Content Marketing Will Be Bigger Than Ever
One of the main ways that companies are establishing authority and gaining trust with consumers is by consistently creating valuable content through a variety of channels. This typically involves relevant industry information that provides insight or entertainment to an audience. Doing so allows a company to steadily build rapport with its demographic and develop a loyal following. According to the Content Marketing Institute, the top B2B content marketing strategies are social media, articles on a business’s website, eNewsletters, case studies, videos and articles on other websites.

Social Media Marketing Will Require More Diversity
Just a few years ago, businesses were limited with regard to the social media networks they could implement into their marketing campaigns, with the biggies including Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Now, it seems like new social media sites are appearing all the time. While some never really get off the ground, others like Pinterest, Google+, Tumblr and Instagram have surged in popularity and have provided businesses with a plethora of new options that allow them to produce engaging content in a variety of media forms and build their audiences across more channels than ever before.

Image-Centric Content Will Rule
As consumers are hit with an increasing number of advertisements, it’s becoming more important to make content easily and quickly digestible. If you look at the social media sites I mentioned previously that are on the rise, three of the four have a common characteristic…they place an emphasis on images. The rapid rise to success of Buzzfeed and Pinterest are testaments to the power and viral potential of image-based content.

Less Will Be More
One notable trend is the apparent shift in consumer preference regarding simplistic marketing messages instead of in-depth messages. When you think about some of the top brands in the world like Apple and Google, they clearly value simplicity. With many consumers feeling burned out by a constant barrage of information that scream “look at me”, some of the most innovative marketers are going the opposite direction. They’re now making efforts to tone-down their campaign messages and not overwhelm consumers with hype.

Mobile-Friendly Content Will Be Necessary
Due to the widespread use of smartphones and tablets, it’s necessary for companies to create content that’s accessible to mobile users. According to Forbes, “87% of connected devices sales by 2017 will be tablets and smartphones.” Whether it’s creating an alternate mobile version of a website or utilizing responsive web design, it’s important to provide a positive experience to users that are browsing via a mobile device. Otherwise, it’s easy to lose customers to competitors who have adapted to this trend. As the shift from traditional PCs and laptops to mobile devices continues, businesses that aren’t onboard are likely to suffer.

SEO and Social Signals Will Become Even More Intertwined
Although social signals still don’t typically carry the same weight as traditional inbound links, it’s pretty undeniable that they play a role in organic search rankings these days. Since the goal of Google and other search engines is to provide users with the most relevant and highest quality content possible, it makes sense why they would factor in the number of social shares that a blog post, article or product page receives. The more people that are sharing a piece of content, the higher quality it’s likely to be, and therefore its position should increase within the search engine results pages. It’s no coincidence that the top-ranking search results tends to have lots of social shares, while those ranked lower have fewer.

Source: www.forbes.com