Let’s start with the obvious: content marketing is going to continue to be an integral part of your online marketing strategy in 2021. Blogs and long-form written pieces will continue to improve user engagement, all while bolstering your presence on search engines. Social media will continue to play a pivotal role in community growth and customer retention.

In other words, to the surprise of no one, you’re going to continue to need high-quality content in many forms.

This piece, then, won’t be focused on telling you what you already know – instead, we’ll focus on some underused content marketing tactics that we think are going to be very relevant in 2021, and ongoing.

In creating this piece, we wanted to focus on a few of the global trends we think will continue in the New Year – namely, the continuation of work-from-home, the diversification of social media platforms, and the ever-rising tide of mobile users.

Live Streams

Even when social distancing is a thing of the past, live streams will continue – consumers are going to demand it. Now that the live stream genie is out of the bottle, there’s no putting it back in.

Fortunately, most companies have the capacity to stage live streams at this point – we’ve had no choice. They’re a fantastic opportunity for members of your community who can’t attend in-person events that you throw, and they allow for more meaningful interaction between users and content creators.

This is, in part, due to shifting demographics – Millennials and Generation Z are well-acquainted with platforms like Twitch, and we’ve seen an uptick in political and corporate actors using live streams to drive engagement in younger audiences.

Engagement tends to be high in live streams because audience members can interact with content creators in real time. Take advantage of live streams to introduce new products, conduct Q&As, and get to know your audience.

Improved UX

UX stands for user experience, and it’s something designers and content creators should be paying more attention to.

It’s no longer enough to simply release standalone pieces of content – you need to create a content ecosystem that grows and changes with your user base. This can be through the use of pillar posts that branch out into related content. It can be through the use of cookies that track a user’s journey, offering them content based on their past experiences. It can be through interactive content with branching decision trees based on a user’s choices and desires.

Before delving into all of that, though, be sure you have your basics down. You’ve got to make your business look professional. Keep every page on your site speedy, responsive, and mobile friendly. Pages on your site should be aesthetically consistent, uncluttered, and easy to read and navigate. All of this comes before the fancier UX decisions you can make.

Expanding content to new platforms

Businesses have already begun experimenting with creating content for new social media platforms like TikTok. There’s some talk of antitrust regulations leading to Facebook being split up, which might change what content does well on that platform (as well as Instagram). And, as always, new social media platforms will continue to gain popularity in 2021.

It’s essential that content creators continue to monitor changes to existing platforms, as well as newcomers to the social media ecosystem. To grow your social media following, you need to understand what kinds of content perform well on new platforms, as well as what demographics you’ll be reaching. 

Building communities

It’s no longer sufficient to simply target particular customer personas or demographics. It’s not even sufficient to get repeat visits. You need your users to engage with your content –  sharing it with their friends, commenting, showing up for live streams. You need to build a sense of community and belonging – by doing so, you’ll create advocates for your brand.

This means all of your content should promote a sense of community – users should be able to interact with it, and you should be speaking directly to your community. This isn’t always easy, but if you make it your focus, you might create something incredible – something that goes far beyond mere content.

All of this leads us to our final point – you’re going to need to experiment with your content, now more than ever. There are several tools available to help you sort content into various buckets and monitor its performance. Check these tools often – they’ll help guide your content creation strategy.

Written by Kiara Fulham