Content marketing trends, 2022

Content consumption trends in 2022 were driven in no small part by how we are collectively navigating life in a post-pandemic world.

For example, the number one format used by marketers this year was video and we saw short form video give the best outcome as far as engagement was concerned.

As the lines between work and home, digital and physical continue to blur (accelerated by the pandemic), video’s dominance as the primary medium consumed online continues to grow at pace.

But it’s not the only horse in the content race.

Value-driven content, AI/automated content creation and personalised content, are all having a moment.

Let’s explore…

Short form video

As attention spans continue to shrink and the appetite for more interactive customer experiences continues to grow, our ability to generate impactful short-form video at scale is more important than ever.

Something we need to keep our eye on here is that the 2021 Australian Census shows us that millennials (aged 25 – 38) are overtaking boomers (56 – 74) in Australia population wise. The 2021 Census shows Millennials overtaking Boomers | Australian Bureau of Statistics

That means, 21.5% of the population are millennials and a further 18% are Gen Z (aged 10 – 24).

The dominance of boomers is over, with younger generations’ content consumption preferences demanding more and more of our output and budgets.

 

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Value-driven content 

Value-driven content is not necessarily about consumers giving us their email in exchange for an ebook (although that can be part of it).

It’s about providing your audience with something they can’t easily find elsewhere, something unique or exclusive to the organisation producing it.

At its heart, value driven content should span ALL content we produce. After all, if we’re not being true to our brand values and focusing on our customers and how we can solve their problems, there’s something wrong.

Content marketing is the perfect way to showcase what we’re about as companies and individuals AND focus on what’s of value to our customers beyond our product.

And it’s expected that we speak with them in authentic and relevant ways.

If they’re delighted every time they interact with us, they’re more likely to be a higher value prospect over a longer period of time.

Listen to what your audience is telling you through how they engage with your brand online. You might have an extremely popular blog post that you can expand into an ebook or multipart series for example. Allowing you to go deeper on a topic that is highly relevant to the people engaging with you online.

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AI content creation

Some are predicting as much as 90 percent of content online will be generated by AI by 2026.

With so much attention around systems like Dall-E and GPT-3 it can be confusing for marketers to look beyond the hype.

AI or synthetic content creation is using software to generate content from human input.

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What does that mean for us?

Right now, although it’s interesting to think about the potential increased affordability and scalability of producing written SEO content using AI, it’s not going to be an option for widespread use in the near future.

In fact, in April 2022, Google went on the record saying that AI-generated content went against Google’s webmaster guidelines.

Put another way, it’s considered spam.

So although AI-generated content is most definitely here, if content is not deemed ‘by humans for humans’ by Google, you’re better off not using it.

That’s not to say there isn’t a place for AI tools in the writing process.

They can help with ideation, story structure, tone of voice and much, much more.

Personalised content

When we use data to tailor content to an individual’s or group’s preferences, that’s personalised content.

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What does that look like?

It could be an email sent to a segmented list with messaging tailored to the recipients’ previous interactions with your brand. Or, it could be dynamic website content – where different cohorts are shown a different version of your website depending on which industry they work in.

If you break your audience into behaviours and segments, you can personalise any number of different touch points on the user journey.

Why do we do it?

First and foremost it’s a better experience for the audience.

There are also numerous benefits for businesses ranging from improved customer loyalty through to increased conversions.

How will the mix of content you’re using within your marketing strategy change in 2023?

If you need help with your content marketing strategy or producing killer content for your audience, contact us today.

Grow with us.