Identifying the micro-fluctuations in content across the year

We are all residents of Marketing Street. Our addresses differ as we move sectors between brand to agency or mainline to digital, but sooner or later all of us catch what’s in the air. Sooner than later we all start speaking the same language, writes Sahil Siddiqui, AVP – Creative Strategy, WATConsult. 

Content marketing trends are the ever-evolving street slang of this street. Just like street-slang, not all stay for long but are very good in communicating what pre-existing language cannot. 

I am listing down some trends that seem logically appearing in the coming months. 

I broadly see all content marketing trends under two categories – Prompted and Intuited. 

‘Intuited’ are trends that grow from evolving audience preferences and shifting psychographic trends. 

‘Prompted’ are all trends powered by media innovation and broad infrastructure improvements. 

Intuited trends 

  1. We go LIVE

LIVE video is at a tipping point. The total dominance of Instagram has played a big role with FB Live andYouTube LIVE laying the groundwork. Once a source of excitement for early adopters on Periscope, Meerkat and Snapchat, LIVE content has started making numerical sense too. Facebook says 3x time is spent watching LIVE video comparatively. 10x more comments are seen during LIVE videos. For anyone still needing a push, consider how well LIVE video lends itself to thought leadership as well as moment marketing; you will be hard pressed to find a format that elastic. 

  1. Volume up on Audio

Simply consider that with dropping connectivity cost and increased time spent online, the battle for content to stand out has finally reached the only un-explored content format. Interest in podcasts is increasing and unique local language podcast portals are opening up too. Spotify announced entry to India recently. Audio as a digital mass marketing tool will be a great avenue for experimentation. 

  1. Re-jig influencer marketing

Influencers are like broiler chicken – selectively bred to exist in the shape they’ve taken. A mainstay of modern marketing and uniquely prominent as never seen in any time before, influencers will soon be held to the same rigors and responsibilities as agencies and celebs are. As the first stop on ‘humanising’ the brand, they will soon need to justify themselves in the harsh language of ROI. Rethought contracts and formalised usage of micro influencers has already become a watershed moment that will soon become the norm. 

Prompted trends 

  1. The hyper-personalisation of content

The holy grail of mass one-on-one marketing is closer than ever. In the era of massive security breaches and motivated usage of consumer information, big data and algorithmic media have already leapt fast ahead. Hyper-personalisation that affects all creative and media decisions will be the wide norm with all smart marketers in no time. Very few things in marketing make as much good sense as a packet of ‘hyper-targeted micro-videos’ that fire at a pre-fixed frequency only for the niche targeted audience across the consumer lifecycle. All push from Facebook and Google is to make marketers see every instance of media as an opportunity to deeply use the existing data rather. 

  1. Distribution savvy


That’s a ‘single minute’ on the Internet; and that too is an incomplete picture. Smart marketers have intuitively already arrived at a distribution strategy that goes beyond the obvious. The tight clasp of walled-gardens is still limiting for all their various format innovations. The opportunity to ground breaking collaborations and novel nativity will be seen in the coming months. 

These are broad trends encompassing wider movements. There will be many micro-fluctuations in content across the year – both Prompted and Intuited – that will keep us all on our toes.

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