scopic | content marketing trends for 2017

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As we hit the last weeks of this year before the New Year break, it is not too late to review your 2017 content marketing strategy. As you already know, to really connect and engage with your audience – it takes much more than just a few random minutes across the day – you must produce relevant, targeted, valuable and consistent content.
 
To grow your business over the coming year, you should consider these 2017 content marketing trends before you start planning, creating and publishing content.
 
1. Go mobile
As mobile device users surge and speeds accelerate, people want more than just text-based content. Mobile users want to find mobile compatible content quickly and easily, so make the user experience stress-free with clear headings, bullet points and quality visuals that engage users.
Trend Snapshot:

• 80% of users (6.4 billion people) will consume content on a mobile device by 2020  

2. Go visual
Research shows images/videos perform much better than just words on a screen, but don’t compromise loading time. An easy way to increase loading speed, is to compress/reduce images and videos to ensure audience attention is not lost while waiting around.
Trend Snapshot:

• 75%+ of marketers used video in 2016 - video content is predicted to grow 2017  

3. Go live
With live content marketing becoming more achievable on mobile devices via FacebookLive, SnapChat, PeriscopeTV and Instagram Stories live streaming will grow in popularity in 2017. Both large and small businesses will easily be able to share product launches, new campaigns and branded events.
Trend Snapshot:

•  59% B2C and 68% B2B marketers used live events in 2016 - live content is predicted to grow 2017

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4. Target content
To truly connect and hold audience attention businesses can no longer be everything-to-everyone across multiple channels of communication. With a massive amount of content being published across numerous channels, businesses need to be more targeted with the content they create.
 
In 2017 businesses must firstly take the time to identify which channels have their target audience’s attention. Once they understand where the attention is they can then better create targeted - personalized - content that snatches audience attention from competitors.

  Content Marketing Institute: Content Marketing 2017 - Benchmarks, Budgets & Trends - Content Creation & Distribution

5. Test drive
2017 will see businesses creating, testing, measuring and retesting content to learn what content, channel and scheduling is most popular with their target audience. Through testing engagement, businesses will start to better identify audience behaviors that will influence the content created and the distribution channels used.
 
Over the coming year, winners in the race of content consumption will be those businesses that conduct A/B testing (split-run testing) of content/channels - measure engagement, analyze results then create content that is personalized.

  Content Marketing Institute: Content Marketing 2017 - Benchmarks, Budgets & Trends - Goals & Metrics

All in all, successful businesses in 2017 will know where, when, what and how their audiences are consuming content - they will have nurtured a personal connection!
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Scopic works with businesses to create targeted content that snatches attention and increases engagement, contact us to find out more.