Each and every stat that came out of the 2014 Internet Trends Report is extremely interesting, to say the least. Mary Meeker and KPCB have spent every year for the last 13 years analyzing Internet, social, mobile and digital trends and shaping the way marketers and businesses make decisions.
In the first half of her report, Meeker addresses a few important subjects, and I’ve taken some stats from the ones that are the most relevant to content marketing & the future of publishing. The three most notable sections here include mobile content consumption, information distribution, and community building.
In the world of mobile, Meeker finds that the most up-and-coming trend is tablets. While they do have the most room for growth, that doesn’t always mean that they will be growing at the fastest pace; however they are. Ensuring that all content is mobile optimized is extremely important for marketers. It might seem like this isn’t news at all, but the fact that 20% of content is being consumed at mobile and only 4% of ad budgets are allocated there demonstrates that it still isn’t being taken seriously enough.
As far as promotion and distribution, the most important finding states that content that’s shared on Facebook receives half of its referral traffic within the first 9 hours. This means that half of the people are going to click on your Facebook link have already clicked it within 9 hours. For Twitter, it’s even less: 6.5 hours. Here we have a solid demonstration of the fact that social content needs somewhere to live besides just in Facebook and Twitter timelines. After a few hours, it disappears into the feeds and referral traffic to your site plummets. Simply sharing links on social media will become decreasingly effective as this trend continues, opening the door for sites like Scoop.it which give your social content a place to live and allow it to be rediscovered by a whole new community (over 1 million strong) as well as through search.
It’s also worth noting that Meeker lists community as one-third of what she has dubbed the “Internet Trifecta.” with the ever expanding number of consumers online, there is more of a natural human desire to connect with others through content. Marketers who provide context to the content they are creating and sharing are the ones who are able to increase connectivity within their communities of interest and grow stronger, more stable evangelism programs which lead, in turn, to brand loyalty.
So, how does this all translate into what content marketers can do to keep up? Here are three simple tips.
1. Don’t publish that blogpost or send that newsletter until you make sure it will look good on mobile devices. This is no longer an option.
2. Use content curation tools to create a hub for your social content. Just throwing it into the Internet without context or a place to live isn’t going to cut it anymore.
3. Empower your readers and customers with content through which they can connect. Create brand content that’s easily accessible, findable, understandable and shareable to form relationships and assist in the buying cycle.
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