Ad blockers, the saturation of content, native advertising, and a range of content recommendation tools have all significantly changed the content marketing landscape.
Throw in the numerous Google algorithm updates and changing trends, and you may feel like you can hardly keep up with the best strategies to reach your target audience with content marketing.
By making yourself part of the conversation and reading all the latest information about digital marketing, you can stay ahead of these changes and adapt your strategy accordingly.
You can’t predict the future, but you can make some pretty good guesstimations based on current trends. Here’s where we see the future of content marketing headed:
Text Will be Passé
When you think of content, you likely think of blog posts, white papers and other text.
However, content marketing of the future is likely to rely less and less on the written word.
Video, in particular, is going to be big. Instead of writing a step-by-step tutorial, you can create a video showing your audience how to do the thing in real time. The video will be just like if you were there teaching your audience in person.
Instead of writing up a Q&A with an interesting person in your niche, you can film an interview. With Facebook Live, you can even broadcast it in real time.
Interactive content like maps, graphics and quizzes will also be big. Photos, memes, and interesting graphics will all start to take more focus, as well.
Mobile Will be Very Important
Everyone seems to have either a smartphone or a tablet these days, and those who don’t are sure to get one soon.
The number of people who are using these mobile devices to access email and other online content is only growing.
You will need to create a content strategy that is aimed at mobile users if you want to continue to remain competitive. Not only will you need to ensure that your site is designed for mobile users, but you will need to create content specific to their needs.
For example, you need to write content that is more easy to scan. That means your posts should include shorter sentences, plenty of bold text, headers, bulleted lists and other elements that break up the text and make it easy to read in a hurry.
You will also need to minimize the graphics and interactive elements on the page, and you will need to optimize those visuals that are there so that they load quickly and fit the page properly.
Social Media Will be a Primary Referrer
Next to Google and other search engines, social media is the best way that people find your content.
Facebook is the major player right now, but it might not always be. Instagram, Snapchat, and others have shown that they can quickly rise through the ranks, as well.
It is important that you use a diverse strategy for promoting your content on social media so that you reach a wider segment of your audience and you can remain relevant even in a changing social landscape. You will quickly learn what strategies work best on which channels, and you will be able to use what you learn to quickly adapt when a new channel arises.
Experiment with both organic promotion and paid advertising on social media. You may find that different types of posts require different types of promotion.
Content Will Be More Segmented
Artificial intelligence, advanced algorithms, bots and other technology are becoming available to help you learn more than ever about what your customers want and who they are.
You will be able to use these tools to help you reach more of your customers so that your content marketing is more effective.
The future is never certain, but we can make some great predictions based on how trends are moving. We’re confident that this is the way that content marketing is moving. It is important that you start planning changes to your strategy now so that you stay competitive.