2016 is already here and underway and as I see it it holds a ton of promise for content marketers. Promise to further grow their brands, gain devoted followers, and of course line their wallets with some well deserved chashola.
Don’t go counting your chickens before they hatch though. All of the above is still going to take a good amount of – eww that word – work and the pay-off will not come with some challenges. If you are smart and quick to roll with the punches, you definitely have a solid chance of coming out ahead.
If you already have your 2016 strategy figured out and are well underway with it’s implementation, kudos to you for not procrastinating. But if you haven’t yet got your plan nailed down, don’t fret we are only a couple of weeks into January and there is time to catch up.
Here is what I see coming down the pike for content marketing this year.
1) We will be churning out more content than before.
According to the B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends for North America more than three-quarters of marketers say they will be creating even more content this year than they did in the previous years. With 88% of all businesses polled reporting that their business uses some form of content marketing, I can’t help but worry that we will soon be overloaded.
That means there will likely be content shock.
What is content shock?
Simple, content shock is what happens when there is simply more content to consume then there is time to actually consume it in. This just means as a content marketer, you will need to step up your game and only create, publish and promote the best content possible.
(Image source: Domo)
2) Weak content will have no real place in the market.
With the onslaught of content shock, there will simply be no room in the market for weak content without substance. No longer can one simply throw up a piece of filler content (or even decent content) and expect it to pass through the Google algorithm for ranking.
According to a study from Moz and BuzzSumo, half of all the articles that are published online get on an average of 8 shares or less.
There is so much content available for consumption now and not enough time to get through it all, that you must aim for the highest first rate content possible if you want others to read and share it.
3) Mobile content will continue to shape content marketing.
(Image Source: Statista)
The above image shows a forecast of the number of smartphone users in the United States from 2010 to 2018. For 2016, the number of smartphone users in the United States is estimated to reach 198.5 million. That does not include all the other mobile ready devices on the market, such as tablets, ipads, and even watches.
In 2015 content marketing took a noticeable shift in the way that content was marketed between mobile and desktop. Desktop taking a step back to number two in most companies’ strategies.
More mobile users than ever are using their devices to:
- Browse Social Media
- Access News and Entertainment
- Research Products and Make Purchases
- Use Navigational Apps
- Communicate with Others
- View Visual Content Including Videos
This is likely to only increase in 2016, making it a must for marketers to ignore mobile any longer.
