Content Marketing the digital marketing landscape is changing so frequently and so dramatically that it’s virtually difficult to imagine what the future of digital marketing might hold.
In the last year or two, we’ve seen new technologies, a backlash of sorts in social media, and influencer marketing evolves from its infancy into a powerful marketing channel in its own right. What do I think are the key content marketing trends for 2022 and beyond?
My marketing predictions for 2022
I think everyone will be talking about major trends in the digital marketing industry. The initial is the resurgence of content marketing as the go-to marketing activity for businesses. Before the startup pandemic, B2B SaaS marketers first considered buying social media ads to grow their business.
Our content marketing is the best way to rank for buyer search. Research from the Content Marketing Institute found that more than two-thirds of marketers will increase their web content marketing budgets in 2022, with 1 in 5 planning a double-digit increase.
- Companies are becoming aware of the power of content marketing, in part due to the pandemic.
- Content Marketing Institute Annual Content Marketing Trends Survey The second bug trend is AI-generated content. If 60-70% of the web content we create goes unused, AI will force us to rethink what we create and why. We will begin to see the opportunities of an AI-driven content marketing strategy.
- You may not know it, but publications like the Washington Post and others have been using AI for more than two years to create templates for content (e.g., sports scores and highlights or crime stories).
We’ve evaluated a few of these services and haven’t found any capable of producing high-quality blog content and long articles that come anywhere near the level of quality required to rank for search queries or answer technical or professional thought leadership requests. But yet that future may not be far off.
The major trend is employee enablement. AI will undoubtedly tell us what to create, but our best storytellers are our existing employees from all business areas. Each company needs a strategy to activate these employees as both creators and the most effective channel for distributing that content.
I such as to call this the paradox of AI .the more the robots tell us what to do, the more we need our internal experts to create and distribute that content.
We’re pretty clear about a few things. Content marketing certainly isn’t going away anytime soon. However, what other digital marketing trends might we see as we head into 2022?
The future of social media
You may think that social media is already ubiquitous, but there’s still room for growth. While the future of social media may come in the form of something, well, more social, the growth of these platforms isn’t going to slow down anytime soon.
Social media will continue to be present in all aspects of our lives and integrated into both online and offline solutions.
In an episode of the dystopian Netflix collection Black Mirror, social media has left the screen and spilled over into the real world, where people rate their interactions with others and get much better housing, task, and social condition based on their total score.
Science fiction?
Perhaps for now, but the future probably isn’t that far off. Most apps on your phone probably already share data with your social networks, and it’s now standard for employers and recruiters to check social media profiles before an interview.
What does this mean for online marketers?
A much deeper understanding of each client as an individual and the ability to offer highly targeted offers and services as the AI algorithms used in social media become more sophisticated.
The Rise of Micro-Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing has already seen a considerable upswing in recent years. Top leading influencers on platforms like Instagram and YouTube attract millions of followers and earn six-figure incomes from their manage brands.
Influencer marketing is still in its infancy. While it offers a high return on investment compared to more traditional advertising channels, some issues still need to be addressed.
Fake followers are currently a problem that still needs to be solved, and there have been some notable incidents where relationships between brands and influencers have backfired in a wrong way.
As consumers increasingly value individual recommendations over being advertised, it will make sense to invest more in “micro-influencers,” social media users who have a much smaller but engaged following and can send truly authentic marketing messages to a trusted audience.
Influencers’ power is not measured by the number of followers but by their relationships with each follower.
Video is outpacing all various digital networks.
Smart marketers have recognized the power of online video for years – back in 2015, and the Washington Post predicted that 80% of all online content would be video. We’re not quite there yet, but the video has already proven to be a powerful medium, and live streaming video, in particular, has seen massive growth over the past year.
Video marketing can be incredibly effective at driving engagement. Consumer appetite for video shows no signs of slowing down – YouTube has already overtaken Facebook as the second most visited website (Google is number one, of course).
If you’re not yet fully embracing video in your brand marketing, you’re already behind, but it’s not too late to jump in. Exciting things were happening with the combination of live video and augmented reality. Original and creative video is sure to be the big winner among content channels as we head into 2019.
Getting back to basics with employee engagement
Of course, these technological advances are fascinating, but let’s not lose sight of the fundamental concepts that make for a great advertising strategy and a great business.
Employee activation allows your company to get the most out of every employee who acts as an ambassador for your brand, increasing sales and conversion rates genuinely and authentically that is more effective than any advertising campaign.
I think this is the most significant B2B marketing trend. Going back to the micro-influencer marketing trend: If your employees are engaged, they will act as micro-influencers for your company themselves. If you can engage people who align with your brand values and grow their passion for what you are trying to accomplish, they will act as your most engaged supporters.
As our dependence on technology grows, more and more companies realize that they need to become more “human” and activate employees’ ability to tell stories and share organically; this is the “mystery of AI” as we find out to take our place alongside machines in this brave new world of possibilities.
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