The Internet has drastically altered the way in which information
is shared, and has had a profound impact on marketing. Over the past few years,
there has been more of a shift toward inbound techniques, while many outbound
tactics have become antiquated. More businesses are finding success publishing
original content rather than embedding advertisements within external content,
because of the additional benefits these tactics offer, such as branding and
audience growth.
With these trends in mind, let’s discuss my predictions for the top online
marketing trends of 2014.
1.
Content Marketing Will be Bigger Than Ever
One of the main ways that companies are establishing authority and gaining
trust with consumers is by consistently creating valuable content through a
variety of channels. This typically involves relevant industry information that
provides insight or entertainment to an audience. Doing so allows a company to
steadily build rapport with its demographic and develop a loyal following.
According to many top
SEO Experts, the top B2B content marketing strategies are social
media, articles on a business’s website, eNewsletters, case studies, videos and
articles on other websites.
By using one or more of these channels, businesses are able to build a
positive reputation within their industry. This trend suggests that marketing
to the masses through techniques like television ads and radio ads are becoming
less effective. Instead, it’s better to concentrate on inbound marketing, by
producing valuable, engaging content designed for a specific audience.
2. Social Media Marketing Will Require
More Diversity
Just a few years ago, businesses were limited with regard to the social
media networks they could implement into their marketing campaigns, with the
biggies including Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Now, it seems like new social
media sites are appearing all the time. While some never really get off the
ground, others like Pinterest, Google+, Tumblr and Instagram have surged in
popularity and have provided businesses with a plethora of new options that
allow them to produce engaging content in a variety of media forms and build
their audiences across more channels than ever before.
Consequently, it has become common for businesses to branch out and
experiment with multiple networks with the aim of reaching the maximum amount
of consumers. This diversification seems to prove fruitful for many companies
because it often builds brand equity by making it easier for consumers to
recognize a particular brand.
3. Image-Centric Content Will Rule
As consumers are hit with an increasing number of advertisements, it’s
becoming more important to make content easily and quickly digestible. If you
look at the social media sites I mentioned previously that are on the rise,
three of the four have a common characteristic…they place an emphasis on
images. The rapid rise to success of Buzzfeed
and Pinterest are testaments to the
power and viral potential of image-based content.
Successful blog posts that receive the most social shares also usually have
a common characteristic: they pepper in some well-placed pictures to break
content up and emphasize certain points. Another example is infographics, which
combine images with a minimal amount of text to explain a topic and provide
statistical information or data from research studies.
While I doubt that traditional text-based content will ever completely go
out of style, it’s pretty clear that incorporating images is beneficial to a
marketing campaign.
For more information about using Image-based social media networks in your
online marketing initiative, I recommend the following articles:
4
. Mobile-Friendly Content Will Be
Necessary
Due to the widespread (and quickly growing) use of smartphones and tablets,
it’s necessary for companies to create content that’s accessible to mobile
users. According to Forbes,
“87% of connected devices sales by 2017 will be tablets and smartphones.”
Whether it’s creating an alternate mobile version of a website or utilizing
responsive web design, it’s important to provide a positive experience to
users that are browsing via a mobile device.
Otherwise, it’s easy to lose customers to competitors who have adapted to
this trend. As the shift from traditional PCs and laptops to mobile devices
continues, businesses that aren’t onboard are likely to suffer.
5. SEO and Social Signals Will Become
Even More Intertwined
Although social signals still don’t typically carry the same weight as
traditional inbound links, it’s pretty undeniable that they play a
role in organic search rankings these days. After all, they’re one of the three
pillars of
SEO. Since the goal of Google and other search engines is to
provide users with the most relevant and highest quality content possible, it
makes sense why they would factor in the number of social shares that a blog
post, article or product page receives.
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Amongst the toolkit is the Fetch as Google option, which also gives
users an opportunity to submit their URL to the index. Surprisingly,
this tool is often under-utilized by bloggers, webmasters, and SEO strategists. This is a convenient way to speed things up considerably if
you have new content that you'd like to be discovered and found in the
SERPs.
