Since its rise to prominence at the turn of the decade, content marketing has continued on a destined upward path to universal stardom. By 2019, it is predicted to be worth over $300 billion as a global industry, nearly double what it is today.
With content now a requisite of modern marketing, businesses and brands in 2016 have to work harder to achieve higher levels of engagement and retention amongst their customer base. How? Through evolving content. Here are six content trends that will feature heavily this year and beyond.
Creativity
Even the most dull of brands is producing creative content of some description. Toilet paper giants Charmin being a great example with their #tweetsfromtheseat campaign. What does this mean? Well, if everyone is doing it, the need to stand out from the crowd is greater than ever before. Producing content which pushes the boundaries of creativity is certainly one way of doing so.
Episodic content
Stories that leverage suspense and anticipation will undoubtedly reap rewards – those being returning visitors and viewers who simply cannot wait to find out more about a product or service, or simply what happens next in a series of creative content. Coca Cola did a pretty good job of it with their integrated Crossroads campaign.
Video
It goes without saying that video is expected to be huge in 2016. Midway through 2015 mobile video plays exceeded a 44% total share, up 74% from 2014 and a rather substantial 844% since 2012. Syndacast have even predicted that 74% of all internet traffic next year will be video. No need to say more.
Influencer marketing
A relatively new phenomenon having gone from zero to hero in Google trends from 2011 to 2015. Influencers sharing branded content are argued to lead to a three-to-ten times increase in conversion rates with 77% of consumers more likely to buy from their endorsers. Think Mo Farah and Quorn…
Social media newbies
Tired of Facebook? With 1.44 billion active users its no surprise that rumours are suggesting people are growing tired or fatigued of the social giants. Periscope and Meerkat are two lesser-known channels making serious headway leading a trend in live social video streaming. Instagram, if you havent heard already, surpassed Twitter in September last year with over 400 million users and was the fastest growing network of 2015 along with Snapchat, highlighting a surge in visual marketing.
UGC
User generated content (UGC) is incredibly powerful. Encourage your customers and followers to share great content about your brand and benefit from authentic, often creative and endorsing material to power marketing campaigns. Starbucks launched a great campaign in 2014 asking customers to doodle on their white cups and submit pictures. The winning entry was chosen to be the new template for a limited edition cup. Simple, genius.
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