Content Marketing Trends 2018: Back to the Future!

As defined by the Content Marketing Institute, Content Marketing is “a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

According to a recent survey conducted by Smart Insights, Content Marketing is the activity that will have the largest commercial impact for marketers in 2018. Content Marketing is the foundation of every digital marketing strategy. It drives traffic to your website, boosts conversions, improves your rankings on search results pages and can be shared on social media, blogs and publications. It is the best way to engage with your consumers and build a trustful relationship with them.

Digital technologies are constantly evolving and so is Content Marketing. So what is in store for 2018?

Engage in the conversation

Consumers are tired of branded content. According to a survey by Cohn & Wolfe, 87% of global consumers think it’s important for brands to “act with integrity at all times”. Companies need to get real and focus on engaging the conversation to build a strong relationship with their consumers. It’s time to start focusing on creating highly relevant content that will truly interest and engage your consumers. Enhance their experience by creating original, localized and personalised content using the data and the technologies available.

Video content is getting bigger

Video marketing is set to be the future of Content Marketing. According to HubSpot report, almost 50% of marketers are planning to add YouTube and Facebook videos to their marketing plan in 2018.

Live video content is on the rise: 61% of marketers plan on using live video services and 69% want to learn more about it (Social Media Examiner 2017 report). Facebook reports that users spent more time (x3) watching live videos than “normal” videos. They also comment 10 times more during live videos.

Only 28% of marketers are currently using this technology to engage with their consumers, this is a huge opportunity to start developing a strong network of international influencers and to take advantage of live videos to capture the attention and the engagement of your consumers before your competitors do!

Virtual Reality gets real

Although VR and AR development is still in its early stages, some companies are already experimenting with these technologies to create engaging content for their customers. According to Greenlight Insights (2016), 62% of consumers say they would feel more engaged with brand that are using VR and 71% think a brand is forward-thinking if it uses the technology. Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality present limitless creative opportunities, one of their main benefit is the ability to deliver great immersive experiences to anyone anywhere.

The Internet of Things

According to ComScore, 50% of consumers will be interacting with voice-activated technology by 2020. This is a great opportunity for brands and organizations to use IoT devices such as Amazon’s Alexa to deliver new and innovative content to their consumers. The rise in voice searchers will also have a big impact on search results and therefore SEO strategy. The types of search queries will be different and companies will need to create content that answers questions to keep their brand visible.

Content Marketing is changing and evolving quickly, to be successful, stay on top of trends!