5 Key Content Trends

Well crafted, informative content is key for online businesses in helping them to engage and communicate with their customers. There are five content trends that we believe will be particularly relevant for 2017:

  1. Growth in Live streaming: Live streaming of videos to push content out will grow in popularity in the current year. Social Media platforms like; YouTube Live, Facebook Live and Snap Chat provide easy-to-use features that enable live product/service briefings, product launch, tours, tutorials, events and more.
  2. Virtual reality takes off. Companies have already started using VR technology to promote premium products. Companies like, North Face (outdoor clothing company) has already applied the technology to showcase their products and athletes. This tool can be a very powerful but expensive way to promote the content of one’s products and services. While this trend might be beyond the reach of small and medium company’s at least for the current year, we’re convinced that once the technology is cheaper, it will grow rapidly and become very popular.
  3. More newsletters. The use of email newsletters to reach out to and share information with existing customers and prospective clients is very prevalent amongst B2B marketers. If you are considering email newsletters or a different type, 2017 is probably the time to launch into that platform. This is because studies are beginning to show that email opening rates are actually increasing. We guess that lots of people’s ideas in the past five years about the death of emails was a little premature.
  4. Storytelling and content marketing. Good storytelling in business will most likely grow beyond just being a case study, but will become a key part of content marketing. This is evidence that most consumers are beginning to wear out from the idea of product content just for content’s sake. Just blogging or updating other social media platforms just for the sake of it won’t do it any longer. Your audience needs to be more engaged and this might require you telling a story.
  5. Push advertising against native advertising: A general dislike for online advertising coupled with the use of Ad blockers are making it more difficult to get to consumers with banners, pop-ups, pop-under and paid ads. Even though this trend has been around for some time now, we would still dub 2017 as the year for ad blockers. This is the year that consumers will finally say enough is enough and will then take matters into their own hands. Don’t get us wrong though, we don’t think advertising and ads are going anywhere, they will just evolve into something different.

The usual ways used to share content and information is not just going to disappear. We will still depend on the use of our emails, videos, blog posts and downloadable reports to share content.

It would be a smart choice to keep all of these trends in mind while strategizing on your content marketing plan for the current year and even beyond: As regards to social media, a coherent reach is proving to be more and more difficult to achieve. For instance, Facebook changed some of its rules which has made content visibility more difficult. To get high visibility now, you will need to pull out your wallet. However, this is not entirely true if you are just trying to reach out to a small audience. But if you want to go big, then it’s going to cost you more money, more advertising and better online marketing.

There is a surge in demand for interactive content. White papers and case studies will still be treasured in many markets but content marketers should begin to develop interactive quizzes or presentations that can get a web visitor’s attention.