Common sense tells us it’s not really possible to predict the future. But we’ve seen some pretty remarkable predictions come true.
Electrical engineer Nikola Tesla predicted wifi and mobile phones way back in 1909.
In the late sixties John Brunner predicted a ‘President Obomi’ would be elected in the United States in 2010. With Obama taking office in 2009 he was only two letters and one year out...
And The Simpsons have correctly predicted the future on several occasions, including the election of Trump as President and Disney’s purchase of Fox, which was just this month announced, almost twenty years after Matt Groening and his team first planted the notion.
The end of the year is always a time to reflect on the past 12 months and look ahead to the next. So it’s no surprise that we often see industry leaders share their predictions for the year ahead.
So what can we expect in content marketing?
Joe Pulizzi at the Content Marketing Institute has shared his predictions for content marketing every year since 2007. Along with an eBook of predictions sourced from a whole host of industry experts.
This year Pulizzi's top three predictions are:
- “Apple will buy Disney”
- “2 major Fortune 500 companies will hire former publishers and/or media execs as CMOs”
- “1 Fortune 100 company will transform its marketing department into a profit center”
Taking a look at the Content Marketing Institute's 60+ content marketing predictions eBook, some common themes emerge:
- More use of voice interfaces such as Alexa
- Facebook as a major player in video
- Rise of paid social media for distribution
- Greater efforts to understand customers
- Less content, but better quality
- Brand advocates over paid influencers
- More customisation
Voice-controlled devices are today’s hottest technology. Amazon’s Alexa already has over 15,000 skills and we’re already seeing some early adoptersof content marketing on connected devices. According to NewsCred Insights“as a content marketer, you should be keeping your ears (and eyes) open to these new audio channels to ensure that your brand voice is heard.”
The results of Orbit Media Studio’s 2017 survey were recently published and seem to support the notion of “less content, but better quality”. Today the average blog post takes 3 hours and 20 minutes to write. That’s 39% more time than we were spending back in 2014. And findings show publishing frequency for individual bloggers is down. Today most post ‘several per month’ vs ‘2-6 times a week’ two years ago.
My predictions? Pillar pages. Original content. More audio/video content.
What are yours?
In 60+ Predictions on Content Marketing in 2018, some of our favorite content marketing colleagues and compatriots share their thoughts on what it takes to build an audience; how advanced technologies and newer techniques – like AI, voice-enabled search, and virtual reality – will impact the content landscape; how troubling trends like “fake news” and data breaches will add complexity to the marketing equation; and more.
As for my own predictions for the upcoming year, they are rather simple – though somewhat aspirational:
Apple will buy Disney. Although I think this transaction is a few years away, I want to go on the record now. As Apple continues to invest in original content, it will discover an out-and-out acquisition makes far more sense. It will see the light and purchase what is perhaps the greatest media company on the planet.
