1. THE TOP 10 CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS FOR 2020. www.churchavs.com User Generated Content (UGC) 1` According to Convince and Convert, “85 percent of consumers find UGC more influential than brand content.” According to Tintup, “User-generated content, or UGC for short, is any content that has been created and published by unpaid contributors. Often, those contributors are fans who promote a brand instead of the brand promoting itself. UGC can be content of any type, including blogs, website pages, images, social media posts and testimonials.” 2 According to Core DNA, “The modern consumer increasingly expects to receive video content from their favorite brands, and video keeps audiences engaged longer than any other type of content. Live-stream audiences continue to grow as well, with 80 percent of respondents to a Livestream survey saying they’d rather watch live video than read a blog post. Video content encourages your audience to spend time and engage with your brand. Search Engine Journal reports, “In 2018, 85 percent of internet users in the U.S. watched video content monthly on any of their devices.” Video Content Creation 3 According to Forbes, “When it comes to digital marketing, quality trumps quantity and makes your brand more personable in the long run. We live in the age of transparency, and consumers crave authenticity.” Consistency and quality are the pillars of any successful original content. If you post too much you can easily overwhelm your audience. Quality Over Quantity 4 Among the next generation of soon-to-be-adults, visual social media reigns supreme. Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat are the most popular platforms where teens hang out, while for adults, YouTube is the most-used platform, topping even Facebook. To utilize this content marketing trend, create and share interesting graphics that will captivate your audience. Your audience will be exposed to endless feeds of social media posts, so make sure your posts stand out from the crowd. Visuals 5 You can create the best content in the world, but if you don’t share it and optimize it, it may go to waste. Make your content work for you! Share your content on all your platforms but stagger it out and introduce it diferently so your audience doesn’t get the same content twice. Utilizing Your Content Creations 6 Statista reports, that the number of podcast listeners has tri- pled within the last decade and this number is projected to con- tinue growing as time goes on. This could be the perfect time to start a branded podcast for your brand; what are you waiting for? Podcasting While some podcasts cover broad topics, it is better for your brand to focus on one. This can contribute to niche marketing and help your brand establish its credibility within your field of expertise. 7 According to MarTechAdvisor, “With everything in business being data-driven today, can creativity and storytelling be far behind? Whether it is the use of data to execute a creative ‘big idea’ in an un- expected but efective way; or whether it’s the more widespread use of data to personalize content or ofers, data’s place in the cre- ative process is here to stay. ‘Data + technology + great storytelling’ has come to form a powerful engine that are taking brands into new territory with both relevance, personalization, and creativity.” Data-Driven Content Identify the content that your audience engages with most and create more of that type of content. 8 Smart devices have taken hold of the marketplace, so it only makes sense to capitalize on this with content marketing. The latest smart audio report from NPR and Edison Research estimates that there are now nearly 120 million smart speakers in U.S. homes, representing 78 percent year-over-year growth. Voice Device Content To utilize this trend, think about how your audience would search for your content using voice search. Secondly, by looking into the voice queries your audience members conduct, you’ll gain even more insight into the type of information and content they’re looking for. This, in turn, can help you not only tailor your existing content for voice-SEO but also inform your future content-creation initiatives, overall.” 9 According to Core DNA, “Your audience doesn’t want to receive the exact same collection of content that all of your other customers are getting. Rather, the individual consumer wants to receive content tailored specifically to their interests and needs with regard to your brand.” Personal Content The goal of dynamic personalized content creation is to deliver exactly what a consumer is looking for; this encourages them to take more steps to engage with your brand further. Thanks to marketing automation, personalized content isn’t as difcult to deliver as it used to be. 10 You can build up your topical authority through strategic content creation. As Core DNA states, “Google considers the context of a given page within the entire site. In a sense, Google now assesses the holistic value of a web page and website from the perspective of the individual searcher.” Topic Focused You can build up your topical authority through strategic content creation – specifically by creating various posts about one certain topic. SOURCE https://www.business2community.com/content-marketing/top-10-content-marketing-trends-to-watch-for-in-2020-02272085