As 2020 is fast approach­ing, we can see the enor­mous impact that dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing has had. And with con­tent mar­ket­ing, It’s a proven strat­e­gy that can work won­ders for any brand. By using con­tent mar­ket­ing, you’re improv­ing and strength­en­ing your cus­tomers’ rela­tion­ship with your business.

Here are the content marketing trends to watch out in 2020:

1. Social Media is Here to Stay

Accord­ing to Social­Times, social media mar­ket­ing bud­gets are set to dou­ble with­in the next five years. Near­ly two-thirds of glob­al Inter­net users research prod­ucts online pri­or to pur­chase and much of that traf­fic moves through social media channels.

It is amaz­ing to take a step back and look at the devel­op­ment of mobile devices over the past 10 years. What start­ed with large phones and chunky PDAs, have become smart, advanced tools that prac­ti­cal­ly help us with every­day tasks. As a result, more and more peo­ple move from wired com­put­ers to mobile devices which increas­es social media activ­i­ty and on-the-go con­nec­tiv­i­ty. It is dif­fi­cult to believe that social media will soon dis­ap­pear unless you think that mobile devices are a fad. Online net­works bring peo­ple togeth­er, allow­ing brands to pro­mote word of mouth when it comes to pur­chas­ing prod­ucts and services.

2. Video Content Takes the Center Stage

When learn­ing about new prod­ucts and ser­vices, most peo­ple pre­fer video over any oth­er form of content.

80% of peo­ple claim that when they check items to pur­chase, they usu­al­ly switch between an online search and video descrip­tions. More than 50% say that online video helped them deter­mine which spe­cif­ic brand or item to buy, and over 55% say they watch online videos while shopping.

Over the past few years, apart from blog posts, video con­tent has been the go-to con­tent for brands to make. Of course, with qual­i­ty sto­ry­telling, it helps brands con­vert audi­ences to cus­tomers. Video is becom­ing a non-nego­tiable way of con­nect­ing with audi­ences, as a way to tell a brand’s sto­ry, relate to them in a tru­ly organ­ic way, and pro­vide real solu­tions to help them in their dai­ly lives.

Video Content Takes the Center Stage

3. Voice Technology

We cur­rent­ly find our­selves inter­act­ing with Bix­by, Alexa, and Siri. This new tech trend can already be acknowl­edged as a major shift in the dig­i­tal world. As voice con­trol becomes a part of things we use every day like our phones, it becomes the new “norm.” The pos­si­bil­i­ties for the future of voice tech­nol­o­gy are end­less, and at the moment one thing is clear: voice search is tak­ing off among us. As a result, a major­i­ty of devices are now being opti­mized for voice search. What does this mean for con­tent mar­ket­ing? It means it’s now time for busi­ness­es to adopt and incor­po­rate voice search on their inter­faces, plat­forms, and web­sites to keep up with the competition.

4. Augmented Reality

Aug­ment­ed Real­i­ty (AR) is one of the biggest tech­nol­o­gy trends and will expand more as smart­phones and oth­er AR ready devices become more avail­able. Have you played Poke­mon Go? How about Snapchat lens­es? That’s AR technology.

It is viable par­tic­u­lar when it comes to con­tent mar­ket­ing. Accord­ing to Con­vince and Con­vert, By 2022, there will be a pro­ject­ed 3.5B mobile aug­ment­ed real­i­ty (AR) users world­wide (44% of the pop­u­la­tion) and pro­ject­ed rev­enues near $15B gen­er­at­ed by AR ads in social media. Aug­ment­ed real­i­ty con­tent mar­ket­ing pro­vides an audi­ence with a more immer­sive expe­ri­ence, mak­ing it worth your time. It also enables you to pro­vide the infor­ma­tion your audi­ence needs, mak­ing it a par­tic­u­lar­ly use­ful form of con­tent marketing.

For exam­ple: IKEA has an app called IKEA Place, which gives users an idea of how a piece of IKEA fur­ni­ture will look in their home. It’s like “try before you buy”.

Busi­ness­es who want to remain vis­i­ble to con­sumers in the com­ing years will have to find a way to incor­po­rate any of the trends above into their dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing strate­gies to be on top of their game and sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase KPIs.

SOURCE: Business2Community