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As technology and your audience’s interests change, your content marketing needs to change, too. Especially after the events of 2020, we can expect significant changes in how people communicate and how businesses create content and marketing strategies that reflect people’s needs.
Here are the top content marketing trends you should be aware of in 2021. When you’re in touch with important trends, you can develop strategies and leverage tools to connect with your audience better.
1. Using AI to support copywriting
At the moment, Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools that can create great copy are underway but not commonplace. Yet. But today, it is possible to use AI to support copywriting and content writing activities.
For example, Grammarly is one of the best-recognized tools, which more than 30 million people use today. It carries out grammar and spelling checks. And it can detect ‘tones’ in content to tell you if your post sounds friendly, professional, negative, or highlights other emotions.
Other AI tools to support copywriting include headline and subject-line analyzers, as well as tools that generate titles and topics based on a keyword.
You still want to work with human writers, but consider supporting your writing work with AI tools. Learning if your content is readable and SEO-friendly can help with productivity and improve the impact of your content.
2. Focus on community
In a world where people can find a number of solutions to meet their needs, you have to rely on personal connections to make a meaningful impact in your audience’s minds.
To do this, businesses need to take community-building very seriously. Here are practical ways to create a group of engaged members around your brand:
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You can build an online membership site that users can access by logging in. Discussions and content shared here are not visible to the public, which creates exclusivity.
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Use social media groups to get more followers and group members. This is a free option you can use to create a community around your brand. Facebook Groups and LinkedIn Groups are examples of free platforms.
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Leverage messaging platforms that let you make groups. Today, small businesses use such groups to drive conversations and help their group members.
As we shift our focus towards community building, we also shift toward new ways of making content. Also, the rise of new platforms changes how we communicate. The following points explore these two changes more.
3. New visual formats for new platforms
Mobile smartphones are the primary devices through which people interact with each other and businesses. Mobile devices have also seen new social media platforms like TikTok grow quickly.
Communication today, needs to be more visual because of these changes.
Short videos lasting less than a minute are the norm. The use of interactive elements like polls, gifs and other elements is also helpful to build engagement.
Consider adding emojis to your email marketing subject lines. Using more visual elements in all your marketing (within reason) can boost your engagement rates.
4. Live videos are the norm
Driven by the pandemic, live videos in the form of webinars have replaced real-life meetings. Live videos are also popular on social media. Virtually all social media platforms have a live streaming option you can use right from your account.
The use of live videos to communicate won’t change for a while. So, it’s important to get proactive and make live video content a more frequent part of your content strategy.
Holding webinars and using Facebook live videos are a few ways to also engage your community.
Think up topics, maintain agendas and invite your community to ask questions. With live video content, you’ll add a face to your business and create a solid connection with your audience.
5. Focus on empathy and values
Big brands today aren’t afraid to focus on values in their marketing content, And today’s more-vocal audience prefers brands that stand up for inclusivity and important social issues.
Especially after the pandemic, it is critical for brands to highlight empathy and focus on helping their users. You can do this by making your content sound more like how we speak. By adding helpful resources to your website. And by sharing your business’s mission and values.
6. Use data better
Most businesses are sitting on substantial data but don’t know how to use it. That’s changing as data science and analytics is growing as a field. We have more tools providing insights based on raw data and businesses are investing in hiring data specialists to help uncover patterns that can lead to more purchases.
One way to leverage data is to personalize content with it. Samsung identified three major segments for its new Note10 phone: gamers, creators and entrepreneurs. Using insights from YouTube, it created 36 advertisements and targetted them toward its users.
In this way, ads didn’t disrupt a viewer’s experience of watching content but complemented it. Content may be king, but data should be the wise old advisor who speaks into the king’s ear.
Back to you
There are some of the key trends in content marketing for 2021. Improvements in technology, changes created by the pandemic, and the rise of new platforms in social media all influence how we make content.
In the end, your focus needs to be on giving customers what they want, like content that answers their needs. By considering your demographic and their needs, you’ll be able to create content in ways that get more attention and grows your business.
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