Back in January, we wrote a blog on ‘What Content Marketing Trends We Will See In 2017’. Now we’re in the height of summer and over half way through the year, we thought we’d take a look back to see if a couple of our predictions were correct and how brands have been adopting these content marketing trends.
Video Content
So, as predicted by Syndacast all the way back in 2014, roughly 74% of our global traffic is now attributed to video content, and new studies suggest that video will account for 79% of global Internet traffic by 2020. We told you it was growing fast! The best thing about the growth of video is that you no longer need to produce a Hollywood looking piece of content to stick out from the crowd. Though we said goodbye to Vine at the start of the year (R.I.P. Vine), social channels continue to encourage users to put out video content, whether that is in small ‘Stories’, à la Snapchat & Instagram Stories, or live content from Periscope, Facebook & Instagram. Live video continues to grow as more social channels offer the feature, with Instagram now allowing the option to let people re-play your videos after the initial broadcast. With these stats, it’s hard to ignore how important this content method is!
Influencers and User Generated Content
As we suspected, Influencer and User Generated Content is indeed still making huge waves in the marketing space well into 2017. It’s not surprising to see high-profile influencer’s Instagram feeds full of sponsored ads and collaborations with brands both big and small. 94% of companies have commented that they believe the method to be effective, however, it’s getting more difficult to stand out and get seen due to the wealth of agencies battling it out to get the latest high-profile influencer matched with the right high-profile brand. But we should be paying particular attention to how we are treating these influencers going forward – they are not to be used and abused and left after a successful (or unsuccessful) post. Aaron Brooks, of influencer agency VAMP, states why we should be taking influencers seriously;”
“While some Influencers are also now full-time creators, for many their work as a social media Influencer is alongside their career! They spend their mornings, lunch hours, evenings, weekends and holidays creating content. Digital is 24/7 and they are right at the forefront. Being an Influencer is one big commitment, requires a lot of proactivity as well as a savvy business mind.”
67% of businesses are planning to increase their budget over the next year and influencer marketing is now on track to grow to a $1.7 billion industry in 2018 and between $5-10 billion by 2020. It’s time to be paying attention!
Your purpose…
Yep, we’re still talking about your ‘purpose’! It’s the most important thing you need to know – “why are we doing this?”. What is the aim of broadcasting live on Instagram? Why should we contact this high profile influencer? As we’ve said before, think of the bigger picture – inform > inspire > share > grow > convert. There isn’t the time or money to spend to create content just for the sake of getting it out there. Content needs to serve a purpose and that purpose should always be to provide value to your audience.
We’ve worked with many companies, both big and small, across varying sectors – if you need advice, training or management on your digital marketing efforts then do feel free to drop us an email or give us a call!