Imagine you’re a budding content marketer out to make a name for yourself.
As luck would have it, you get a call from a lucrative client asking you to pitch for an assignment.
Now imagine showing up dressed in bell-bottom trousers, a satin shirt and afro! Tucked under your left arm are a blackboard, an eraser and a packet of coloured chalk. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist, or prophet, to predict that you probably won’t be getting that contract.
As hyperbolic as it sounds, the example above illustrates the importance of keeping up with current trends (and the dangers of ignoring them!). The outdated looks and tools demonstrate an inability to understand the contemporary marketplace.
Why Do You Need to Care About Content Marketing Trends?
One word, value. Emerging trends create new opportunities in the market. Incorporating these trends in your content marketing strategy helps you to take advantage of these opportunities by creating content that is especially relevant to the audience.
Moreover, current stats indicate that content marketing is an investment worth making, whatever the industry you’re in.
Let’s take a sneak peek into content marketing trends in 2022.
Trend 1 —The Rise of Audio-Based Marketing
Audio-based marketing is solidifying its place in the content marketing scene. Its relevance is supercharged by the increasing popularity of podcasts.
For example, in 2015, Apple revealed that there were over 500,000 podcasts in existence.
This figure has since climbed to over 2,000,000, with a collective production of over 48 million episodes of generated content! In the US, over 55% of the population are active podcast listeners, up from 51% in 2019.
What makes podcasts a great tool for content marketing? Podcasts allow for passive listening. Unlike video content, your audience can listen to your content while walking, driving or doing chores at home.
“Your podcast content should not be about you, but about solving your prospects’ problem” – Steve Lubetkin, Podcast Producer.
If you’re considering including a podcast in your content strategy, have a plan for each episode in advance.
This will ease your content creation process and allow you time to create fresh and captivating ideas that’ll enrich your audience’s content experience.
Always remember to include a Call-To-Action for your audience.
Another exciting development in the content marketing space is Social Audio.
Unlike podcasts, which is a one-way communication medium, Social Audio are live, 2-way communication channels, where the audience can directly interact with the podcaster. Despite its infancy, this online communication format is creating a buzz among social media users.
For example, until recently, the Clubhouse App has been the go-to for audio space users. While it started out as an exclusive club for high profile users (the super rich and successful), it has since opened up to other users. The Clubhouse community now stands at over 10 million, up from 600,000 in December 2020.
The Clubhouse App will soon be joined by Facebook and Twitter, with the former allegedly developing its own audio platform called Live Audio Rooms, which will be used in Facebook groups among members with similar interests. Twitter is testing its own version, Twitter Spaces.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxX7XCAduq4
Social Audio creates an exciting new avenue for promoting brand awareness. Companies can engage with their listeners through:
- Sponsoring online events.
- Enlisting brand ambassadors and influencers.
- Creating forums where employees can solicit opinions through moderating organic conversations.
Trend 2 — The Use of Artificial Intelligence in Content Marketing
A 2020 McKinsey report revealed that a select group of companies from various industries attributed up to 20% of their earnings to AI. These firms indicated that they would bump up their investment in ai powered initiatives in future.
Artificial Intelligence is poised to heavily influence content marketing. And companies are increasingly becoming aware of it. This is because of its most attractive quality: content analysis.
AI’s ability to collect and crunch huge amounts of data in a matter of seconds is unmatched. It saves time, resources and contributes to an enhanced content experience.
Content marketers that use AI leverage on its ever-advancing data processing abilities to create high-quality content for their audience. AI helps to discern customer intent and target them with relevant content pieces tailor-made to suit their specific needs.
What does this mean for marketing? Ai powered content analysis will improve market segmentation.
Marketing teams using this technology are better placed to separate their audiences based on personality traits, interests and needs, and target each segment with relevant content.
Another emerging facet of AI is machine-generated content. Unlike their human counterparts, these content tools are able to churn out large amounts of new content, including summaries and blog posts. Examples of these content generators include:
- GPT-3
- Contentyze
- Conversion.ai
- Heliograf (Owned by The Washington Post)
But what does this mean for content marketers, and copywriters to be precise?
Some fear that ai powered content generators will completely automate the copywriting process, but this is not true.
Despite the technological advancements in this field, machines cannot create quality content, especially when it comes to long content forms such as blog posts. Copywriters will still be needed for editing and ensuring better quality.
Trend 3 — Optimizing Content For Voice Search
Voice Search was initially developed by Google in 2011 as an unconventional search feature.
Since then, it has morphed into one of the most common features. In the US alone, voice search is used by approximately 58% of users to find a local store.
Furthermore, 2020 content marketing trends predicted that 50% of search engine queries would be conducted through the voice search feature.
Why is it so popular? Using the voice search feature offers the user an unprecedented sense of convenience and speediness that a text-based search cannot compete with.
Moreover, the AI that powers voice search continuously learns with each interaction.
For example: If I’m a native Londoner who’s travelled to Lagos in Nigeria, I’d use voice search to ask for directions to an affordable hotel in Lagos.
I would also search for interesting historical sites to visit while in the city.
If I was to search for the closest convenience store (without specifying where), the results should be ‘closest convenience store in Lagos’, not London. Thus it demonstrates the learning capabilities of voice search AI.
As Google’s Assistant, Siri and Cortana become more popular search tools, marketers need to create content that is optimized for this particular search feature.
Unfortunately for content marketers, voice search results are inconsistent, as each device seems to be pulling resources from different directions.
However, there are certain principles around which you could build marketing content. Here are two:
- Search queries are often in question form. When searching for an ideal SUV on the internet, for example, you may type in “most affordable SUV”.
However, when using voice search, you will change your behaviour and instead ask, “what are the most affordable SUVs?”
- Voice search queries are generally longer than their textual counterparts. In the above example, the voice search query is 3 words longer than its text equivalent.
As personal assistants get smarter by the day, consumers will use them more, and savvy marketers continue to optimize content for this search feature.
Here’s how to take advantage of this content marketing trend:
- Produce content in a natural, conversational manner. Your content should also be written in a way that answers a question that your intended audience may be asking.
- Develop long-tailed keyword phrases that will target specific user intent at each level.
- Target the featured snippet position for voice search when writing content.
Ultimately, creating high-quality content involves aligning your strategy to the changing times in order to reap maximum value and take advantage of the hidden opportunities that can catapult your brand to the next level.
Stick Out, Be Noticed
Many industry leaders have attributed their success to being different. You can choose to do so too by creating your own 2022 content marketing strategy.
Combining this with CopySmiths content marketing service is what you need to take your marketing campaign to the next level.
