What’s Trending: The Most Popular Marketing Content in 2021

The last year was a mix of the strange and familiar, as normalcy always seemed right around the corner but never quite materialized. Marketers who shifted their focus and priorities in 2020 had to stay flexible to meet ever-changing audience demands. 

Fortunately, there was no shortage of great advice from marketers with years of practical experience. Even better, that advice was free and available to anyone with a hunger for knowledge. Every two weeks for the past year, we rounded up a collection of most shared articles for our What’s Trending series.

To wrap up the year, let’s take a bigger view: Which articles were liked and shared most throughout the year? What did marketers find valuable enough to pass on to their peers? 

Here are ten top performers, each from a different site, each with a wealth of information to help kick off your 2022.

What Marketers Were Reading and Sharing Most This Year

1. B2B Content Marketing Insights for 2022 (CMI)

Content marketers await the Content Marketing Institute’s annual report with much anticipation, and for good reason. It serves as a snapshot for the current state of the industry (and a guide to what comes next). This article from Stephanie Stahl collects the key takeaways from the longer report.

This year, the report brought good news: Marketers reported their budgets were expected to increase in 2022. New for this year was an open-ended survey question about the impact of the pandemic. Not surprisingly, marketers said the crisis necessitated more empathy and compassion in their content — which is never a bad thing to have more of.

Related Reading: 4 Key Revelations from the Edelman-LinkedIn 2021 B2B Thought Leadership Impact Study

2. 8 Inclusive Advertising Tips for 2021 (HubSpot)

Does your content reflect the diversity of your audience? If not, you may be alienating potential buyers. Diversity, equity and inclusion are a moral imperative, of course, but they’re also directly tied to business goals. A diverse workforce will be better at reaching a diverse audience and less likely to leave out voices that should be represented.

This article from MJ DePalma pulls tips from Microsoft’s Marketing with Purpose Playbook to help marketers go beyond simple representation all the way to compassion and inclusion. It’s a long read with plenty of in-depth advice. You can see MJ talk more about the playbook on this previous Live With Marketers:

Related Reading: Finding Diverse Visuals for Your Marketing Content: Tips & Resources

3. How to Write an Irresistible Headline in 3 Easy Steps (ahrefs)

This post was an absolute phenomenon this year, racking up thousands of shares and engagements. It turns out that even though content marketing is a mature discipline now, marketers are still struggling to hook readers with a killer headline. 

Author Brett G. Friedman digs into his “three easy steps,” walking the reader through the details of picking the right format, finding an angle, and piquing readers’ interest.

Related Reading: 4 Tips for a Full-Funnel Content Marketing Strategy

4. Eight Must-Have Skills for an Expert Content Marketer (Entrepreneur)

The Great Shift that began during the pandemic continues to pick up speed, as more and more people seek out new career paths. This can be tricky for content marketers looking to hire additional help, since writing marketing content requires a skill set that not every writer has.

Content marketers need to be strategists, project managers and much more. This guide from Tracey Wallace can help make sure your next hire is ready to deliver the goods.

“A lot of content marketers are also fantastic copywriters, and the reverse is true too. A lot of expert copywriters are admirable content marketers. But, just because there is a crossover doesn’t mean the two are one in the same.”

Related Reading: Marketing’s Evolution: A Look at the Jobs and Training Skills in Highest Demand

5. How to Run a Content Audit (Neil Patel)

One side effect of increasing content marketing budgets is increasing how much content you produce t. Too much content can be a problem: it can affect your site’s search engine authority, make navigation confusing, and make it hard to get the most out of each piece.

Neil Patel tackles the problem in his trademark long-form, deep-dive fashion, offering a step-by-step guide to auditing and updating your content.

“It’s likely that your blog supports the top of the funnel. Blogs are a natural entry point for someone looking for a specific topic, to get a question answered, or to gain knowledge.”

Related Reading: Creating Content With Limited Resources: Strategies and Examples

6. Seven Tips for Developing Your Blog Keyword Strategy (Search Engine Journal)

SEO is always a moving target, as algorithms get more sophisticated and search engines redesign their results pages. As such, there’s always demand for content that explains the current state of SEO in easy-to-understand terms, preferably with actionable advice.

This piece from Corey Morris addresses SEO, but it also takes a broader look at how a blog’s purpose and business goals might change the keyword strategy. It’s a good reminder that SEO isn’t one-size-fits-all.

Related Reading: Do marketing strategies need new thinking for a post-pandemic world

7. How to Select Meaningful B2B SEO Keywords (Moz)

Speaking of SEO, moving targets and keywords: The modern art of the keyword has much more to do with audience and intent than with whichever word has the highest search volume. Moz has a proven track record of demystifying the most arcane SEO problems with comprehensive content, including this video and post from Cody McDaniel.

Cody’s longest section here is “Consider Intent,” which is worthy of the extra exploration. It’s a simple phrase that packs in a lot of strategy. 

Related Reading: How to talk the language of content ROI

8. How to Create a Human Connection with B2B Digital Marketing (Business2Community)

This past year, there was an impressive array of articles about making B2B marketing more human. Phrases like “B2Me” and “H2H” (human to human) popped up to describe the strange new phenomenon of treating B2B buyers like people.

This article from Rachel Cunningham is refreshingly free of buzzwords, though, and offers a unique take on the issue. One great tip you don’t hear often enough: Don’t over-personalize. Personalization in marketing is great, but there’s a line that’s easy to cross between friendly and intrusive.

"The best marketing campaigns don’t start with a statement about 'us.' It starts with a statement about the end-user or buyer. Instead of thinking about meeting your MQLs for the month or getting more visitors to your B2B website, consider what your prospect needs."

Related Reading: For Building Brand Trust, Here's Where Today's Marketers Should Focus

9. LinkedIn Retargeting for the B2B Marketer: The Updated Guide (Linear Design)

There was high demand for nuts-and-bolts guides this year — in fact, half of this list is in-depth how-to posts. This step-by-step from Ariana Harris collects everything you always wanted to know about LinkedIn Retargeting, from setting up conversion tracking to using Matched Audiences. 

Stick with the article all the way to step three for best practices that can make your retargeting more effective. 

Related Reading: Tips and Tricks for Creating Engaging Visual LinkedIn Ads

10. Organic LinkedIn Marketing: Proven Techniques for Marketers (Social Media Examiner)

SME has built a content empire on highly practical, long-form content for social media marketers. For this episode of his Social Media Marketing Podcast, SME founder Michael Stelzner interviews LinkedIn expert Michaela Alexis on best practices for organic marketing on LinkedIn.

Perhaps the most intriguing part of the conversation is Michaela’s take on the trends she’s seen in LinkedIn posting over the past few years. From shifting hashtags to more humor and personality, it’s a fascinating look at the evolution of the platform.

Recharge Your Marketing for 2022

We hope this look back at the top posts in our series can help you set the pace for a good 2022.

Meanwhile, to get more marketing advice for 2022 and beyond: Subscribe to the LinkedIn Marketing Solutions blog.