Content Marketing: What’s Hot, What’s Not, and What to Do About It

By Mitali Purkait Ghosh on January 11, 2024

The perpetually evolving content marketing trends present a humongous burden for content marketers. For small businesses, the fear of lagging behind the trends can be even more frustrating.

Another insight that is leaving marketers perplexed is the domination of AI. For some, it’s like “Shall we even think about the top SEO trends”? Well, you will indeed find a lot of mentions about AI but that is not all. The predictions for the coming year are also likely to address various other segments in this industry. Now what are they?

Let us begin with the content marketing forecast, and the top content marketing trends and challenges before you hire a digital marketing agency to strategize your content marketing lifecycle.

1. Hype about AI

A couple of years ago, we were surrounded by all the hype related to AI and most of us were deeply involved in figuring out the AI tools and which one of them would benefit us. It is expected that the current and upcoming years would be about integrating AI tools for different content marketing methodologies. For instance, the experts working for offshore SEO services may rely on those methodologies for real-time content. Experts have stated humans will only be involved in creative thinking and then switch to AI to implement it across marketing channels and campaigns.

A majority of companies think that they can cut down on hiring human writers and create content on AI. So, the upcoming years will be a crucial time to watch what will happen in content creation. However, another group of experts state that this strategy will soon fall out as customers will no longer respond to the same content as the previous times. So, in the end, human content creators are expected to be more valuable.

2. More demand for podcasts

If you follow the trends of previous years before pouring into the key SEO trends, podcasts are going to be a popular choice for users. Recent statistics reveal that more and more people are going to listen to podcasts, close to over 500 million people by the end of 2024. Naturally, content marketers will incorporate this strategy as podcasts present a unique way of connecting with the audience. Typically, it serves as a trusted platform for building positive relationships with customers, enhancing brand visibility, promoting sales, and establishing the authority of the brand.

3. Relying on user-generated content

One of the latest SEO trends identifies UGC as one of the most promising strategies for marketing content. Here is how:

• Hashtag campaigns are those that ask the audience to share their stories and let the marketers what people think about them.
• Checking the user ratings and reviews is going to be of prime importance. Companies need to respond to positive and negative reviews with equal fervor. With reviews, you can build trust gradually and motivate new customers to purchase your products and services.
• Invite your audience to share stories, reviews, videos, and photos that are related to their experience with your products and services. That way, you can get authentic content from real users.

4. Integration with social platforms

Slowly, the integration with social media platforms will no longer be an option for content marketers. Discuss with a white label SEO agency in India to find out which are the preferred ones to be included in the campaigns. Here they are:

• Twitch

With live streaming platforms like Twitch that are gaining relevance and popularity, it may be worth exploring options if your brand has products that you want to showcase through live streaming. That way, it will be easier to engage users in real-time and build a large fan base.

• Discord

Discord is a messaging platform that young adults and teens are more familiar with. Through this platform, you can build brand loyalty and an entire community. Wondering how? Allow the followers to participate in Q&A sessions and special events to foster connections with them that are built to last.

• Reels on Instagram

With its popularity exploding, Instagram reels have caught up with Gen Z. The primary focus of the video content is capturing the funny and quirky moments. However, that is not just repurposing old content. Content needs to be specially created for reels to engage the audience in the real sense. Is it going to be the future of SEO? A lot needs to be watched through this year before you decide.

5. Creating fun and relevant content

One of the major obstacles that marketers face is content fatigue. The onslaught of information often leads to ignorance of what is more relevant and how to present the content. Fun and relatable content is gradually gaining momentum like memes to reveal the pain points of customers. Some of the relatable content that is funny as well are comic strips, funny videos, and games.

6. Long form Content

In the current era where the average attention span for social media users is about 8.25 seconds, long form content remians relatable to users searching for solutions or gaining knowledge.

This means in-depth guides, 2,000-word blog posts, and even long form videos are still crucial, as they help establish brand authority, and also drive significant organic traffic. Especially when it comes to B2B marketers, long-form content becomes one of the primary tools that help nurture leads, and serves as a useful source of information. However, any long form content, whether it’s a blog, or a YouTube video, has to be interactive to retain user attention!

7. Collaboration with Influencers

Currently, influencer collaboration stands as one of the most effective marketing and digital marketing trends. The reason?

When brands collaborate with influencers, they are actually partnering with entities who have an already-engaged audience base. But how does this help?

Well, traditional advertising formats might just struggle to reach a highly-niche audience. However, collaborating with influencers helps brands to effectively tap onto the market of this niche audience, in a personalized, and authentic way. This way, the brand’s products/ services feel like a genuine recommendation to the users instead of forced promotions.

8. Repurposing Content

By definition, content repurposing is “the practice of reusing all or elements of existing content in order to expand that content’s reach.”

What this means is, if you have an existing 1200-word blog post, or a 15-minute long video, you can transform those into infographics, short reels, multiple social media posts, etc., respectively, and share it to gain a wider outreach.

This approach helps save a lot of time, and money because you’re basically taking information from the existing, original blog posts, breaking it into bite-sized chunks, and sharing them across different platforms in variable formats!

9. Content Automation and Orchestration

The toughest part of content marketing is streamlining the entire content process, right from ideation, to creation, to publication. That’s why there exists a myriad of tools to keep up with this complex process.

However, using an array of tools disrupts efficient instead of enahncing it! That’s the reason why content orchestration plays a crucial role here.

In simple words, content orchestration is about integrating automation within your workflow to streamline the entire process. You can easily use orchetration to automate repetitive tasks like tags, and content publication. This helps free-up your time for creative tasks like content ideation.

No matter what the future SEO trends are going to be, you need marketing experts to propagate your marketing campaigns. Businesses may go on for the segmentation of their customers and stay on the edge of the latest trends. Content marketers who are adaptable to change and are flexible are likely to stay ahead of the curve.

Mitali Purkait Ghosh

Mitali Purkait Ghosh, the Co-Founder of Digital Concepts, brings a wealth of knowledge and innovation to the marketing sphere. Mitali and her dedicated team offer unparalleled expertise in digital marketing and content writing, among other key online strategies.