***This is the updated version of the study released on April 17th. The first version covered Twitter trends posted between January and April 2019. The updated version of the study embraces Google search trends and tweets posted between January and September 2019. Check out our annual State of Content Marketing report to get more insights.***
To keep up with the latest content marketing trends, marketers need to know what is being talked about in their industry.
Social networks are a very effective channel for sharing information and discussing buzz between professionals in any field, including content marketing. One of the fastest and most concise ways to share a trend with a large audience is writing a tweet — Twitter has 330 million monthly active users, and you can reach your target audience just by using the right hashtags.
Another way to spot a trend is to look at search queries in the industry, this reflects people’s interest or topics they want to learn more about.
To help you stay up to date and adjust your content marketing strategy accordingly, we decided to spot the top content marketing trends on Twitter and Google search. To do so, we analyzed the best-performing tweets in English posted between January and September with the hashtag #ContentMarketing and 2019 Google search queries related to content marketing. You can see the results of our research in the infographic below.
Interesting Observations
Digital Marketing
#DigitalMarketing is the top-ranking hashtag used in content marketing related tweets published between January and September — 71% of the analyzed tweets, while #Marketing takes second place at 52%. We can also see that #OnlineMarketing is the eighth most popular hashtag. This data shows us that content marketing has the strongest association with digital marketing, while traditional offline marketing is giving up ground.
With the Internet growing and developing, users have become more independent and demanding at the same time. Hard-sell advertising doesn’t work anymore — statistics show that 25.8% of US internet users blocked ads on their devices in 2019. One of the best ways to interact with customers on the web is to create high-quality and appealing content for your audience, and this is why digital is so closely connected with content marketing.
The main advantage of digital marketing over offline marketing is the ability it gives you to measure results more effectively, track performance at each step of your campaign, and analyze the customer journey to understand what they like most and how you can improve their experience.
Content Strategy
It is no surprise that strategy, the pillar of content marketing, is the most discussed topic in tweets with #ContentMarketing – 29% of the analyzed tweets. Plus “content marketing strategy” is the second most popular keyword related to content marketing on Google, with an average monthly search volume of 6600.
A well-defined content strategy allows you to understand how to create the right content — valuable and relevant — for your audience and distribute it through the channels that are right for them.
72% of content marketers who increased their level of success credit their strategy as a major contributor; this is why this topic is so popular among those who practice content marketing and those who want to start doing it. And the number of people who think this way will certainly grow as “What is content strategy?” is one of the most popular questions asked on Google.
Other widely used hashtags included #ROI and #AudienceResearch, which are closely related to a successful content marketing strategy.
A strategic approach to content can increase your website visitors, and there are many additional benefits over traditional marketing; check out our Ultimate Content Strategy Guide for 2019 to discover many of them.
SEO
SEO remains one of the hottest topics in content marketing; it is the third most popular hashtag paired with #ContentMarketing — 36%, and the third most popular topic discussed in tweets — 10%.
In search, SEO and content marketing go hand and hand too — the questions “What is content marketing in SEO?” and “How to do keyword research for content marketing?” are among the top 10 most asked on Google. Also, the “SEO content marketing” keyword is highly sought, with an average monthly search volume of 1900.
This data proves that SEO remains an integral part of content marketing. Search engines are the most powerful content distribution channel; 34.8% of all website traffic comes from organic search. Search engine optimization and search intent research are essential for any content strategy.
Blogging is the fifth most discussed topic in content marketing related tweets — 4% of the analyzed tweets, and appeared in 15% of analyzed tweets as a hashtag. This number shows that despite the diversity of content formats, blogging and textual content remain one of the most popular formats in content marketing. And the top priority for making your blog post visible in organic is optimizing it for search engines.
Social Media
Content around social media is frequently shared by Twitter marketers -— #SocialMedia — 35%, #SMM — 27%, and #SocialMediaMarketing — 22%. Also, social media is the second most popular topic discussed in tweets — 11%.
Content marketing is closely connected to social media, as social networks are the perfect place to create a dialogue with your audience and distribute your content. But that’s not all. To make your content marketing work and build a unique brand perception, you must align your overall objectives with your social media strategy.
Other important content distribution channels such as influencer marketing and email marketing appear as hashtags in 10% of examined tweets. You can also find questions like “How to create content for affiliate marketing?” and “How to write effective email marketing content?” among the top 20 questions asked on Google.
