Since 2010, content marketing has been one of the fastest-evolving aspects of marketing. From what’s being written, to where and how it’s published, businesses are constantly reformulating how they engage possible customers through using content and keeping it varied.

As we get nearer to the end of 2016, content is becoming largely focused on social trends but also on being reactive and strategic to trends or creating your own. Not only this, businesses are focusing on many different ways they can get their content viewed or published. We are becoming more engrossed into the digital and technological world, which encourages visual content to grow too. Although text-based content is always going to be an integral part to marketing, to really set yourself apart in the digital era, visual content must play a pivotal role in all of your efforts.

When you consider that 65% of people being visual learners, 90% of information that comes to the brain is visual and presentations with visual aides are 43% more persuasive, it is clear that the content you use within your marketing campaigns needs to be what people have an innate psychological resonance with. Therefore, it is understandable visual content is booming. Your content marketing success, however, will greatly depend on how well you adapt your strategy to growing trends. It is becoming clearer and clearer that content marketing is adapting and changing constantly.

Here is everything you need to know about content marketing and how it is changing:

Content needs to provide more value

One aspect of how content marketing has changed is that it is becoming much more prominent content must provide more value. It goes without saying that when you are creating content, you should strive to be better than anyone else, every time. This isn't just for the benefit of your audience or to increase engagement but because content standards are becoming more stricter, and people are becoming more pickier than ever before. The reason why content must provide more value is also because people will engage more with content that has psychological resonance.

There is a vast amount of content being pushed out on a daily basis by publishers, which makes it very easy to understand why more than 75% of content never sees an outside link or social share (according to Moz). It isn’t just about quantity when it comes to content marketing, it is also about the quality of what you are publishing. It is clear that if a business pushes content that has better quality rather than a lot of content it is valued more.

Therefore, what will increase social shares or external links is the creation of content, which has a quality standard, has a strong value and strong attention to detail. As I said, whether you are pushing out content daily or just a few times a month, superior quality and being receptive to the published content feedback needs to be present. If you do not add significant value, you are just wasting time and the content won’t be shared.

Search Engines are pushing more content with rich answers

Another reason why making sure your content is high-quality is essential is because it will increase your search engine placement. Google’s number one goal is to deliver a user the most relevant search results to their search. If the user then finds there required answer to their question quickly, they are much more likely to return. Google is also raising the game through rich answers.

A “rich answer” is any attempt by Google to answer the searcher’s query in search results in a way not requiring a click through to a website. More than 20% of Google queries now provide a rich answer in the results. Rich answers are beneficial because they yield branded answers immediately in the search results so that users don't have to then waste time clicking through websites. This is extremely beneficial for your businesses content to be seen quickly and efficiently.

You can increase your chances of being seen in Google’s rich answers through focusing on better high-quality, deep content, and also including a short summary answer to the questions that surround your content.

The Publishing landscape is getting competitive

Another thing that has been noticeable about the change of content is that it isn’t solely being used for marketing. In fact, 2016 has seen a lot of brands using content marketing for sales, pushing the corporate culture and recruitment. For example, recruitment agencies have been sending out weekly newsletters to prospective candidates, which not only advertises positions available but advertises their social media. The proactive and planned content marketing will really help recruitment agencies attract relevant clients and in turn lead to high candidate conversion rates.

A company that set the standard of this many years ago was Red Bull, where they have created a news outlet which explores sport and productivity through the idea of a Red Bull world. Yet, we are now seeing that companies such as Marriott being more reactive to content marketing. Marriott have created a content studio to reach millennials to serve as their travel information source. Through this, they have even created short films and hired producers from Disney to help alongside this. They have also started to use blogging, videography and digital tools to boost their content marketing, which demonstrates high-quality.

Therefore, the already crowded market is going to be bombarded with a lot more value-orientated content, which will be of very high quality. If you are the owner of a much smaller business, this will mean that you will really need to up your game in terms of quality and tenacity when it comes to your content.

Videos continues to gain steam

Thanks to 2016 seeing the introduction of better internet connections and also the increase of vloggers, video has grown massively.

Social media platforms have also now introduced more video content, for example Facebook has introduced a live stream, Twitter uses periscope and Instagram have introduced stories. Social platforms are also making a video prominent feature by providing auto-play.

Thanks to Google, videos now get greater social reach. Google is positioning relevant videos, and video ads within search results. Therefore, it’s time to start incorporating more video into your content marketing. If you would like to see our blog post, which describes the necessity of having a promo video to showcase your business, read it here.

Content is becoming more thoughtful and personalised

Although I mentioned the importance of value when it comes to creating content, it is also important to focus on how your content can make a connection and how you can use the right tone of voice to achieve this. As I said, content needs to also focus on having a psychological resonance with people. Throughout 2016, it is clear that businesses have become far more concerned with being strategic about what they publish as they seek to achieve and work to build communities and improve engagement. Therefore, businesses have centred their content around quality and creating a more long-term strategy in their content marketing, which is built around personal engagement. Content that is more thoughtful and makes deeper connections with audience is definitely achieving more social shares.

It is clear that 2016 has been the year to take action and a new approach to content marketing. In 2017, content marketing may evolve again as it is clear that new social trends will keep being created.

At UNBXD, we pride ourselves on offering high-quality content and being very reactive to social trends and creating our own. If you are interested in our services, please get in touch.