Will 2018 be the death of your content?
Content is King a term we've all become aware of over the last few years. However, only 30% of B2B marketers say their organisations are effective at content marketing. There are many reasons for this; from being too inward focused and not aligning to personas, not being authentic through to not measuring and reporting adequately, to internal teams working in silos.
So, will 2018 see the death of your content? Unfortunately, the answer may very well be 'yes' despite 70% of marketers creating more content than a year ago. Just because we're creating more content does not mean it's necessarily better. There are two imminent changes that marketing teams need to take note of:
The first is legislative in the form of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which has businesses panicking about compliance from 25th May 2018. Rightfully so. However, whilst businesses are focusing on meeting compliance there seems to be a distinct lack of focus on the importance content will have. It won’t be enough to produce content in the same way it always has been. A shift in approach is required. For those businesses/teams producing content in the same way despite seeing diminishing results, things will only get more difficult post GDPR. This will be amplified when there is a cassum size drop-off of MQLs going through to Sales teams.
The second change is aligned to Mark Zuckerberg's recent announcement that sees Facebook trying to get back to where it originally intended to be, and away from brands pumping content into it. Facebook will “prioritize posts that spark conversations and meaningful interactions between people” and to “prioritize posts from friends and family over public content.” Whilst Facebook is not the only channel in town for audience engagement and may not even be a channel you need to use; one thing is for certain other channels will up their game to keep pace to ensure their audiences are kept happy.
To avoid the death the King in 2018 and brands becoming Marketing Paupers, we have to up our game and dare to do things differently to stay relevant with the Emperors that are the audience. I'd be interested to learn how you intend to navigate 2018 with your content strategy.
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About the author: I am not and nor do I proclaim to be an award-winning author, however my blogs are developed from real experiences within Marketing. My aim is to share with and hopefully support others in their quest for Marketing excellence. If you find the blogs useful please follow me on LinkedIn and or on Twitter @ChrisHorley.