By Nikita Geldenhuys

1. Still going strong: Native advertising

Writing for the Content Marketing Institute, Tim Walters commented in January last year that while “native advertising – a paid placement in which the ad blends in with the look and format of the surrounding content – isn’t new, it is enjoying a major comeback”.

Brands have caught on to the practice. Megan Wolstenholme, head of content at Creative Spark, has noticed a significant amplification of this form of content marketing and that more brands are adopting it as part of their marketing make-up.

But native advertising is not taking the place of traditional advertising yet, as Wolstenholme explains, “It feels as though it is being added as part of a larger brand strategy which would still include more traditional forms of advertising.”

Her colleague, operations manager Carla Dos Santos, agrees, “I believe there is more native and sponsored [content], but not less advertising. It’s just that more of us are enabling ad-blockers, which is why native and sponsored advertising was born.”

2. A steady trend: Storytelling

The launch of Instagram and Snapchat Stories in 2016 highlighted the power of telling stories through content marketing. These social Stories allow users to tell unique stories of their everyday lives and even share longer, more complex narratives.

Many agencies have long been using storytelling as part of advertising strategies, but Wolstenholme has found it has now also caught on with clients. “Many clients are starting to realise that the ‘stories’ behind their brands are equally as important (if not more) than product stories,” she says.

The team behind Red & Yellow School notes the ephemeral quality of Instagram and Snapchat Stories is supporting the growth of storytelling on digital platforms. The in-the-moment quality of social media Stories has also helped brands and celebrities to provide the transparency their fans and followers seek, the team explains.

3. Growing in use: Interactive content

A study by ion found that in February 2016, only about 30% of the content on the web was interactive. However, interactive content has the ability to engage audiences, which is high on the list of priorities for content marketers.

Last year, Barry Feldman wrote on Kissmetrics’ blog that marketers succeed when their audience not only consumes content, but also enjoys and acts upon it. “Understanding this principle, more and more content marketers are stepping-up their static content to create content customers can interact with.”

4. A work in progress: Mobile-friendly content

Mobile compatibility was among the SEMrush blog’s nine emerging content marketing trend predictions for 2016. The blog writer’s advice on the subject? “With 3.65 billion mobile users across the globe, you need to incorporate content that’s mobile-friendly in your marketing strategies. Responsive website design, embedded videos, and other mobile elements will become staples of content marketing in the coming times.”

The Red & Yellow team lauds Facebook’s Instant Articles and its mobile-optimised, immersive advertising product, Canvas, for giving content creators a way of tailoring their content for mobile.

This does not mean all brands are going the mobile-friendly route just yet. Red & Yellow found marketers are focusing on mobile-first content over mobile-friendly content. This is especially true for South Africa, the team indicates, “We've yet to see truly mobile-friendly sites and content, especially locally.”

5. Still needs work: Live streaming

Video was and still is predicted to be a big trend and opportunity for marketers. In 2015, Jay Baer, president of Convince & Convert told the Content Marketing Institute “all signs point to video” as a trend in 2016.

“Whether it’s Facebook Live, video on Twitter, Periscope, Blab, Instagram, Vine, or the old standby YouTube, 2016 will be the year when video becomes a primary content marketing consideration for all brands — even B2B,” he wrote.

Live streaming did indeed get the world’s attention last year when Facebook launched its live video broadcasting option in its user base. Despite the hype, however, most South Africans brands haven’t adopted its use yet.

Wolstenholme says that brand don’t always use live broadcasted videos correctly. “[In these videos] there is either not enough happening or the subject matter doesn’t require that type of immediacy. The best examples tend to be training seminars, product launches, announcements, and demonstrations.”

A no-show: Computer-generated content

A Lifehack blog post predicted that machine-generated content would become a hot topic in the realm of digital marketing in 2016.

At that time, some news publishers were already using content-generating software for short-form articles on sport and business topics. The use of algorithms to create content has not caught on in South African yet, and neither has automated content curation software.

The concept reminds Dos Santos of an “old-school SEO trick” called ‘content spinning’. She doesn’t see computer-generated articles taking off for primary content, mostly due to quality issues. But the software may still be useful, she notes. “Google now demands 1 200 plus words per article, so [auto-generated content] may return for secondary content,” she notes.

And while Wolstenholme agrees that the technology might work for filler content that aligns to a brand, product, or service, it doesn’t look like the software will be taking jobs from content marketers any time soon, as she explains, “Genuine and created [content] will have a much greater impact on both SEO and consumer opinion.

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*Image courtesy of The Wild Blogger under this license 

**Please note: Information was removed from this article on 25 April 2017