How Technology Will Change The Way Brands Create Content

Changes in technology are constantly shaking up the business world, and content marketing is one of the areas where those changes must be monitored and implemented to keep up with the competition. This year is set to be revolutionary in many ways. Technology will change the way brands create content.

While marketers are already using tech in some measure, we cannot say that they have grasped its full potential. For example, in 2018, 75% of marketers reported using tech to acquire insight into the performance of their content, and 56% used it to get a clear picture of audience preferences and behavior. Content marketing software that simplifies communication and planning of future content is also becoming a go-to tech for marketers and managers alike.

Here Are Some Technologies That Will Shape The Way Brands Will Create Content In The Future, So Read Carefully.

1. Augmented/Virtual Reality Will Become The Reality For Marketers

From July 2016 to August 2017 Pokémon GO was downloaded 100 million times (on Google Play alone) and reached a total revenue of $268 million. This game showed us how augmented reality can be exploited for video games, but also for the purpose of marketing.

Augmented reality is becoming much more than a gimmick we see in computer shops and Sci-Fi movies. Some brands are using it to reach out to new customers and keep the faithful customers interested. Ikea, for example, has a VR catalog where you can position pieces of furniture in your own home. Also, some fashion brands are using a similar option to allow customers to try out the outfits virtually, in their own homes.

If you feel that, despite all this, you are still not ready or equipped enough to start implementing this technology, begin by improving your visual content and creating interactive features (e.g., videos, games, infographics…).

2. Voice Search Is Taking The Limelight

According to Global Web Index, one in five adults uses the voice search option at least once a month, and nearly 60% of adults used this type of search to find local business information in 2018. Businesses that are not yet considering adapting their content to voice search should take a good long look at these statistics and see that this change is inevitable. After all, optimizing your content for voice search is not that hard at all. In fact, it is a very natural thing. Here are some tips to guide you through the process:

• Voice search is mostly done via smartphones, so adjust the content to mobile searches (it is a win-win move).
• Since we speak more casually than we write, try to use natural, human approach to content creation.
• When the users are going through content using voice search, they are using the form of questions, so keep the key phrases long and detailed.
• Include FAQ section to improve the previous step.
• Constantly follow the web content accessibility guidelines to ensure your content is truly optimized for voice search.

3. The Immense Potential Of Local SEO

SEO, as we all know by now, is an integral part of a well-developed and implemented content marketing strategy. What businesses usually fail to see is the immense potential of the local SEO which can not only increase their ratings but also lead customers directly to their shops. To say that in numbers the decision makers will understand: in 2016, more than 70% of users who conducted local search visited a shop within five miles of their whereabouts. Here are a few tips businesses should follow to develop a functional local SEO strategy:

• List your business in the local directories, such as Yellowpages, Google Pages, Facebook, and Yelp. This way, your company will appear when someone searches a business in your industry near their location.
• Your page’s title and meta description tags should reflect the content of each page. The SERP Snippet Optimization Tool can help you with that.
• Use local and regional keywords. Get help from Google Trends to learn the changing interests and related trends.
• Keep an eye on what your competitors are doing.

4. Video Killed The Written Content

The title is a bit of an exaggeration, but it is predicted that video will account for 80% of all available online content. This is not something that will happen overnight, but the numbers have spoken, and we are getting close to that day. One-third of the people on the internet are YouTube users. There are five billion YouTube videos watched a day. More than 80% of Twitter users watch video content on this platform, and 100 million hours of video are watched on Facebook over the course of one week.

Video content can be exceptionally effective for boosting the engagement on business’s social media accounts because it is often short, direct, and visually appealing.

With the latest flagship smartphones having cameras that can stand up in the ring opposite to professional cameras, video content is becoming something that can be created anywhere, anytime, and by anyone. So, if you still haven’t started using this perk, it is fair to say that you are already lagging behind the competition.

5. Infrastructure Investment Becomes Critical

Finally, it is imperative to mention that all the new technologies cannot be implemented without an appropriate infrastructure that needs to be updated and even overhauled to support such colossal novelties.

SpiceWorks’ 2019 State of IT report that for the last few years, companies have mostly invested in the latest tech, such as augmented and virtual reality, but now the check has finally arrived, and the decision makers have realized that nothing of that will work without proper infrastructure. The underlying infrastructure is necessary to run today’s hottest technologies, and nearly 90% of companies expect an increase in their budgets for that purpose.

This raises an important question for content marketers: “Is your infrastructure in good shape?” For the answers and potential solutions, turn to the IT department, and work closely together, before you decide to try out the latest tech that cannot be supported by the infrastructure you have.

The Content Changes Alongside The Technology

The question is not “will your content marketing have to adapt to new technologies”, the question is when it will have to do it. These five different aspects of how tech impacts the way brands create content should serve as guidelines in which direction you should be going and how to adapt your content marketing strategy or the way brands create content.

Natasha Lane Short Bio: (Guest Blogger) 

Natasha is a lady of a keyboard whose fields of expertise could be summed up in digital marketing, business and IT related topics. Although she is primarily content creator for DesignRush, a B2B marketplace connecting brands with agencies, Natasha is always happy to collaborate with awesome blogs and share her knowledge. To see what she is up to next, check out her Twitter Dashboard.