Like everything else, digital trends in content marketing 2020 too are undergoing a change. The way we create, market, and analyze content will have some new facets. Blogs, social media content, websites, and apps will all still be on the content marketer’s job list. But there are going to be 5 new areas to focus on. January is the month when most content strategies for the year begin to take shape. Ensure these 5 latest content marketing trends are a part of your calendar for the year.
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Content Marketing Trend #1: User-Generated Content
Short for User Generated Content, UGC started as a way for users to express their opinion and turned into a tool for marketers. UGC started with people sharing reviews of products and services. This was fanned into something much bigger with the usage of social channels. The free publicity worked in favor of the brand… until negative reviews gave birth to a new job in the digital landscape, known as online reputation management.
Users decided to hold brands to ransom by increasing their amplification volume on social media. Some also go to the extent of tagging the company CXOs to be heard. This has driven brands to create a counter-strategy of sourcing, displaying and amplifying positive UGC.
In the background of this play and counterplay, the fact of ebbing brand trust also came to light. At the beginning of this decade, content marketing trends 2020 showed that over 60% of people trust consumer comments more than the brand message. While the trust helps, this isn’t foolproof either.
The Shed at Dulwich experiment, stories on AI bot reviews and, of course, planted reviews for SEO are also alternative fakes in the real world of UGC.
What does this mean for marketers to generate great UGC?
- Understand your UGC sourcing points. UGC starts at a point when the user has made a purchase and is having a moment of delight on usage. For many companies, all customer-facing functions from pre-sales to sales to after-sales servicing allow opportunities to generate UGC. To ensure you are generating this, create channel touchpoints and reminders in all your customer lifecycle journeys. Record and attribute feedback to a campaign or strategy and work. Make it a point to reward your brand advocates and train all your customer-facing touchpoints to customarily ask for feedback at the end of the experience.
- Get to the root cause of negative UGC.
- Use custom strategy to manage UGC from each channel. If you are a B2C brand with an active customer base on social media, you can use FB and Insta visitor posts to be moderated and pulled into your site for the showcase. Twitter is often used as a complaint forum so you can either source out positive UGC to be posted on the channel (via campaigns/contests) or have different handles for brand and customer queries. Allow guest and influencer posts.
- Create a community of your users: A community (either brand owned or general) is a great way to source out the most engaged users of your brand, nurture them and elevate them as brand advocates. They are your non-paid (of sorts) sales managers who can, in this day and age, sell more than you can imagine.
Also Read: 6 Reasons Why your Content Marketing may be Failing and How to Fix it
Content Marketing Trend #2: Voice will get bigger
The way we search is undergoing an overhaul. Google is releasing more updates every day than we can track. But the trend lines show a clear inclination towards voice search. Don’t believe us? Observe a 4-year-old with a mobile searching for YouTube videos.
The search went from “London Hotel” to ”Cheap hotel in London near Hyde Park”. Subsequently, the way we write content to cater to this new audience also needs to change. Search results are now focused on not only having the best answer to user queries but also answering questions on Google directly.
In addition to this, we also have Siri, Alexa and a few others competing for giving answers quickly. In the near future, you will be wondering how much your friendly neighbourhood search engine can do. If you didn’t hear the ‘a-hah…’ by Google Assistant during Sundar Pichai’s keynote address at Google I/O 2019, you simply HAVE to watch this video.
https://www.facebook.com/EconomicTimes/videos/10155431554932694/
OK Google, Show me content trends in 2020 for voice search.
Focus on Featured Snippets: Featured snippets, well, get featured, right on top of organic search results in the form of an ‘answer box’. Content featured here is your best bet on generating traffic. Here’s an interesting read on how you can go about doing this.
Write for user intent: When you search for your brand, Google will show you the most common set of queries around your brand. Write a blog to answer each of these. Also ensure that your FAQ section is updated and your site is interlinking well to the answers to the most commonly asked queries.
Use long-tail keywords: Have blogs and content specifically targeted at long-tail keywords. In fact, ensure these are quality, authoritative blogs and also meet additional criteria of having over 5000 words, content chunking and keywords highlighted in the right proportion.
Improve page speed: Speed is key in getting your website up for general and voice search. Don’t take your eyes off the ball on this one.
Use structured data: Adding Schema markup allows machines to better interpret the content you are putting out. This will be key in making your content ‘readable’ for voice search.
See Infographic: Why Content Marketing Works?
Content Marketing Trend #3: Personalization is your next big digital content trend
The new throw-around word in Content is conversational marketing. Is it really possible to have a direct conversation when you are speaking to the mass of your audience? Advertising has done this over the years. For instance, talking to different audiences with different messaging. A fairness cream may mean different things to different women. A working woman and a housewife may react to different messaging.
The best part with digital is that we now know a lot of things about our users that they don’t directly tell us. There are 100+ data points that we can collect about a person online (which they give out willingly). From their likes to their food preferences to their daily travel details, it is easier to find people and bucket them into actionable groups based upon their behavior or preferences.
Let’s take an example of how you can use personalization based on behavioral data.
Let’s say you have an active member base for an OTT who are up for subscription renewal in the next one month. A great personalization here starts with future shows they can watch based on their past history and an offer for the upcoming subscription. Most users are unlikely to receive the same content. Doing this first with a couple of data sets will chart a learning path, and you can then further tweak communication for this specific offer.
Content Marketing Trend #4: AR/VR will find their market
In the past few years, we have been trying to find the appropriate use of AR / VR content to eventually link it with ROI. New trends in content marketing will come to light as more commercial uses are found with apps and gamification.
For example, if you had a VR walkthrough of your new real estate project, it will help more people visualize the final project when it isn’t built yet. Using gamification to move people through this journey will be an added advantage to complete the experience.
VR is a way for people to visualize the experience and get immersed without actually being in a place where the experience is possible. Think of having a paragliding experience wearing Oculus. What if you could smell the food in a restaurant VR? What if you could touch the silk to get a feeling of the fabric while shopping at an eCommerce portal?
Most of us are never going to be astronauts or take up space travel. But VR is going to help you experience a walk on the moon, become your favorite avenger or even become a tree in a rainforest.
What can we do? Creating an engaging VR experience is a great way for you to attract your users to have new experiences. If the experience delights them, your content has done its job.
Content Marketing Trend #5: Partnerships and collaborations
In the land of content, we can’t live in silos. Forming mutually beneficial partnerships can help the content reach more people and develop audiences where you had none. It will help you piggyback on the popularity of someone you share synergy with.
Take for example a travel company doing a content collaboration with Tripoto or HolidayIQ. These websites often publish articles about destinations and what to do there. If someone is reading this, they are likely to want to explore a package to the destination. This is not a conclusive prediction, but more of an educated guess that does work.
Similarly, if someone is following a keto food influencer on Instagram and you have just launched a keto cookie flavor, having this influencer create content for their followers is a great way to share focused content with the audience without the brand push. Strike on a deal to do this once a month at least and you will have a winning model.
Also Read: It’s Time To Reboot your content marketing strategy? Here’s Why And How
So, what is the future of content marketing?
It will be more dynamic and exciting than ever before! 2020 predicts the popularity of the content marketing services trends discussed above, and you’ll be at a great advantage if you use them wisely. All you will need is the right partner who can help you grow in this journey. Write to us here sales@justwords.in.