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And on Twitter you can increase shares by a factor of 1.Every year there seems to be an array of new marketing trends that thought leaders are pushing.
One of the most frustrating things that these thought leaders do, is outline strategies that either required a massive budget or a massive team in order to execute on.
But not everyone has the time or budget to set up these huge new campaigns.
Heck, some even have trouble convincing their boss to even try anything new.
This is why I tried to keep these tips and trends extra simple.
That means if you wanted to, you could implement them right after reading this!
Also these are ideas that you could set up for the long term, because they are not just going to fizzle out at the end of the year.
The strategies can be used to close out 2017 and accelerate your digital marketing efforts far beyond that.
So let’s jump into it!
1.Content Is Still King
Since the beginning of online marketing three special words have continued to resonate.
Thought leaders, entrepreneurs and even professionals who are not directly involved with any form of marketing have been repeating this phrase.
Content is king.
Content is king.
Content is king.
(Legend says that if you say it three times in a mirror, Neil Patel will show up and tell you how to create better content.)
No matter the situation or business that idea has become a fixture of many marketing strategies ever since.
And it does not seem like that sentiment will be changing in 2017 or really anytime soon.
Which bodes well for me, since content is one of the strategies I actually understand relatively well.
If you take a look at the graph below, content marketing leads the pack of top rated marketing techniques.
It almost doubled a perennial favorite, mobile marketing and dominated paid search.
Additionally, I think people selected Big Data as their second best option since it is still considered a new buzzword and an area with a lot of potential.
Don’t believe me? The trends don’t lie.
I mean in the past year there were over 22k articles with “Content Marketing” in their title and literally 52 articles with “Big Data Marketing.”
It seems like there would be a lot more written about that topic If it is going to take over 2017 and beyond.
2.But It Needs To Be More Engaging
Just because content is king does not mean you can build your brand with just any old content.
The days of producing so much content to the point of being overwhelmed, are over.
Well, unless you are Buzzfeed.
Now that there is so much content to choose from, people want access to very specific content that they actually engaging.
Each content producer is competing with one another for the short attention span of our readers.
You also have to remember that we are not just competing with other written content, we are also competing with Netflix, YouTube, the news and much more.
So why should anyone read your content for that matter?
If it is not compelling or engaging your audience will bounce in seconds.
But if you can hook them with each piece of content you can build a huge following.
Then you no longer have an audience of random readers, you have a community that will help spread your content to the world.
And that community is incredibly valuable to any brand. If you can build up a relatively engaged following, they will ensure that your news continues to spread to the right audience, so that you can reap the benefits.
For instance, here is a data driven article that still gets immense traffic almost a year later. Why? Because it targets a very specific audience who feels passionately about the subject. So what do they do? They share it, they comment and they make sure that other people have an opportunity to share their opinions as well:
That is why companies are investing so much in creating better content in the future:
It is even more important that optimizing or analyzing their content to find the winners!
3. Compelling Visuals Boost Facebook & Twitter Shares
You can also notice that “Creating Visual Content” was also considered a high priority among content marketers. In fact, according to a recent survey on visual marketing statistics, 40.5% of marketers stated that 91% to 100% of the content they published in 2015 was visual. And in 2016, that number rose to 53%! Not surprisingly, when asked how integral visual content would be to their strategies in 2017, 60.8% said it was absolutely necessary.
So remember, content marketing as a trend does not solely apply to written content, but it also emcompasses visual content such as infographics, data visualizations, visual reports and more.
As a content marketer, I’ve found that using visuals is incredible effective in terms of increasing engagement, but also providing opportunities for link building.
That is because no matter the situation, visuals make any piece of content better.
And that includes anything you send out on Facebook or Twitter.
Just by including an image or visual your shares increase by 2.3x.
Each and every share your company page sends out should include a visual.
Wait, I take that back- each should have an engaging, beautiful and relevant visual.
No stock images, low quality or unrelated images. Like so:
I mean how does that image even relate to the headline?
Also that won’t catch anyone’s eye, your audience will scroll past it without a second thought.
Your audience is a lot more savvy than you think, and they likely won’t engage with a bad stock photo.
Yet so many companies still use this tactic because it’s easy.
As in 35% of marketers stated that they used stock photos the most for their marketing visuals.
But we found that a related and compelling visual on Facebook will lead to more engagement.
Here’s an example of one that resulted in a very high CTR and low CPC:
You know exactly what you’re clicking on or sharing with this particular visual, and it’s eye-catching!
So take a minute or two and create a visually stunning image to accompany your content in order to take advantage of that increased potential in traffic and clicks.
4. Infographics Kill It On Social
One of the best visuals to share on social media is infographics, no matter the social site.
They receive more than 3x more shares and likes than any other content.
And marketers seem to be using them already.
30.4% of marketers saying they used original graphics, such as infographics and illustrations for their visual content the most.
This is possibly due to the fact that infographics summarize information so effectively and are simple skim through.
We’re in a constant state of dealing with information overload, so have access to a visual format that condenses that “noise” is extremely refreshing for a lot of people.
If you are looking for a content format that has the potential for increase social engagement, more opportunity for link building, and a higher chance of engaging your audience, consider taking advantage of infographic creation.
In fact, 41.5% of marketers said that original graphics, such as infographics and illustrations, performed best among all visual content forms.
So there you have it. The above are some simple trends for 2017 and beyond that you can implement without requiring an immense team or budget.
If you invested just a little bit of effort, you could take advantage of these trends and implement on a very strong campaign.
Just remember to:
- Content is going to be king for a long time.
- To be noticed you need to create compelling content/
- Visual content kills it on Facebook.
- As well as on Twitter, so stop using stock images.
- Infographics can be used to summarize information and make visually stunning content.
- And shared across the social networks with ease.
Remember, you don’t need the same size budget to compete with big time competitors. You just need to stay ahead of the trends, and understand what your audience wants to consume.
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