5 Content Trends to Keep An Eye On in 2019
IT’S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN: TOO MUCH EGGNOG, MANIC HOLIDAY SHOPPING AND, OUR FAVORITE — MARKETING PREDICTIONS FOR THE NEW YEAR.
Content has been the focal point of marketing conversations for several years and, as you’ve likely already guessed, it’s not going anywhere.
With ever-evolving platforms, formats and technologies, tackling content marketing can often be overwhelming. But the premise is simple: it’s about the exchange of information that creates value for your existing and potential clients.
As content marketing continues to expand and our approach to it evolves, these five content trends will shape the way companies (and their audiences) create and consume content in 2019. Here’s what you need to know.
1. Authenticity, transparency, and value marketing
While authenticity, transparency and value marketing are the latest buzzwords, we find brands are still struggling to apply these principles to their day-to-day content strategies.
This is an issue because today’s savvy consumers are no longer willing to accept inconsistencies between the image a brand projects and the reality of what it provides its audience.
A few interesting stats from Stackla’s Consumer Content Report:
- 86% of consumers say that authenticity is a key differentiator that leads to a purchasing decision
- 73% of consumers would pay more for a product if the company behind it promises transparency
- 94% of consumers say they would remain loyal to a brand that provides complete transparency
There’s so much we want to share about the link between human behavior and marketing (and how so many marketing trends go directly against how we operate as human beings) which we’ll explore in future articles.
For now, the most important thing to understand is that contrary to popular belief, we humans make decisions with the emotional part of our brain — not the analytical, logical part.
If you’re looking to win the hearts (and money) of customers, you need to create content that’s rooted in the purpose of your business, mirrors the real-life hopes and fears of your audience and is everyday useful. If you create content that feels overly preachy or salesy, relies solely on analytics and facts to tell your story and continues to write content that reads like a robot wrote it, you’re going to lose people fast.
2. Video, Video and More Video
From live videos to Stories to branded interviews to whiteboard animations, video continues to dominate content marketing.
A few staggering stats on the current video landscape:
- One-third of online activity is spent watching video
- Marketers who use video grow revenue 49% more than non-video users
- 64% of consumers make a purchase after watching social videos
- 59% of executives agree that if both text and video are available on the same topic, they are more likely to choose video
- Social video generates 1200% more shares than text and images combined
You do not need to master every new video format to begin to reap the benefits of the platform. You do, however, need to think seriously about ways to supplement your content strategy with video. Turn product one-pagers into whiteboard animations; bring in a video crew to help you produce a handful of influencer interviews to post alongside your blogs; give us some behind-the-scenes content!
3. Chatbots
Regardless of how you feel about these pesky little bots, they’re on the rise. According to a recent HubSpot research report, 71% of people use chatbots when they’re looking to solve a problem quickly. 56% of people would rather use a chatbot than call customer service and 53% of people are more likely to shop with businesses they can message.
Most brands think about chatbots in the realm of customer service, but we’ll be keeping an eye on how brands begin to use this technology as a content delivery platform. Instead of using chatbots to simply ask and answer customer service questions, we believe this evolving technology offers brands a new and more immediate avenue to deliver highly customized content to potential customers.
While most companies are still in the very beginning stages of experimenting with the technology, the initial case studies are promising. For example, software company RewardStream installed a chatbot that accounted for 30% of its leads within 45 days.
We’re excited to see how the integration of AI will further deepen the personalization and customization features on chatbots and will share what we’re learning along the way.
4. Social Media Stories
This year, we’ve seen a clear behavioral shift as social media stories have become more popular and interest in news feeds have declined. According to a recent research report, stories grew 15X faster than feeds from Q2 2016 to Q3 2017.
Stories are a great way to offer up informal, behind-the-scenes content. As people increasingly prioritize authenticity and transparency and want to know the real humans at the helm of their favorite brands (not the polished, PR-friendly versions), we anticipate this format will continue to grow.
In addition to keeping an eye on how Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat continue to evolve the format, we’re also paying attention to new stories-like features, including Google’s AMP Stories for news and YouTube’s Stories (now available to creators with more than 10,000 subscribers). Will LinkedIn soon follow suit?
5. Rich Content Hubs
A trend we’re especially excited about here at Purposeful is a growing focus on creating rich content experiences. Gone are the days of the scrolling, single format blog. Now, brands are increasingly creating focused content hubs with a wide range of content formats including videos, articles, case studies, trend reports, online courses, interviews, infographics, interactive content and more.
A few of our favorite examples: Zipcar’s Ziptopia, Ellevest, Goldman Sachs, Farmer’s Insurance, Dell, Think With Google, IQ by Intel and AMEX.
SOME FINAL WORDS
2019 will be focused on enhanced customer experience built on personalization, authenticity and AI-powered technology. When in doubt, circle back to your brand purpose. What does the brand exist to do? Who does it exist to help? Everything you create should stem from there.
