Keeping your brand relevant as trends change can be very difficult, but with new content marketing strategies, you will have everything you need to grow and develop.
It’s no joke that content marketing is a powerful resource for attracting new customers and widening your audience demographic. Even if you are a wizard at content marketing, you need to keep your mind open and look out for innovative changes.
Whether you are putting a twist on an old piece of content or you are trying something new, consider the following top ten content marketing tips for this year.
1. Repurpose Your Content
This is one of the simplest ways to update and overhaul your content. By using something that has been a roaring success in the past, you know it will have a positive impact on your audience again.
There are many reasons to think about repurposing old content. From reaching out to a new audience, to re-emerging current topics, your refurbished content is guaranteed to have a new lease of life.
This also makes the most of your efforts in the past too. You might be proud of how well your piece of content did, so why not use it again and create a bigger and better impact?
When you are trying to think about which content to repurpose you need to choose pieces that aren’t restricted to time or specific events. As long as the content isn’t outdated it will be a good choice to revitalize.
You should also consider your most popular posts from last year so you know they will perform well. Finally, update a piece that isn’t as fresh as it could be. Putting a new spin on a piece of content will make it more relevant to your audience.
Wondering how to create a new piece of content from an old bit of work? You could create a step-by-step guide from a successful blog post. By repacking an old post it can become a fresh, new guide.
You could also create a new Pinterest board from previous visual content; image heavy content can be repurposed in a variety of different ways to impact your brand.
2. Use Micro-influencers
Over 800 million people scroll through their social media feeds every month, so influencers can up their prices for sponsored posts. However, once a social media influencer hits a certain number of followers, their content becomes less valuable.
Users aren’t always as keen to interact with people that feel unattainable and unrelatable to them. This is where micro-influencers come into play.
Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter are full of micro-influencers who specialize in promoting content to a niche audience. Not only are they cheaper to pay, but they also receive a higher amount of engagement. Microinfluencers can drive content, so do your research and find that right person to promote your product or service.
3. Podcasting
The popularity of podcasting is undeniable; since 2017 it has been recorded that over 40% of the US population has listened to a podcast at some point. This is a huge increase than in previous years and the numbers are only getting bigger.
Content marketers should take a keen interest in podcasting because it is appealing and trendy. Because of the fairly new nature of podcasts, it also means you can do whatever your business needs to get ahead.
The reason podcasts are so popular is because of technology. Almost everybody owns a smartphone nowadays so podcast content can be reached at just the click of a button.
Video files can often be costly or time consuming to stream or download so podcasts are a popular option. People who are trying to reduce screen time also turn to podcasts as they find them more informative and engaging that scrolling on social media.
Consumers are becoming more and more aware of the amount of information you can gain from a podcast so use this to your advantage. Podcasts are accessible, enjoyable and diverse, therefore you need to consider this as your next content marketing strategy.
4. Collaborate With Your Consumers
When you can spark up active partnerships with your clients and customers, who will develop a lot of loyalty between you and them. This kind of collaborative outreach is the ideal way to cultivate innovative content marketing tips for social media, product launches, and other online campaigns.
The strong relationship between the client and vendor has seen a huge shift in recent years; consumers are becoming more and more involved with brands than ever before. Instead of buying a product they want to get involved with the creative process too.
When you collaborate with clients on a selective scale, it gives you the opportunity to execute a cost-effective content marketing technique. This will allow you to develop long-lasting partnerships and creating engaging content for your brand.
Expanding your horizons by connecting with your clients will open you up to more opportunities and niche markets than ever before. As long as you choose the right people to pair up with, you will generate more interest and create real-life content for your business.
5. Create Live Videos
Talking to a camera in a live setting is one of the most useful marketing tactics you can adopt this year. Last year was considered the year of video marketing, which goes to show how impactful it can be when executed correctly.
Live video marketing is appealing to consumers because they feel like they are being addressed personally. Videos are performing much better than blog content as they drive more engagement.
