3 Hot Content Marketing Trends You Can’t Afford to Ignore

Content marketing and SEO are inextricably intertwined in the content marketing funnel. That’s why keeping up on the latest trends in content marketing is one of the ways to optimize your search engine traffic.

Here are three hot content marketing trends that you can leverage to boost traffic, nurture relationships and convert customers for your business.

1. AI-generated content: It has a role to play in the content world. (Even if it’s not the one you think.)

Since ChatGPT launched in November 2022, AI-generated content is the hot topic of hot topics. And it’s not a fad. AI-generated content will play an increasingly pivotal role in producing web content.

I’ve written deep dives on how AI-powered content creation will affect SEO and writers, as well as how using AI-generated content will affect your website’s SEO, but here’s the quick take on where we’re at right now:

AI-generated content can be a useful tool to help generate ideas or get past writer’s block. That can help marketing teams write more and better content. This is an enormous win when you need to produce more content with fewer resources, or just when you have old fashioned writer’s block.

But AI-generated should not be used as-is to produce content. It should only be used as a starting point that is heavily edited, fact checked and customized by humans. In fact, using AI-generated content as-is could significantly hurt your company’s SEO, as well as your credibility with individual audience members.

Now that AI-generated content is developing faster and faster, it’s important to leverage the value it presents right now, and stay tuned for developments as it gets better.

2. Short form video: Optimize this hyper relevant format.

Words are great. But they are no longer the only game in town when it comes to search engine results. Search engines also feature videos, images, options to explore and structured data (think star reviews and cook time in a recipe).

Right now, short form video is having a boom thanks to TikTok, Instagram reels, YouTube shorts, and other social sharing platforms. People want to consume this content, and search engines increasingly feature it in SERPs.

So it’s well worth your time to explore creating short form videos that provide value to your audience. You can do some research to see what type of short form videos competitors may be producing, and explore what search queries you could answer with relevant, short form videos.

3. The creator economy: Partner with powerful voices.

As more and more influencers create content that helps people do everything from daily chores to new makeup techniques, audiences have become accustomed to trusting people. Not just brands.

But partnering with content creators can be a powerful tool for creating new, relevant content and getting exposed to new audiences. As this creator economy grows, there are more and more ways for brands and influencers to connect and collaborate on creating compelling content that reaches their audiences.

Content marketing has been evolving rapidly since its inception. But by staying on top of the latest trends, your business has a better chance to capture new audiences and build a relationship with them for the long term.