The ease with which top quality content can be created and distributed over the internet has lead to a content marketing explosion of sorts, with marketers relying heavily on content marketing to cement brand image and reach out to new customers. According to the Content Marketing Institute, 90 percent of B2B marketers do some form of content marketing. Interesting content is also one of the top 3 reasons for people to follow brands on social media platforms. The writing is on the wall: 2013 is the year of content marketing. It ties in directly to social media, and can reap plenty of SEO rewards, making it the natural choice for marketers to reach their audience.
With that said, let’s take a look at content marketing strategies for 2013:
1. Going Visual
Pinterest has been the biggest viral hit of 2012, accounting for more referrals than even Yahoo. Most major brands have set up identities on Pinterest with dedicated teams to tag and share relevant pictures. Through Pinterest, brands have been able to create coherent, strong visual identities for themselves, and associate their own brand with relevant imagery.
2013 is the year content goes truly visual. For one, visual content is far easier to consume on mobile devices than textual content. It is also much easier to share and tag. Visual heavy sites such as Tapiture.com are already seeing hockey-stick growth.
Any content marketing strategy in 2013 will have to embrace visual marketing if it is to be successful. This means creating original, viral images, as well as sharing images that demonstrate your brand values.
2. Original Video
By now, virtually everyone is familiar with the super viral hit, Gangnam Style. The video has more than 320 million views on YouTube and the phenomenon doesn’t seem to end anytime soon. This just goes to show how powerful a platform video can be to reach a wide audience. Psy reached 320 million viewers without paying a single penny. Such exposure can be created only with highly original video.
Video, too, is content. Any content marketing strategy in 2013 will have to incorporate original video in some form. It not only provides an additional platform to gather viewers, but also helps tremendously with branding. Plus, it can be an excellent source of additional revenue as well; video ad spending is expected to rise to $5.71 billion by 2014.
3. Social Content
Social media is the buzzword of this decade. Virtually everything on the internet today is social. If your brand isn’t producing social content, it is missing out on a huge phenomenon that could buy you additional visibility.
What do we mean by ‘social content’?
Broadly speaking, social content is any content (articles, pictures, video) that promotes sharing. It is very different from search-oriented content. An article meant to attract search traffic might be heavy on SEO and use keywords in a particular manner to rank better. Social content, on the other hand, is meant to bypass search altogether and be shared via social networking.
Thus, social content is more natural, utilizes different visual media (including exploiting memes) and is short, succinct, and easily shareable.
4. Content Curation
There is a lot of noise on the internet. Millions of pieces of content are produced by bloggers, marketers and even spam bots every day. Finding expert, high quality content in this noise can be intimidating, and it is a problem no algorithm has been able to solve satisfactorily.
Enter: human powered content curation. As bloggers like John Gruber (DaringFireball.net) and Maria Popova (BrainPickings.org) have shown, there is a HUGE demand for curated content. 2013 is the year editorialized content finally comes into its own and takes up an even larger portion of the traffic pie.
SEO Brighton are experts in all forms of online marketing including pinterest indentity, infographic distribituion, and viral video marketing. Why not contact an expert seo company in brighton today!
