There’s a lot of buzz these days about content marketing, the use of AI to create it, and how to leverage the content created for various platforms. As 2025 approaches, you can expect to see a new focus on return on investment (ROI), video content and search engine optimization (SEO).
Many marketing pros are overwhelmed by the number of platforms they manage. According to Hootsuite, the average social media user logs into approximately seven platforms each month.
With this statistic in mind, it is increasingly important to determine the effectiveness of all your tools and each platform’s audience and engagement. Completing a regular audit based on your unique KPIs (key performance indicators) is critical. It is also important to stay up-to-date on user research for each platform to determine if it has the right audience for your product or service.
Before you throw out a platform completely, take a deep dive into the metrics. If a platform seems like a right fit but you are not getting the engagement you desire, your content might not be a good fit for the platform.
Social media users today want to be entertained and they want information that is useful or helps them professionally. No one wants a sales pitch.
Look at what you are publishing. Are you presenting yourself as a subject expert? Is your information shared in an entertaining way?
Think about the platform. Why are users on the platform?
What are they are doing on the platform?
Instagram content is different from content published on LinkedIn, yet you can use the same content for both by repurposing it appropriately. Doing so effectively can help you cut down the cost of creating content and maximize your return across platforms.
“Social media users today want to be entertained and they want information that is useful or helps them professionally.”
As you consider simplifying your platforms, re-allocating your budget to video creation is a great way to increase user engagement and cross-platform usage. According to a Wyzowl marketing study, 89 percent of customers want to see more videos from brands.
Many marketers are apprehensive of video because of the cost or they don’t know where to start or feel unsure of how to show ROI. Keeping in mind the need to entertain social media users, video is an excellent way to share information and expertise in a fun, yet targeted, way. Finding a trusted vendor who can support your content strategy, produce videos and interpret analytics is a great way to get all the boxes checked as a marketer.
Just like AI, SEO is not going away. In fact, AI can be a wonderful tool to help you draft ideas, create headlines and develop metadata for SEO purposes. After all, these pieces need to be attention-grabbing to readers and the search engines and algorithms serve up information simultaneously!
Personalization will continue to be critical to the success of your content strategy. If we are using AI to be more efficient, we must review with a critical eye, keep our audience in mind and edit appropriately for not just the human eye but also the specific platform we are utilizing. Other tools like Google Analytics offer help in locating keywords and phrases that will help you better dial in the SEO for all the content you are creating for various platforms.
I have worked in marketing for over 25 years. Each year the landscape gets more complicated, but it also offers new opportunities for growth and innovation. If you’re feeling more stressed than excited, turn to a trusted marketing partner for guidance and support!
By Heather Isch; originally published in SBAM’s September/October 2024 issue of FOCUS magazine
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