7 Tips To Update Your Content Marketing Strategy for 2016

Content Marketing

Content Marketing Strategy 2016 Update

An effective content marketing strategy is a constantly moving target. In the early days, shady marketers were stuffing articles with so many keywords the sentences made no sense, while legitimate marketers were churning out dry, informational articles. Useful, but boring.

Then blogging and social media came along, and everybody started to relax. Marketers discovered that posts with personality were more popular and Google revamped and refined the algorithm until they developed semantic search.

Websites evolved along with content and search – became more visually attractive and easier to navigate.

Inevitably it’s all led to quality content.

Everyone knows how important content is, but the joint Moz and Buzzsumo report shows that only about 1 piece of content in 4 is effective. The rest is largely ignored.

With long odds and an ever-increasing content, how can you stand out from the crowd and achieve success with your content marketing efforts?

You need to evolve and adapt. Your customers adopt new technologies and social media, rediscover old channels and abandon new ones. It’s a constant challenge to keep up with where they are and how they prefer to communicate. Here are 7 ways to stay on top with your 2016 content marketing strategy.

7 Tips for an Effective 2016 Content Marketing Strategy

#1. Quality Over Quantity

The flood of content on the web will continue, and there’s no percentage in adding lots of content with low value. To stand out, you need to produce longer, more well-researched content that attracts more eyeballs, more social media shares, and more backlinks. The quality requirement is never going to change when it comes to an effective content marketing strategy.

Plan of action:

#2. Repurpose Your Content

Long, authoritative content can be expensive to produce, but creative use of the information you collect can turn it into a bargain. Different formats make information-rich content accessible to different audiences.

Plan of action:

Content Marketing Strategy 2016

#3. Stay on Top of SEO

SEO techniques change every year as new technologies emerge and search engine ranking factors change.

Plan of action:

#4. Create Videos

Video has expanded exponentially with the launch of livestreaming apps, and marketers are definitely on board. Livestreaming is the next big thing when it comes to your content marketing strategy.

But don’t overlook the classics. YouTube is still huge – and don’t forget, owned by Google. It’s no secret that Google gives preference to its own products in the search. Even the big brands are cashing in by hooking up with YouTube influencers.

Plan of action:

#5. Bring it Home

With the Google Pigeon update, hyper-local content took the top spot on mobile search pages. More than half of all searches are now conducted on mobile devices, making mobile important to every business, and critical to brick-and-mortar shops.

Plan of action:

#6. Create Interactive Content

Some of the most-shared content on the web is interactive. Quizzes, interactive infographics, polls and other user-participation content is personal, engaging, and fun. Users clearly love it – Which Disney Dog Are You? was shared more than 266k times. I’m Nana.

Plan of action:

Content Marketing Strategy Infographics

Check out this wonderful animated infographic by NeoMam Studios.

#7. Develop a Promotion Strategy

Without promotion, your content is dead in the water. No matter how good it is, it won’t be discovered without push. If you don’t have a big audience of your own, promotion can be tricky.

Plan of action:

What’s Your 2016 Content Marketing Strategy?

It’s almost impossible to predict which trends will sizzle and which will fizzle. If you’re prepared to adopt new technologies, track your results, and adjust your marketing strategy to build on what works, you can stay on top of the trends.

How will you adapt to the changing world of content marketing?

Sharon Black

Sharon Black is a veteran copywriter and marketer. She loves writing about the challenges and rewards of marketing, at least when she's not pondering the challenges facing her on World of Warcraft. She has been known to serve as part of the grammar police force, but mostly when she is in the official role as editor.

Ready to start analyzing?

Start measuring the impact of your social media campaigns with our 14-day free trial.

Start Your Free Trial