Content marketing trends that should gain prominence post Google’s broad core update in June 2019

Updates are nothing new to online marketers but that the Google 2019 core update has caused an upheaval of sorts is due to its unprecedented impact on rankings. Similar broad core updates happen several times a year, and some are focused on the specific behavior of users that tend to have significant effects on search rankings like the Google Panda and Penguin updates. But you must be able to distinguish between the more targeted updates and the other broad core updates that are more of a general clean up like the June 2019 core update. Usually, core update means a general cleansing exercise that can cause slight fluctuations in ranking, but the problem is that we do not know the factors that affect the sites and cause any dip in ranking.

Core updates have always remained a mystery, and the one that happened in June 2019 has surpassed all previous records in its impact because several top-notch sites have not only lost rankings significantly but also do not know how to recover from it. Google has foretold that drops and gains in ranking will happen, but there is no remedy known till now for sites that have tumbled in the ranking.

Well, Google updates have always been mysterious, and in the absence of any information and actionable advice from Google, it is up to the people to figure out the possible ways of recovering from a setback. However, gathering information from various communications of Google, one thing becomes apparent that websites must continue to offer the best content to users, which can help them to assuage the situation and regain some lost ground.

In a nutshell, content marketing becomes most important for any internet marketing agency, and in this article, we will discuss the trends that are likely to emerge and become part of the practices.

Stay authentic and transparent

Quality of content rules supreme, and you must create authentic content that reflects your brand’s voice together with the mission of your company and the value you convey to your target audience. Failing to do so would be as good as not creating any content at all. For the majority of consumers (86%), authenticity is a crucial differentiator during purchasing decisions. Companies that promise and demonstrate transparency generate more customer loyalty, and consumers are even willing to pay more for buying the products.

The purpose of content marketing has never been to sell products but to provide information to consumers that are useful and valuable for them. The information might help educate and entertain the audience, which might be useful in some other ways too. Your endeavor to convey value to the audience will bear the marks of authenticity and transparency in your content that generates trust for the brand.

Personally relevant content

Consumers are keen to consume content that is relevant to them at a personal level, and it becomes a determining factor when making purchasing decisions. A study shows that by serving personalized content, it is possible to enhance consumer spending by 500% and on the contrary, lack of personalization can reduce engagement rates by 83%.

Content marketing trends that should gain prominence post Google’s broad core update

Another key differentiator is the interactivity level of content that creates two-way communication with the audience and improves engagement. Interactive content becomes a distinguishable mark that helps the audience to relate the content quickly to the brand. Such content creates higher credibility among the audience and enhances the trust level. The better you are in figuring out ways of creating personalized content, the better would be the audience interaction with the brand.

Co-create content with Micro-influencers

You can look around for micro-influencers that could be from your current customers or employees of your company who can become your brand advocates. It is a misconception about micro-influencer marketing that you need celebrities to endorse your brand. You can partner with the micro-influencers and even go to the extent of co-creating content, asking them to post content on your platform that you can use as evergreen posts that last a long time. You can find influencers that work for medium and small brands which can help launch influencer marketing strategies and programs. Relationships matter the most in influencer marketing, and you must nurture the relationships developed with micro-influencers to sustain it for long term gains with mutual benefit instead of just focusing on short term success defined by content going viral.

Involve more people in content creation

Content creation requires the involvement of all people in your organization who can contribute with their inputs instead of depending on the marketing people only. Everyone at every level in your organization can contribute to content creation in their own ways right from the CEO to the ground level employee. Different people in your organization engage with your customers in different ways and should be able to provide different perspectives about their expectations and needs in terms of content that they would like. Since different people in your organization play a different role in the operations of the company, their understanding of the values that the company provides is also unique. Collating these points should help to infuse new ideas in content creation for conveying the right values of the company and brand to consumers.

Test new formats

The audience taste and likes change very fast, and you must create content in the most presentable format that increases the attraction. For example, presenting video content holds an edge over text content, and using podcast has been quite popular due to its wide acceptance. Therefore, you must try out new formats and mediums to gain mileage in bonding with the audience. If you are comfortable with long-form content, you can try to do it better by using infographics. You can also think about bite-size formats like stories of Twitter and Facebook.

Create your content strategy by knowing your audience well so that you avoid the trap of trying out new formats just for the sake of it. And as soon as you find something not working, be ready to ditch it immediately to try out something else.

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Eva Vergis


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