Content Marketing is focused on creating, publishing, and distributing content online, for a targeted audience.
Today, I will be taking you through the biggest technology trends that impact content marketing and the best way to adapt to them.
There are four basic trends that impact content marketing and they are;
- Golden Oldies
- Voice search
- Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Skills Gap
The golden oldies are the previous methods used in content marketing and shouldn’t be overlooked with the emergence of new technologies.
Voice Search which has continually grown in popularity gives one the ability to make search enquiries by voice.
AI and Bots makes it easier for you to personalize content, whilst gathering and interpreting huge numbers of data in seconds. The use of Artificial Intelligence helps content marketers to adequately understand their audiences in order to deliver their desired content.
Talkwalker has an AI-powered analysis which provides real-time insights into social channels and online media happenings. It acts as your extra set of eyes and ears and enables you to quickly monitor and identify issues as well as proffer solutions. Talkwalker now allows clients to monitor brand mentions across video, text, and images as they released a new market-leading AI technology feature to their social listening platform.
Content marketers need to learn how to use and embrace new technologies. The workplace cannot keep up with new developments, thereby enabling new technologies to result in skill gaps.
How can your business adapt to these trends?
Voice Search
Unlike text search which takes about 1-3 words, Voice Search queries are longer taking about 3-5 words and are mostly questions. They are long, spontaneous and consist of full sentences.
With the help of digital assistants like Alexa and mobile devices, and without having to see nor click on it, a lot of people now have their questions answered mainly from top-ranking results.
In creating contents, you need to envision likely questions to be asked and then try answering these questions. This means that you have to optimize your content considering the search intent and the reason for undertaking the search query.
You should also aim to get ‘featured snippets’ i.e. the summary to a question asked that is usually displayed at the top of Google search results
Outside this, you can also use Schema Structured snippet between the description and the URL, including votes, images, authors, ratings, amongst others.
A major thing you need to understand is that content marketing is not all about blogging. You can use series of formats, channels, and mediums to suit your audience and set objectives.
Email marketing
With the addition of automation, Email marketing campaigns, though not a new technology but obviously still trending provides tremendous Returns On Investment (ROI) as it allows you to send timely and relevant content.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Contrary to popular belief that Artificial Intelligence will relieve us of our jobs, artificial intelligence is actually here to help and relieve us of excess work burdens. It can also be used to create personalized contents based on interests, demographics, location, et cetera.
Video marketing
The use of videos has become a major part of our online lives. If in doubt, check the statistics of people registered on Youtube, Instagram, and Facebook. You will be shocked to note that the number of videos watched on Youtube daily is almost 5 billion videos, while Facebook has over 8 billion average daily video views. Video marketing can be recommended as an efficient and effective way to educate and engage your audience.
Podcasting
This involves using the internet to make digital recordings of available broadcasts and radio programs for download into a computer system or mobile device from the internet.
One of the various reasons why podcasts have become more popular with content marketers using it as a medium to communicate their message is because major populations of people do not have the time to sit and read blogs and articles, but will rather opt to listen to content and programs either during their household chores, lunch breaks or daily commute to work.
Social media
You need to fully understand that in optimizing trends in content marketing, you need to not just select a social media network to use, but also choose the right layout for your content. To further explain this, we can use Instagram as our case study. Instagram in their Stories, regularly introduces new features for users to engage their audience and publish content.
The future of content marketing
With the introduction and constant usage of these new technology trends, can anyone foresee what the industry will look like in the next five to ten years? The answer is No!! We cannot say we are very sure, but listed below are three things to put into practice in your content strategy and planning.
User-generated content
You should get ready to see more user-generated content as customers always want real and genuine content.
Personal and Useful content
AI and Bots often referred to as advanced technologies, can balance your efforts to make your content more personalized. They exist to help us generate helpful content desired by people.
Optimized content
Content production currently outweighs demand and this is not healthy for content marketing. In place of publishing new content, you need to optimize content already existing. To do this, you can develop and enhance the quality of your copy, images, and videos, refresh Meta titles and descriptions, as well as ensure that internal and external links are working and up-to-date.
Conclusion
If seeking to ensure that your content marketing succeeds, you have to learn from the past to easily adapt to the present, use diverse types and formats of content, and also ensure that your content is personal and useful.
There will always be new content marketing technologies. Your primary business objective should be to focus on some while ensuring you have acquired the skills necessary to maximize them.