Content writing trends continue to evolve each year as new technologies emerge and consumer behaviors change. While mainstay topics like SEO, content marketing, and storytelling remained important in 2017, some new trends began to take shape. Here are some of the most impactful content writing trends from the past year and what they could mean moving forward.
Voice-Activated Devices Drive Changes
The rise of voice-activated assistants like Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Apple’s Siri gained significant traction in 2017. With these devices, users can ask questions and receive responses verbally without ever looking at a screen. This shift to a primarily auditory experience is already starting to change how companies approach content. Conversational writing became more important as content needs to be easily understood when spoken aloud rather than read. Facts, details, and instructions must be presented in a simplified, conversational manner catered for voice. Moving forward, all types of companies will need to optimize at least some of their content for voice if they want to engage customers using these new technologies.
Video and Visual Content Reigns Supreme
Engaging video and visual content rose to the top of popularity in 2017. According to most analytics reports, video and photo content consistently outperformed written posts across most major social platforms and websites. Moving images that show rather than tell bring content to life in a way that purely textual posts often cannot. They also keep people on pages longer and inspire more shares. This past year, both large brands and individual content creators began producing more videos, visual explainers, graphics, and illustrations. Expect this trend of prioritizing visual over written content to only grow stronger in 2018 as consumers continue to prefer consuming information in visual formats.
AI Tools Change Content Creation
Artificial intelligence and automated content generation made big steps forward in 2017. Tools like Amazon’s Lex, Anthropic’s Constitutional AI, and Automated Insights’ Wordsmith helped produce basic news stories, financial reports, and other content at scale. While these systems are still narrow and produce only simple types of content presently, the capabilities continue to expand rapidly. Within just a few years, AI will likely penetrate nearly every industry and aspect of content creation. As these new technologies develop, human writers must find ways to work alongside AI to focus on complex, strategic content while using automated tools to handle routine content. Adaptability and technical skills will also become more essential for content teams that interface with AI systems.
Personalization Redefines Engagement
Personalization exploded as a buzzword in 2017, and its importance will only increase moving forward. Thanks to technologies like machine learning and big data, companies now have the ability to understand customers on a deeper level and tailor experiences uniquely for each person. This extends to content as well. Readers expect information targeted to their specific motivations, locations, behaviors, and past engagements with a brand. Static websites are no longer enough. Content must be dynamically personalized at scale based on user attributes. Top companies are developing customized content delivery and recommendations through tools like chatbots, personalized landing pages, and dynamic web content. Others risk losing highly-coveted first-party customer data if they fail to personalize.
Voice Search Transforms Discovery
Google announced in 2017 that 50% of all searches are now conducted via voice on mobile devices. This seismic shift has tremendous implications for content and its discoverability. With voice, users don’t type keyword searches – they have natural conversations or ask open-ended questions. Relevant content must be discovered and surfaced based on embedded semantic meanings rather than fixed keywords. Topical authority and expertise will become more important ranking signals as users rely on assistants to understand their intent. All content should be optimized for voice search through strategic use of headers, sentence structure, and conceptual vocabulary chosen for listener understanding rather than reader scanning. Moving forward, content optimized primarily for visual keyword searches will lose ground against narratively structured, voice-first compositions.
Branded Content Gains Credibility
Brands continued finding success in 2017 by shifting away from hard-selling and traditional advertising toward creating and curating original editorial content. When done right, branded content acts like any other third-party source would – establishing authority, solving problems, and entertaining or informing audiences without obvious promotion. This respect consumers grant to brands producing high-quality, objective information separate from sales pitches makes branded content a credible news source. As trust in traditional media declines, brands capitalizing on this trend of using content for value creation rather than direct selling will build better relationships with customers. Companies that view content as a one-way broadcast rather than two-way dialogue will fall behind.
VR and AR Invade All Industries
While still in the early stages, virtual and augmented reality made significant leaps forward in 2017. Major technology companies invested heavily in next-gen hardware and software. Early applications emerged across many sectors including travel, education, healthcare, gaming, and more. As the immersive web develops over the coming years, new forms of interactive and spatial content will become essential. Tutorials, tours, simulations, and digital companions will all be designed for use through VR and AR formats. Forward-thinking companies are already experimenting with 360 video, 3D assets, and location-aware experiences. Those who fail to evolve content styles and develop VR/AR strategies risk becoming irrelevant as this new medium matures. By 2025, parts of nearly every major industry are expected to incorporate some form of virtual or augmented offering.
Content marketing trends in 2017 pointed toward increased focus on conversational voice formats, visuals, personalization, brand credibility, and evolving technologies. While written content still retains immense value, those who fully adapt tactics for new devices, engagement preferences, and emerging mediums like AI, VR, and AR will see the greatest rewards moving forward. Continuous innovation and an agile ability to adapt storytelling for any medium will define successful content operations in this fast-changing landscape.
Andrew Stroud