and I’ll never forget you—content marketing at its best. The real impact of COVID19 on marketing is a fundamental shift in brand advertising toward authenticity, empathy and being truly useful to the consumer. In many ways, the real future of brand advertising is content marketing that speaks to the real need of your consumers,” says Peyman Nilforoush of inPowered.

Everyone is getting online

With brick and mortar shops having to close their doors for weeks and months, everyone is getting online, just out of plain necessity. What this means is that while consumers have more options than ever without leaving their homes, it also means the online competition is getting fierce. Keywords and SEO content are more important than ever, as everyone is going to fight for that top ranking.

“As companies are forced to cancel or pull out of in-person events, that budget is being reallocated to digital strategy. Companies are taking an integrated approach (incorporating content, SEO, PR, etc. into one strategy) to increase pipeline generation. After the coronavirus pandemic, the content marketing landscape may become even more competitive as companies polish these strategies and it becomes harder to rank for certain keywords and search terms,” says Mark Whitlock of Golden Spiral Marketing.

Because of this, content marketing will be more important than ever. Businesses that shunned this part of their marketing strategies will see that they need to make a large effort to get their messages through all of the online chatter.

We’re getting positive

There was an old adage in the newsroom that people loved seeing the negative. Viral videos and content often had something that fired people up and not in a good way. But with the pandemic at our heels, people are shifting their focus to the positive. Content is following suit and empathy-based marketing is taking over.

“This trend for kindness and empathy and truly helping people will certainly continue to be a trend in content marketing moving forward. The human element in content marketing was something that was missing before,” says Lysa Miller of 3 Media Web.

The understanding that not all industries are equal

You’ve seen the memes about how sports stars and actors are not the true heroes of our time, with frontline workers now getting the credit they deserve. The same is happening when it comes to essential services.

“Food, water, health and safety are “essential” niches whose demands must be met no matter what. While travel and leisure activities are the first to go in times of global crisis. I think this crisis is going to be a wake-up call for many webmasters about the true evergreen nature of their niches. And it’s going to have many changing lanes, especially if the situation continues to get worse or gets prolonged till it really starts to hurt,” says Nikola Rosa.

The Covid-19 takeaway here is that consumer behavior is changing and content marketing needs to change with it. Your old strategies are out the window and it is time to embrace something new, and possibly, better.