From another perspective, content ideas are the sixth most popular topic — 4%, and this means that content marketers discuss new ideas right in Twitter, which can be a great source to boost your creativity and engage with your audience. If you are short on time but need data-driven insights, get thousands of content ideas using Topic Research.
Statistical Data
A content marketing strategy should rely on precise analytics and trustworthy data. This idea is supported by the popularity of statistical data — 5% of the analyzed tweets talk about statistics. In addition, #BigData takes 13th place in our hashtag rating — 10%, supporting the importance of data.
Adobe says that the top 3 ways marketers are adding value to data-driven marketing include the use of CRM data, real-time data from analytics, and by integrating analytics across channels. Content marketers consider data analysis a priority — they research and gather statistics to plan their activities and search for optimal solutions to move their business forward.
We live in an era of overproduction, with millions of blog articles being written every week. There is no point in creating content for the sake of content; low-value content means the odds are few will even see it. To catch your audience’s attention, your content must be valuable and helpful; this is why your content and content strategy should be driven by data.
High-Tech
Our study shows that artificial intelligence — 10% among hashtags and 4% among topics, and machine learning — 7% among hashtags are becoming a real trend in content marketing.
Applied to content, these can help you connect and engage with your audience in a completely new way using customization and personalization. So, marketers who want to keep pace with the modern world should definitely be looking to put the latest innovations to use.
Visual Content
Visual content is extremely popular in content marketing related tweets — it’s the ninth most discussed topic and 68% of analyzed tweets contained visuals. 50% of tweets are static images, 14% are infographics, while video was present in only 3% of them.
As for search, the keyword “video content marketing” appears in the top 20 of the most popular search queries related to content marketing. “What is visual content marketing?” is also one of the most popular questions asked on Google.
Consider using visual content, as the human brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text, and 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual. In the era of fast information consumption, visual content in the form of relevant images and infographics should be part of any content strategy.
Growth Hacking
#GrowthHacking is a good example of a hashtag associated with a brand. This hashtag is widely used by the content marketing community on Twitter — 16% of the analyzed tweets — and provides additional visibility to @GrowthHackers.
This popularity may mean that content marketing is used as one of the approaches to growth hacking. Growth hacking is one of the most effective marketing strategies to quickly grow startup companies and other businesses.
Startups are also interested in content marketing, which is used in 12% of tweets as a hashtag and 2% as a topic. Using content marketing, startups and other companies can gain up to 55% more visitors to their sites, and five times more leads, while it costs 62% less than traditional marketing.
E-commerce
E-commerce is the most discussed industry in the analyzed tweets paired with #Content Marketing — 9%, which is followed by industries such as travel and beauty.
The main focus of any e-commerce website is conversions, and this is where content marketing gives you a boost. Studies show that companies that implement content marketing have a higher website conversion rate than those who don’t practice content marketing.
We have already discovered that visual content works better than traditional. While blog posts or e-books may not work best for your website, try implementing video marketing and interactive content that will attract and educate your audience in your overall strategy.
Tools
Tools are a discussed topic in our rating — 4%; this means that content marketers pay special attention to finding and using handy tools in their daily routine.
Our content marketers survey shows that content strategists consider strategic planning and data analysis to be their most challenging tasks. To help content marketers be both analytical and creative, we have developed the SEMrush Content Marketing Platform, which covers every step of your content marketing workflow.
Using our Content Platform, you can find plenty of topic ideas, write and optimize your content, manage your editorial plan, measure the impact and analyze your content performance in one place.
Outsource
Among the most popular keywords are “content marketing agency” and “content marketing services”, with search volumes of 3600 and 1600 respectively.
This shows us that not all companies can afford or require a full-time content strategist and marketer, which increases the demand for the services of agencies that deal with content creation, strategy, and distribution.
Industry Experts
Content marketing is a powerful community, with its well-known experts. So, if you want to keep a finger on the pulse of the industry, here are a few names of those who set the standards.
Top 3 Experts on Twitter
@MikeSchiemer, a results-driven digital marketing, social selling, SEO, and content creation professional with 10 years of experience.
Author of “The $10 Digital Media Startup” and founder of the MyFrugalBusiness startup, Mike Schiemer currently specializes in blogger outreach.
Mike Schiemer has provided social media and content marketing for 100’s of companies, including Nissan, Allstate Insurance, American Express, Intuit, Reebok, GNC, Uno’s, and others.
@evankirstel, a B2B thought leader and top technology “influencer” with a direct social media impact following of more than 400,000.
