How do you think content marketing is going to change during 2016 and beyond?

[Paul Willocks]

I am currently doing some research work for a white paper I am working on that discusses content marketing and how it has changed over the years and how it is set to evolve going in to 2016 and beyond.

I am looking to get real feedback from people who use content marketing on a daily basis and I was hoping you guys could help by answering the following question:

How do you think content marketing is going to change during 2016 and beyond and what are your 3 most used method of promoting your content currently?

The white paper is going to be published and I will share on this thread when completed.

Thanks you in anticipation and I look forward to your feedback and hopefully the discussion(s) that will follow.

 

[Gregory007]

My 2 cents:

1. more quality less re-hashing of other peoples content.

top 3:
1. Influencers
2. PR
3. SEO

 

[Paul Willocks]

My 2 cents:

1. more quality less re-hashing of other peoples content.

top 3:
1. Influencers
2. PR
3. SEO

Hi Greg, thanks for your feedback. Can you let me know who you would consider to be influencers in the content marketing world?

 

[fisicx]

It's going to go the same way as syndication, article submission and guest blogging. It will overload and collapse under its own weight and Google will disavow everything.

This isn't because the methods are bad, it is just because every cheap jack spammer and $50 SEO expert will jump on the next bandwagon and spoil it for everyone. Same way it has always done.

I don't have a top 3 - I publish my own stuff and let others do the marketing for me. Tried and tested and still the best way to generate leads. This is also the best way to use SM.

 

[Paul Willocks]

It's going to go the same way as syndication, article submission and guest blogging. It will overload and collapse under its own weight and Google will disavow everything.

This isn't because the methods are bad, it is just because every cheap jack spammer and $50 SEO expert will jump on the next bandwagon and spoil it for everyone. Same way it has always done.

I don't have a top 3 - I publish my own stuff and let others do the marketing for me. Tried and tested and still the best way to generate leads. This is also the best way to use SM.

Great feedback and I agree with a lot of what you are saying. The saturation of the blogging world is having a massive knock on effect for those who take it seriously.

 

[fisicx]

Indeed. And it's nothing new. People have been pushing low quality junk for years. The more people use content marketing to promote their business the worse it gets. Which is why we have SM feeds that are full of promotions, offers, naff shares and other detritus. Just adding a 'like' button to a website perpetuates the myth that this sort if thing adds value. It doesn't.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

I feel that the search engines will have to base their results much more on their own gathered data like Analytics based upon users etc to rate sites rather than judging the content of the site

 

[harish9]

Content has more prior important right now,it has chances to increase its value but not decrease.

 

[ADNattan]

Hi Paul,

This might interest you - http://www.procopywriters.co.uk/2016/01/what-can-b2b-copywriters-expect-in-2016/

 

[fisicx]

Content distribution and SM sharing will push people into new platforms to escape the mass of marketed material. Neither are good marketing methods. Guest blogging will die, it will not stage a comeback because of the amount of junk churned out.

 

[UKSBD]

My prediction is Google will more aggressively remind the Publishers that the Content Marketers are using, that they are little different to the Blogs that guest posters were using a few years ago.

Just because that same Guest Blogger who was guest blogging on blogs 3 years ago, now calls himself a Content Marketer providing content for the likes of Huff post, etc. it doesn't make him any less of a link dropper.

The best way Google can deter this is to threaten the publishers and enforce the policy of links being nofollowed on advertorials and any content provided with the intention of getting links.

All that's really changed is the terminology

Guest Blogger = Content Marketer
Blog = News/Article/Feature section of established site.

 

[justinaldridge]

We do a lot of content marketing daily for our clients. It takes various forms but I don't see any big shifts this year.

I hate it when rubbish content is published on websites, there is just so much of it out there and it's a huge problem.

What we will see during 2016 is an increasingly clever Google finally getting on top of low quality content and gradually promoting the good content.

Last year Google released their machine learning algo called RankBrain. It's now the third most important ranking factor after content and links. RankBrain is learning user behaviour and this has always been the missing piece in Google's algorithm. What do users actually think of the search results and the websites they click through to?

With RankBrain now playing a part in rankings it means that over time as it learns and understands user behaviour it will start to understand when people land on low quality content and leave it pretty quickly heading back to the search results.

RankBrain will increasingly favour good quality websites with great content....mimicking user behaviour.

Additionally, and in support of this, Panda, Google's qualily algorithm has this week been rolled into the main algorithm, which means it's now running constantly.

We are now on a path where poor quality content just won't work and will become increasingly difficult to rank....regardless of the links backing it up.

There will always be spam content in the search results but it's going to become less and less prominent during 2016 and beyond.

 

[fisicx]

What we will see during 2016 is an increasingly clever Google finally getting on top of low quality content and gradually promoting the good content.

Google would know good content if it walked up and slapped it in the face with a wet haddock.

What Google is likely to do is devalue the stuff content marketeers churn out daily.

 

[Phil Richardson]

Some of my best marketing campaigns over the last 20 years have involved giving useful information away and helping prospects make buying decisions.

The biggest issue with this is that it is difficult to do, you need to have a lot of knowledge and experience to provide information that your prospects will find useful.

I created 'A guide to selecting and implementing ERP systems' back in the 90's, before content marketing had been heard of. This took months to create and had some leading voices in the industry contribute. I'd send out DM pieces offering this and we had thousands of leads over the next few years come from this.

The problem now is that there is so much crap content that most people are blind to what is produced. We have clients who get their receptionists to put lists and white papers together in a day and call this content marketing.

I can't remember the last time I read a truly useful piece of content so I guess I have become disillusioned with content marketing which is a shame as when done well it gives real benefit to the readers. I guess this is the problem, most companies write content for what they can get out of it and not for the benefits it brings to the reader.