It’s hard to believe that 2017 is almost halfway over. And if you’re a content marketer, you may have a sinking feeling that you’re already falling behind.
So what should you be paying attention to? This article will look at some of the things that have been dominating marketing headlines this year and will continue to do so.
Featured Snippets Are King
You’ve probably noticed that featured snippets are now taking up a great deal of real estate on the first page of search results. If your competitors are dominating this space, you need to take it back. Start writing content that’s based on how people speak. Of course you have to be ranked in the Top Five or 10 search results for a given keyword phrase to even have a shot at becoming a featured snippet.
Once you get a coveted featured snippet spot, don’t rest on your laurels — there’s no guarantee that featured snippets will last forever. Keep looking at your analytics and making tweaks based on what your competitors are doing.
Mobile Is Growing, Growing, Growing
It’s no secret that people are surfing the Web from their smartphones and tablets more than they from desktops and laptops. That means you have to absolutely make sure that your Web experience is tailored to mobile. Have a mobile responsive site and make sure downloadable items such as white papers can be easily read on a mobile device. Think about creating apps, if you haven’t already. Just do more in the mobile space.
Video Keeps Exploding
How big is video? The fact that there are now oodles of content platforms for video should tell you that it’s a big deal. From YouTube to Snapchat to Facebook Live to Twitter, video is all over the Web. Make sure that you have a marketing strategy to brand and tell stories using video. And Don’t depend on your videos going viral. Instead, focus on creating videos that have meaningful information behind them and pay for some promotion.
Pay to Play Is Now a Big Deal
You might be creating the world’s best content, but if you’re not promoting them on social media, chances are nobody will know about it. Promotion on social media is becoming more and more about advertising. If you’re not advertising on social media, you risk falling behind all of your competitors who are using platforms like Facebook and Twitter ads to find and grow audiences.
User-Generated Content Is On the Rise
User-generated content helps to build trust in your brand. In fact, 85 percent of people trust others’ content over brands’ content. So it’s more important than ever to get social shares, reviews, comments about your products and services.
OF course not every piece of user-generated content is guarenteed to help you. So be sure your customer service is exceptionally polished because every user is now a potential brand ambassador or brand killer. It doesn’t take much for a bad review to bring down your business these days. The good news is the inverse: it doesn’t take much for a good review to build trust in your brand.
Email Marketing Is Coming Back
You might have thought email marketing had it’s best days 10 years ago. But the truth is, people are turning to it more than ever in order to find more information about a particular subject. Social media is great for building awareness about your product initially, but email marketing gives you the real estate to build on that awareness. This means taking your newsletters above selling points and offering real, educational and informative content to your list. You can even now put video, quizzes, and puzzles to make the experience much more interactive!
What are the other trends that you’re noticing this year? Let us know in the comments, and help everyone stay on top of what’s new and novel especially for the year 2017!
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