Content relevance today requires unprecedented levels of insight and innovation. There’s a lot of noise out there and the competition for attention is fierce! Your ability to see ahead, predict patterns, and capitalize on emerging trends can set you apart from other competing voices in the market.
To be successful you must position yourself as a trusted authority and source of truth. Increasing your influence, reach, and engagement with audiences can seem like a daunting challenge. Your team is creative and hardworking, but there are only so many hours in a day.
Develop unique, authoritative content with insights
Your team is under a lot of pressure to distribute what feels like a never-ending stream of content across a growing number of channels. No matter how clever your content strategy is, there’s a limit to how much original content your team can produce. But skimping on output simply isn’t an option: an astounding 95% of B2B consumers say content is one important way they evaluate the trustworthiness of a business.
A recent study of content marketers showed some notable commonalities among thought leaders identified as top performers:
- 73% use technology to glean greater insight into audience behavior and preferences
- 90% prioritize their audience’s informational needs above sales/promotional messaging
- 96% have an audience that views them as a trusted and credible resource
If you’re going to be a top performer, you’ll need a strategy for producing unique, authoritative content in less time and with fewer resources, but how?
Influencers, influencers everywhere…
As you search for emerging voices and topics that can inform your viewpoints, you’ll need to be mindful about the sources you choose to tune into. Amidst a sea of self-proclaimed experts and influencers, it’s not always easy to discern who’s worth listening to and what emerging topics and trends are meaningful. It’s essential to quickly be able to sort the wheat from the chaff – Ai-powered curation can help in this effort.
Currently, there are 2.7 million online influencers and experts clamoring to be heard. There are 500 million individual blogs in existence, and 70 million new blog posts published each month on WordPress alone. On Twitter, where information spreads like wildfire, 500 million tweets are published daily!
With so much content being shared at such a rapid pace, the only effective way to enter the arena is with the support of great tools. A content insights platform like Cronycle uses a combination of artificial intelligence and human expertise to filter out the noise and surface the most trusted, relevant nuggets of information your team needs to know about. From there that content can be contextualized, enriched and adapted quickly for publishing. Your team’s capacity will be dramatically expanded and you’ll be empowered to develop unique content that is timely, relevant, and makes an impact with audiences.
Anticipating and capitalizing on customer trends and behavior
Successful content marketing teams strive to be proactive rather than reactive by keeping a vigilant eye on emerging trends and innovations in the market. Disruptions can emerge seemingly out of nowhere, especially when it comes to evolving customer interests and behavior. This was illustrated during the recent global pandemic with many industries witnessing dramatic shifts within a very short amount of time.
Consider this example: “Between March and August 2020, one in five consumers switched brands, and seven in ten tried new digital shopping channels,” according to McKinsey. “The retail sector experienced ten years of growth in digital penetration in a matter of months.” That’s quite a disruption.
You may say: “You’re talking about a once in a lifetime event, here.” But to be fair, the reality is that things are always changing fast in the business world. So, your content marketing approach must be ready to adapt to dynamic, even unpredictable changes in customer behavior.
Stay ahead of competitive and market trends with social listening
One valuable way for content marketers to detect critical trends is through social listening. This refers to the process of monitoring conversations on social media platforms about your organization, brand, products, market, etc. and analyzing the information in order to glean insights.
Once upon a time, monitoring social media was easy. Armed with a list of names and keywords, a marketing assistant might have run a weekly search that provided you with everything you needed to know. But with literally billions of users on Twitter and Facebook (80% of people in the United States are on social media and 4.2 billion people worldwide), smart technology is now required to help you keep pace.
Similarly, a content insights platform that employs artificial intelligence is crucial for dealing with the sheer volume of information flowing across social media channels like Twitter. Armed with insights, you can feel certain the trends you uncover aren’t just isolated impressions, but measurable patterns and trajectories.
Easy collaboration and sharing is key
With emerging trends and new developments identified, you’ll want to strike while the iron is hot and get updates out to your audiences. An insights platform that not only facilitates efficient content curation but enables rapid development and distribution of content is key.
If your team members are located across various geographical locations (and even if they’re not), it’s important they have a way to collaborate with one another. It’s equally important that when they identify insights and develop content that should be shared immediately, they have an efficient way to do that. The right tech tools are key here as well. Make sure your tools facilitate sharing and publishing—otherwise all the time your team saves in harvesting and contextualizing information could all be for naught as valuable insights languish internally, and windows of opportunity close.
Imagine what your team could do with the confidence they can access the most trusted, relevant voices, topics and insights. They’ll offer viewpoints and time their posts to have the greatest impact on audiences. They’ll engage with audiences in a way that builds trust and authority. They’ll create buzz-worthy content that gets noticed by influencers. Your brand will be recognized as an authority, thought leader, and tastemaker.
With the right content strategy and smart technology, your team will be equipped to cut through the noise, surface those precious gems of insight, and create powerful new content that will position your brand as a leading voice in the market.
