2016 Content Marketing

Predictions  Curated by Randy Ksar VP, Digital @djksar Voce Communications

From the Experts

We asked the top content marketing experts their 2016 predictions and this is what they said:

Jeremy Kaplan @smashdawg Editor in Chief Digital Trends Smart Publishers Will be Transparent to Readers “It's only a matter of time until digital gets wiser about integrating brand messages more deeply into content. The same sort of integration we see in TV and the movies? We fret about sponsored content and branded content, but next year I bet it will be even less visible to the end user – which means the smart publisher will need to be very careful and VERY transparent to readers.”

Lucas Mast @sneakrz VP, Corporate Social Media Visa

Employees Will be Key to Content Amplification “Employees are going to be an important part of every company's content amplification strategy in 2016. When an employee shares their company’s content with friends, family, and their professional network, you tap into an amazing set of evangelists that can reach new and important audiences."

Julie Zisman @juliezisman Head of Marketing LittleBird Brands Will Mine Contextual Social Data Cues “Brand activation for influencer marketing will become highly dependent on corporate goals and will vary greatly between B2B to B2C businesses. Marketers will definitely come to see that it is more than an extended paid media strategy. Corporate teams will find both execution and research components to influencer marketing that have equal value including the ability to build social campaigns through contextual segmentation. Companies that take advantage of information discovered through authentically built influencer relationships and mine contextual social data cues will gain a significant competitive edge.”

Dennis Shiao @dshiao Director of Content Marketing DNN New Analytics Tools Priced for the Mid-Sized Business “It’s important for content marketers to tie their efforts to results. For instance, we use Google Analytics, marketing automation and CRM to measure the effectiveness of our blog posts and eBooks. In 2016, we’ll have more tools to tie every content asset to revenue. Yes, we’ll know the revenue impact of each blog post we publish. But buyer beware: some tools can cost you an arm and a leg. Sure, they’ll promise you many other capabilities, but a tool costing $50,000 per year just placed a dent in your content marketing ROI.” While high-end tools will sell into the Fortune 500, the ones we’ll be talking about at the end of 2016 will be priced right for mid-sized businesses.”

Eric Vidal @EricVMarketing Editor & Chief Content Officer The Marketing Scope Customers Will be the Stars “If you want to engage with millennials, video is a must-have marketing tactic; they prefer to find entertainment and education on YouTube over conventional channels like television. Snapchat, YouTube, gifs, Vine, and more are being consumed at a rapid rate. Streaming video takes this to the next level, and platforms like Periscope and Blab have put interactive live video into the hands of anyone with a smartphone. The next year will see video continue to shine and streaming move to the forefront of marketing, with innovative new campaigns that allow consumers to be the stars. We will see more of this from B2C brands over B2B brands.”

Jason Miller @JasonMillerCA Group Manager, Content Marketing LinkedIn Marketing Solutions Focus on Shorter Anecdotes “I think marketers are going to move away from trying to tell grandiose stories and instead focus on shorter anecdotes. With declining attention spans, shrinking budgets, and increased competition in the feed, I think a move towards helpful, informative, inspiring anecdotes will be the way forward. Think of it like this; if an author writes a biography they only get one shot and it's a huge endeavor, but if they write a memoir to reflect on a point in time, this can be scaled. Focusing only on storytelling in a traditional sense can get a marketer stuck in a vicious circle of beginning, middle and end. That approach inevitably begs the question, why does there have to be an end?”

Richard Brewer-Hay @ESBAle Senior Manager, Social Media Splunk Inc. Cross-Department Efforts Will Increase “The lines are already blurring within traditional hub-and-spoke models for brands and this will only increase further in 2016. Companies are exploring the convergence of in-depth written and visual content within interactive video and blog posts and already seeing how users are seamlessly interacting with video on the web on their own terms; accessing additional information when they want it. For organizations this means a commitment to cross-departmental efforts by the PR, product, social, creative and marketing communications teams – all working together as one.

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