Three Trends in Content Marketing You’ll Want to Follow

Understand the crucial significance of content marketing in building brand recognition and engaging potential customers through targeted strategies

Content marketing helps you generate brand awareness, convince customers to take action, and drive revenue. It’s one of the many things we do well here at Advent Trinity.  We are always on top of the best way to market your company online.

As a business, you no doubt understand the importance of content marketing and its ability to increase brand awareness and attract customers. But have you ever considered what trends in content marketing you should be following? To ensure your business remains competitive, it’s essential to stay up-to-date on the latest tactics used by industry leaders across sectors. In this blog post, we’ll take a look at three emerging trends that all businesses need to be aware of in order to maximize their content marketing results.

Read on to learn some of the trends we are seeing this year:

Content Marketing Stats to Know

According to HubSpot and other sources, the way people are engaging in online content is pretty impressive. Take a look:

• Marketers say sales, web traffic, and social engagement are the most critical metrics for measuring the effectiveness of their content marketing strategy.
• 91% of businesses use video as a marketing tool.
• Instagram is used by 65% of social media marketers, just behind Facebook at 67%.
• Short articles/posts and videos are the top two content types that B2C marketers used in the last 12+ months.
• 22% of marketers say Instagram has the most growth potential in 2023 than any other platform.
• Gen Z ranked Instagram as their favorite social media app in 2022.
• 50% of Millennials trust product recommendations from influencers.
• 44% of marketers say the most significant benefit of working with small influencers is that it’s less expensive.
• Marketers who put an emphasis on blogging are 13x more likely to see a positive ROI from their efforts
• Websites that have a blog attract 55% more traffic (Quick Sprout)
• The rate at which videos are shared on social is 12x higher than image and text content combined (Small Business Trends)
• Using video helps marketers grow business revenue 49% faster than marketers not using video (Vidyard)
• Facebook users can recall a piece of content after being exposed to it for only 0.25 seconds (Facebook)
• 1.3% of all articles published online receive 75% of all social shares (Backlinko)
• B2B companies who blog consistently receive 67% more monthly leads than companies who don’t blog regularly (Demand Metric)
• 47% of B2B buyers consumed 3-5 pieces of content from a company before engaging with one of their sales reps (Demand Gen Report)
• The top 3 tactics that B2C marketers use as part of their content marketing strategy: social media content (94%), blogging (80%), and email newsletters (74%) (Content Marketing Institute)
• Content marketing is 3x more cost-effective at lead generation than paid search (Content Marketing Institute)

Content Marketing Trends to Watch

1. Short-form Video for the Win

Media uploads increased by 80% YoY in 2020, as consumers spent most of their time at home passing time by watching content. Consumers watched 12.2 billion minutes of video in 2020, equivalent to 23,211 years of content.

As a result of this changing consumer behavior, video is now the primary form of media used within any content strategy.

The videos you decide to create and the places you choose to share it can depend entirely on your individual business needs. Some businesses are opting for shorter-form videos on TikTok to raise brand awareness.

While just a few years ago, Wistia found that long-form video is becoming more popular, making way for extended video length, HubSpot says the short-form video has emerged as the leading trend in marketing in 2023, offering the highest return on investment and is poised for significant growth. A dominant 90% of marketers utilizing short-form videos plan to either increase or sustain their investment in it this year. Additionally, 21% of marketers are set to adopt short-form video strategies for the first time, indicating its increasing relevance and effectiveness in the current marketing landscape.

2. SEO Tactics that Drive Visibility

In 2023, SEO remains a vital component in content marketing, particularly for web content. Research shows that about one-third of marketers rely on websites for lead attraction and conversion, with most website traffic originating from search engines.

Among a diverse group of B2B and B2C marketers, SEO ranks fourth in return on investment. This year, a significant 88% of these marketers intend to either increase or maintain their SEO investment, with even higher trends observed in B2B sectors. However, the landscape of SEO is evolving, particularly with AI advancements. Google plans to introduce Search Generative Experiences by 2024, focusing on rewarding sites that offer original content rich in expertise and insights over generic AI-generated content.

A survey involving over 600 bloggers and SEO professionals revealed that 75% anticipate these changes to enhance search experiences and increase platform usage. Moreover, 68% believe it will boost site traffic. Despite these optimistic views, there are concerns about potential declines in search traffic and visibility due to uncertainties in how Google’s generated search summaries will reference the sourced content.

Businesses are looking for a way to simply appear in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) and create in-depth content that is unique, valuable, and different from what competitors offer on those same result pages. 

3. Relatable Social Media Content

In 2023, relatable content is set to rise in prominence, with 46% of social media marketers using it for the first time. Among existing users, 49% are increasing their investment, while 43% will continue investing at their current levels. Furthermore, humorous content is receiving the second-highest investment among content types, with 33% of marketers planning to introduce it in their strategies next year.

Influencers, known for their relatable and humorous content, play a key role in tapping into audience preferences and trends.

Regarding reaching Gen Z, social media stands as the most effective channel. An impressive 93% of Gen Z spend about four hours daily on social media, with 57% discovering new products there in the last three months. Additionally, 28% of Gen Z consumers have made purchases through social media apps. YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok are the top platforms among this demographic.

Leverage Trends

Trends are always changing. Your industry is always changing. Staying on top of trends is what we do best. Should you choose to leverage one of these tactics in your marketing strategy, contact Advent Trinity Marketing Agency to get started.

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By Leslie Radford

**Updated November 2023