04 Jan Four Surprising B2B Content Marketing Trends for 2013

It’s no secret that providing the right amount of quality and relevant content is important in marketing a product or service, whether it’s in the business-to-business world or the business-to-consumer world. However, there’s no magic formula that says exactly how much content you need, what media you should use or how often.  As founder of The Social Calling, I’ve examined some trends that were recently reported at: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/8-content-marketing-trends-for-b2b/ and I’ve drawn my own set of four conclusions about content marketing trends in 2013.
Content still needs to be engaging

1. The findings of the study showed that content marketers plan to shift their focus in 2013 from providing engaging content to providing more content. More is not necessarily better. Providing content that’s engaging should still rank higher in importance than simply churning out garbage for the sake of quantity.

Further, the author of the article recommends using oodles of “tactics” to most effectively reach a higher percentage of your target audience. Well, there’s an important principle here called “diminishing marginal returns,” and my belief is that it’s important to focus on the tactics that most effectively reach your audience than throwing piles of time at a Twitter campaign that maybe three people will see. And I’m not bashing Twitter in any sense; as a person who does  and throughout the world, I see the value in all social media platforms. I’m simply saying that it’s important to reach customers and potential customers in a way that want to be reached. Those ways will be different for just about everyone.

1. Recycle, Recycle, Recycle

The author of the article did offer some sound advice for generating more content, and I agree with the tactics she recommended as a way to both get more content out there and engage with audiences. She recommends recycling content in such a way that it can be used across multiple platforms.
For example:

• A blog post can be turned into an audio podcast or a YouTube video.
• Customer testimonials can be combined into a sales brochure, video montage or a separate page on your web site to give real life examples of why people like your product or service.
• You can dig through archives of your old content and find gems that can be republished. Did you predict a major trend before it happened? People would likely be interested to read about something like that, and it offers a ton of credibility.

1. Social Media is Here to Stay

One of the best things about social media is that it allows anyone and everyone to have a voice. For essentially zero dollars, you can aggressively market your product. And, even better, happy customers can advertise your company instantly to millions of people. Again, this has no cost, and by having a third party endorse you, you gain more credibility than you could if you are the only one talking about how great you are.
The biggest challenge with a social media strategy, in my opinion, is keeping up with all the platforms, trends and emerging features. For example, it seems like Facebook is changing the rules of the game daily. There are now sponsored posts, new layouts, new privacy and lack of privacy(!) settings and other stuff going on behind the scenes that affects both you and your business. For Facebook help in San Fernando Valley, The Social Calling is a perfect guide to navigate through all the changes.

1. LinkedIn Emerges as a Popular Content Marketing Tool
   

I found it very interesting that LinkedIn has evolved from simply a career and networking tool to full-fledged content marketing platform. It has now become more popular than Twitter as a way to distribute content. Part of this could be that, especially in the B2B world, more decision makers are frequenting LinkedIn than Twitter. Again, this harkens back to knowing your audience and knowing how they want to receive your content.