2017 is only a matter of days away now, and businesses should be ready to hit the ground running with their editorial and content calendars in place. Content is growing and is being allocated more cash and bigger headcounts, and that doesn’t look like changing any time soon.
Mobile
There is now more internet traffic on mobile devices than on desktop computers. With that in mind, make sure you are optimising your content for mobile phones. People squinting to read a lengthy document will create a problem. That could potentially be helped by having an app, and if you don’t have one yet, that should be a focus.
Video content
Images, and particularly video, are so crucial now to users experience online that social media platforms have evolved rapidly in the last few months. Video-focused platforms like YouTube and Snapchat have been joined by Facebook Live, which threatens to take over. Just look at your timeline on social platforms and you’ll see how important video is becoming to brands. That trend looks set to continue for the foreseeable future so be sure to build it into your content plan.
Social media
Facebook remains the most-used social media platform for small business, so ignore it at your risk. It’s still a very valuable tool for reaching potential customers, be they B2C or B2B. Other platforms are still valuable, the trick is to match them to the customer.
User-generated content
Time and time again, polls show that content made by other users is considered more trustworthy than content produced by brands. As most brands are trying to build trust, having others able to do that better can be an uncomfortable thought. UGC is shares and reviews, comments, even videos and photos. If your content is engaging enough to produce UGC, you’re winning.
For more ideas on what is going to be big in the content marketing world in 2017, see the Content Marketing Institute. To help with planning your content strategy for 2017, consult a brand and strategy innovation agency like www.lightbulbinnovation.com/.
Ultimately, content is all about your audience and the formats they want to use. If you want to communicate successfully with your potential audience, make sure you are using the formats they are. The focus must remain the customer.