Content marketing trends for 2013

Ideas on improving content marketing in 2013

I was recently invited to speak at an event for members of the Content Marketing Association discussing trends to consider for 2013. I enjoy learning from other speakers and discussions with the audience at events and since each speaker was focusing on different predictions I thought I’d share the presentations here.

Neil Perkin - Digital Content Trends 2013

First up was Neil Perkin a content marketing commentator who gave his thoughts on Digital Content Trends in 2013. I was particularly interested in his thoughts about subcompact publishing, a concept defined by publishing commentator Craig Mod in article from November 2012. Evidence of this trend can be seen in new compact publications like The Magazine social sites like Branch and Medium launched in August by Twitter’s co-founders.

Ciaran Rogers - a convergence of Flat Surfaces

I knew Ciaran Rogers since I’d done an interview with the Digital Marketing Podcast he produces with Daniel Rowles. I highly recommend it - it’s featured first in our listing of the best marketing podcasts.

Ciaran was looking at broad predictions across marketing and gave some great examples including what to avoid. Ciaran’s main message was keep it customer-centric. The best example of how not to do it was on this page I hadn’t seen: Condescending Corporate Brand Page - this must be the funniest Facebook page for marketers. Definitely worth subscribing to avoid the traps others have fallen into…

Dave Chaffey - Content marketing 2013

Finally, I was also talking about Content Marketing Trends; discussing frameworks to help develop content marketing strategies in the year ahead. If you’re a regular reader of Smart Insights you will have seen these planning frameworks in our infographics.

I included a couple of examples where I’ve used these in training workshops showing how they’re great to brainstorm future ideas for content and how they should be measured (slides 12 and 16). If you haven't used the content marketing matrix or the RACE KPIs for content marketing I recommend those for in-house or agency brainstorming for your content marketing priorities.

All the best for your content marketing in 2013! Finally, Don't forget the marketing in content marketing - one of my favourite expressions of 2012 and some great practical advice here from Neil Patel on outreach.