What Strategies Will You Need for Content Marketing in 2022

How will the global content strategy change in 2022? What changes can you make to improve your marketing efficiency and grow your business exponentially? Learn the content marketing trends for 2022 now and stay ahead of the pack. 

Time flies fast. It feels like yesterday when you were building a solid integrated content marketing strategy for 2021, and now you have to start thinking about 2022. With the death of cookies, growth of D2C (direct to consumer) models, and testing of AI marketing copies, 2022, is bound to be a hell of a ride. 

But to enjoy the ride, you’ve got to adjust your marketing strategies to match the trends. So let’s take a deep dive into some strategies that’ll serve you well.

Build a Direct Connection with Your Audience

Person Holding Iphone Showing Social Networks Folder

We can categorize brand audiences into three:

  1. Owned – your company has a direct link to the audience
  2. Non-owned – interested audiences connect with the brand through apps and social media platforms by following or subscribing to your page on a social platform.
  3. Short term – the audiences are gotten through cookies and Facebook pixel

Owning an audience means developing a direct line of communication with them. The idea is to move from nurturing your audience through apps and social media platforms since they constantly change terms of use and algorithms that affect brand performance. 

Create Thought Leadership Content

man holding incandescent bulb

Your audience isn’t interested in product/service differentiation all the time. Instead, they need the best answers to their biggest questions that only an expert can provide. Thought leadership means producing content that taps into the business’s passion, experience, and talent to answer audience questions. 

You can build your brand’s thought leadership through content marketing webinars where you share fresh perspectives and actionable insights. However, achieving thought leadership needs a solid global content strategy and consistency. But this is easier said than done.  On the bright side, you can outsource your thought leadership to a digital marketing company for best results. 

Learn from What’s Working

Woman In Blue Crew-neck T-shirt

2021 has seen brands become more creative in capturing their audience’s attention to survive. Creating hyper-personalized content, leveraging voice search, content atomization, video content are trending content marketing tactics. 

Come 2022, the language of content strategy will be mobile content marketing, AI-powered content, and marketing webinars. If 2021 content marketing tactics are landing you in your audience’s inbox, then 2022 will be a smooth ride.  

Content is and will always remain king. So while content access and consumption evolves, your goal is to continue delivering quality content and at the right time. 

Leverage User-Generated Content

Low angle of positive ethnic female blogger shooting video on cellphone on tripod with shining lamp

Brands spend a lot of money and time creating ideal messages and hiring professionals to create content they think customers want. However, the audience is after real and authentic instead of perfect which makes UGC the ultimate source marketing.

Your audience will readily trust recommendations from real people over what you say about yourself. This is because the audience relates more to people like them or they know, and brands cannot fake the content’s authenticity. 

Brands that take advantage of user-generated content for deeper connections with their audience. 

Implement  Voice Search Optimisation

Joyful young woman phoning on street in evening

According to the Smart Audio Report, over 60 million adults in the US have a smart speaker at home. But they aren’t the only ones using voice search – people are constantly asking Alexa, Google, and Siri questions on their smartphones.  

To optimize your content for voice search, you’ll need to:

  • Focus more on long-tail keywords and phrases
  • Anticipate specific questions presented in a conversational manner
  • Target voice snippet feature – the equivalent of People Also Ask on Google search. You can do this by using keywords already present in featured snippets and those ranking on page 1
  • Optimize your site for local SEO since voice search is more local

Create Content for Mobile Consumption

Concentrated woman in jeans chatting via smartphone

With the vast and unstoppable growth of mobile usage, it’s difficult to ignore mobile users when developing a content marketing strategy. The best approach to take is mobile-first by creating shareable content through apps and social media platforms.  

To create the best mobile marketing content, you need to:

  • Keep things catchy and short
  • Make content engaging and concise
  • Use images and videos properly
  • Prove your point using statistics

And if you already know how to create mobile marketing content, you should think of taking it to the next level in 2022. For example, you can optimize landing pages, focus on the right audience, and use localized content

Offer Engaging Content

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In 2021, everyone is a creator. So to have the edge over your competition and to capture your audience’s attention, you need to create interactive content. This content will suck the user in teach and provide value surrounding your service or product without hard selling.  The best way to measure its success is through the time spent consuming the content and its shares. 

Also, keep in mind that interactive content isn’t about your brand nor direct lead generation. Instead, it’s about offering value. Even without hard-selling, interactive content converts visitors into shoppers and gets more engagement, leads, and loyalty from the audience. 

Embrace Chatbots

MIniature Toy Robot on Top of Laptop's Keyboard

Between 2020 and 2024, the chatbot market is anticipated to increase by 1.11 billion. While AI is a core component of chatbots, its true value is providing real-time personalized experiences.  You can humanize the chatbot by giving it a personality to help it connect with users more personally. 

In 2022, you can achieve this by using linguistic nuances, gifs, or directing customers where they need to go. For example, if a customer has to look for a product on your site, they might click out of the site faster than they can find the product.

What Now?

With the death of cookies and the continued growth of AI software, 2022 content marketing strategies will experience a creative overhaul. Moreover, the audience is more informed and knows what it needs. As a result, they’ll be more inclined to demand more from your brand, or they ship off to your competition. 

As such, it’s important that you take advantage of these content marketing strategies. Now is the time to experiment, bulk up on data and make necessary tweaks. 

Author Bio:Tim Absalikov is one of the leading SEO experts in the country. He specializes in on-page optimization, link building, UI, and UX considerations, as well as a keyword search. Tim is the owner of Lasting Trend agency. He has worked with leading companies from many industries.

Adam Hansen
 

Adam is a part time journalist, entrepreneur, investor and father.