It is a fact that 80% of users would rather watch a live video from a brand rather than read a long marketing campaign. It is quite natural to want to listen to a short and snappy video than spend our precious time reading. People can process videos much faster too so you can cram a ton of information into a small amount of content.
6. Write Longer Blog Posts
The advantage of writing longer, lengthier blog posts is that you are creating more room for keywords. Often there is nothing wrong with a short and sweet piece of content, but you need to be aiming for more. Look at the competitors in your industry and see how they use long blog posts to their advantage.
Not only will you be able to weave more natural keywords into your post, but Google and other search engines with love the detail you are going into. The more words on your page, the bigger impact this will have on your reader.
Be sure to break up long paragraphs of text with images, videos and infographics otherwise they might become overwhelmed or disengaged. Try lengthening your blog posts and see how quickly the views rise.
7. Use Paid Social Media
Organic search results are becoming more and more difficult to get, but paid search costs per click are making a breakthrough. Trying to achieve organic traffic on social media is near enough impossible, as nearly half of all content out there gets no shares at all. You can guarantee more click from paid social media advertising.
Twitter ads are the most popular type of campaign. The experts are still unsure why this is the case, but why not use this information to your advantage?
Every time a user engages with your content, views your profile, shares your ad or comments on a post, you will need to pay. Make sure you are only paying for the things that matter to your business, such as clicks onto the website and video views.
Understanding how your social media campaigns work is very important so you are getting the most out of your investment.
8. Make Data Related Choices
If you aren’t already making content marketing decisions based on data related information, then you need to change up your strategies. Instead of following the crowd and chasing something that is purely artificial, you want to get real results that matter.
You need not have the most followers on social media or the first marketer on a new platform, you just need to be the best at serving your audience. You won’t exactly know how to do this unless you look deep into the data they are giving you.
By developing a plan that has a strong data foundation, you will meet the needs of your customers much more easily. This will give you more free time to be flexible and hot on the toes of up-and-coming techniques.
If you are constantly chasing the newest social media platform on the market, you cannot focus on what you’re good at. Take your time, use data and plan for content marketing, rather than chasing the latest shiny new toy.
9. Steer Clear from Clickbait
Although it is tempting to follow into the clickbait phenomenon, you need to keep your content fresh, original and relevant. Don’t lure your target audience into a false sense of security otherwise, they might not trust you when they delve deeper into your content.
Apparently, 78% of consumers believe that relevant and unique content is more likely to sway them into buying the product or service. As long as you are creating your own content that is original and in keeping with current topics and themes you will attract more customers.
Being short of ideas is common, but this shouldn’t resort to using clickbait. Contact an agency or writer to help you improve your content organically. You don’t want to be a lazy content marketer who re-hashes top headlines just for the sake of a few website hits.
Even if you think you are making something your own, you might copy more than you think. Online consumers are becoming clever at avoiding clickbait, so using this technique might work against you in the long run.
Respect your readers and tap into their mindset; they are much more likely to appreciate your brand if you are providing them with worthwhile content.
10. Consider Voice Control and Search
The exploding popularity of the Amazon Echo and Google Home technology that is available nowadays shouldn’t go unnoticed when you are working on content marketing. Initially, you are probably thinking about how keywords in Google can rank your website.
However, you also need to be thinking about how questions might be asked with their voice on smart equipment around the home. Nowadays, it isn’t as easy as ranking for a few keywords, you need to think about relevant questions too.
These big changes have evolved over the past year and will become even more prolific in 2019, so you can’t disregard the power of voice recognition and search. At least some areas of your content need to show up with quick questions that people would say, rather than what they are typing on their computer or mobile phone.
As voice-controlled technology becomes more and more popular, you need to tailor your content marketing to suit this trend.
To Conclude
You are probably wondering how to get started in implementing some of these new and engaging content marketing tips. It can be overwhelming to approach innovative methods, but you need to think about your business as an individual.
Think back about the successful content marketing methods that worked for you last year and use this as a catalyst for your new choices. Work together with the other people on your team to improve previous campaigns and adjust your strategies to make them more relevant.
Remain flexible at all times and listen to your target audience. This will be your key to content marketing success in 2019.