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How to optimise content with these 4 content trends

Exceptional content marketing is a critical part of a successful marketing strategy.

If you’re not creating useful, interesting and entertaining content, then consumers won’t give you their attention. Your audience expects brands to tailor content that speaks directly to them.

As a brand, creating this type of content is no longer ‘nice to have,’ but absolutely essential to acquiring and retaining loyal customers. And if you’re not able to satisfy your consumers’ needs, then you can bet that some other brand will.

So how can you create and distribute content that your audience will love? To help you hit the ground running in 2020, let’s take a look at some of the key content marketing trends all brands should be paying attention to.

It’s all about the visuals

Whether it be for work or leisure, entertainment or communication, consumers continue to prefer visuals over written content (no surprises there).

Consistent with this trend, Aussie social media users are lapping up content from Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat as 4 of the 5 most used platforms around the country.

Interestingly, more Instagram users are following brands than users of any other platform and an increasing number of large brands are focussing their attention to advertising on Instagram.

So, what does this mean for your business? It means you need to focus more energy on creating entertaining, engaging and interactive visuals to disperse throughout your marketing communications.

For your website, this might include ‘how-to’ videos, more lifestyle shots and moveable imagery or videos to showcase your products.

For socials, think about creating branded GIFs, augmented reality filters for Snapchat and more relevant video content.

Create engaging video content

As the popularity of video continues to grow, the importance of creating engaging video content for your business is paramount.

According to Smart Insights, 53% of customers will engage with a brand after watching a video on social media and 72% prefer video over text when getting info about a product or service.

So how can we as brands create better video content? Become a good storyteller.

Effective marketing is all about being able to engage your audience, and your ability to take them on an emotional journey to connect with your brand will be a large part of the success of your content.

Focus on your E-A-T

If you’ve never seen the acronym before, E-A-T stands for expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness, three pillars of quality content that can help you improve your SEO game.

In a recent article released on the Webmaster Central Blog, Google specifically advised businesses to become familiar with the search quality rater guidelines and to start using them to form better content

So, what’s the best way to establish your E-A-T? As with any SEO tactic, there is no quick fix. You can, however, try implementing the following techniques to improve your E-A-T:

  • Get mentioned on other sites with high authority and have them link to your site
  • Demonstrate your trustworthiness through including information about your business and your credentials in a bio or ‘about us’ section
  • Reference and link out to other authority sources to substantiate information on your site
  • Consistently update your web content to keep it up-to-date and accurate

Customer first, sales second

Over the past year, businesses who dedicated more energy to building trust with their customers and focussing on their needs (rather than the needs of the business) proved to have much greater success with their content. In 2020, be prepared to see much more of this.

Promotional or overly ‘salesy’ messaging doesn’t satisfy the needs of the consumer and therefore gives them little reason to engage with your content. They know you’re trying to sell to them, and they’re not interested.

To help keep your customers front and centre, try some of the following:

  • Conduct more research on your target market and what kind of content they like to consume
  • Refine your writing style for your audience and demonstrate consistency within your brand personality
  • Include more visual content like photography, videography and infographics or icons
  • Understand what your audience is searching for and how you can target these keywords

 

Need some help creating killer content your customers love to consume? Our digital and creative teams can work with you to better understand what your customers are searching for and help you tailor your content to meet those needs.