As the creation of content changes, so does the way it is marketed. Content marketing continues to evolve after more than 100 years, beginning with content such as the John Deere customer magazine, The Furrow, in 1895 and Michelin’s The Michelin Guidelines in 1900. While in many ways the content itself remains the same – e.g. customer oriented narratives and images – content generation and curation have changed dramatically.

Technology has accelerated communication in addition to changing the way audiences interact with content. People have shorter attention spans than ever. According to a recent Microsoft study, most people lose concentration after 8 seconds. That is only one second away from the attention span of a goldfish! (Before the study, the human attention span was measured at 12 seconds.)

With attention spans being so short, content marketing only has so much time to make an impact. Here are three recent content marketing trends we see affecting the industry.

More Audience Contribution and Algorithmic Content Creation

In the Forbes article, “The Top 7 Content Marketing Trends That Will Dominate 2016”, Jayson DeMers contends that there will be a paradigm shift in content. Rather than creating content in house, users and market audiences will assist the development of dynamic content in combination with algorithmically generated content.

DeMers presents Twitter’s new Project Lightning feature as a dynamic example of user-created content taking a role in the forefront. He predicts that the new feature “may threaten content marketing’s reach in the area of new coverage, but could hold promising alternative opportunities for publication.” This presents a possible reaction and solution to shortened attention spans. Audience interaction and content uptake may change in accordance with how the content is published.

In addition, algorithmic content generation is on the rise. For example, The New York Times notes that “90 percent of news could be algorithmically generated by the mid-2020s, much of it without human intervention.” And also notes that Quake Bot wrote the first news report on an L.A. earthquake two years ago. While we have a few years before the turn of another decade, the speed with which complex content is generated continues to accelerate.

Expanded Social Media Content Development

Facebook launched Livestream this year to allow users to share live video from any device. In addition to live, up-to-date interactions with immediately accessible content, Facebook has partnered “with nearly 140 media companies and celebrities to create videos for its nascent live-streaming service.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, “the arrangements are a way to encourage publishers to produce a steady stream of high-quality videos until Facebook figures out a more concrete plan to compensate creators, such as through sharing of ad revenue.” Should this campaign succeed, it not only would means increased revenue for all parties involved, but also boosts a trend toward live and interactive content. Should these partnerships prove successful, expect to see more commerce-oriented live content.

Increased Staffing for Content Marketing

In a recent study from Curata, “some 43% of companies say they plan to increase the number of staff working on content marketing this year.” The study illustrated some stimulating figures. 87% of the respondents say their company has a content marketing team, and of those, 68% of the teams are only one to three people.

Content curation is the most important skill set missing from marketing teams, and according to the study, 41% of the respondents agree. This implies that the market for content curators will continue to grow. Expect to see companies of all sizes refining marketing focuses and growing marketing teams with content curation focuses.

Should you have any questions or would like improve your own content marketing, please contact us.