Evan Kirstel has helped B2B tech brands like Intel, IBM, AT&T Business and Samsung achieve massive visibility and scale across the social media landscape. Currently, Evan is involved in EvIRA, a network of B2B thought leaders and digital social practitioners.
@jeffbullas, a digital entrepreneur, marketing blogger, keynote speaker, digital strategist, and bestselling author, whose website receives over 5 million visitors a year.
He covers topics about entrepreneurship, innovation, social media, digital marketing, content, and marketing automation.
Top 3 Experts Searched on US Google
Ann Handley, an inspirational digital marketing pioneer, writer, speaker, and the world’s first Chief Content Officer. Ann is cited in Forbes as the most influential woman in Social Media and recognized by ForbesWoman as one of the top 20 women bloggers.
Ann Handley is the Chief Content Officer of MarketingProfs, a training company that empowers marketers internationally with the skills they need to drive success in their companies.
Ann is the author of the Wall Street Journal best-seller on business writing, “Everybody Writes”, and a co-founder of ClickZ.com, which was one of the first sources of digital marketing news and commentary.
Read our CMW 2019 Interview: Content Marketing Experts on Their Mistakes and Inspirations, to find more experts who inspire content marketers.
Joe Pulizzi, an entrepreneur, speaker, author, and podcaster, and the founder of multiple startups, including the Content Marketing Institute (CMI). He is also the winner of the 2014 John Caldwell Lifetime Achievement Award from the Content Council.
Currently, he is spending his time at the Orange Effect Foundation (OEF), which delivers funds to children and families for speech therapy services and technology. OEF delivers grants to hundreds of children in 25 states.
Pam Didner is a passionate digital and tech marketer, speaker, and author who loves to bring alignment between sales & marketing.
Her international book “Global Content Marketing” was the first to describe an accessible, comprehensive process to scale content across regions.
Pam Didner currently leads a content consulting company specializing in training and strategic advice.
Methodology
We collected all the tweets (more than 450,000) posted between January and September 2019 with the hashtag #ContentMarketing. Only tweets in English were taken into account.
For this study, we selected the most popular tweets with 20+ retweets and analyzed them to find the following data:
The most popular hashtags used with #ContentMarketing;
The most popular topics discussed in these tweets (the topics were identified by our machine learning algorithm);
The use of visual content (presence or absence);
The top content marketing influencers on Twitter.
To find the top influencers, we analyzed the accounts that posted the most retweeted organic posts (20+ retweets) with #ContentMarketing and who had the largest number of subscribers. We also took into account the number of likes and the number of publications ranked as top-performing tweets.
As for the Google queries analysis, we collected the keywords from searches related to content marketing (keyword) in English (worldwide) between January and September 2019. We then counted the average monthly search volume for each keyword to make a list of the top search queries and top questions asked on Google.
The Content In the Infographic
Top 20 Hashtags Used with #ContentMarketing
#digitalmarketing – 71%
#marketing – 52%
#seo – 36%
#socialmedia – 35%
#smm – 27%
#socialmediamarketing – 22%
#content – 20%
#onlinemarketing – 18%
#business – 18%
#growthhacking – 16%
#blogging – 15%
#startup – 12%
#bigdata – 10%
#ai – 10%
#influencermarketing – 10%
#emailmarketing – 10%
#ecommerce – 9%
#infographic – 8%
#analytics – 7%
#machinelearning – 7%
Top 20 Topics Discussed with #ContentMarketing
The Usage of Links and Visual Content in Tweets
Top 20 Content Marketing Influencers on Twitter
The Most Popular Topics Searched on Google
Strategy
SEO
Agency
B2B
Tools
Examples
Visual content
Affiliate marketing
Email marketing
Jobs
Top 20 Google Search Queries Related to Content Marketing
(Keyword – Avg. monthly searches)
Content marketing strategy – 6600
Content marketing institute – 5400
Content marketing agency – 3600
Content marketing examples – 3600
Content marketing definition – 2900
Content marketing plan – 2900
Content marketing world – 2400
B2b content marketing – 2400
Content marketing manager – 1900
Seo content marketing – 1900
Content marketing services – 1600
Content marketing tools – 1600
Content marketing companies – 1300
Content marketing jobs – 1300
Content marketing platform – 1300
Content marketing blog – 1300
Types of content marketing – 1300
Video content marketing – 1300
Content calendar examples – 1000
Content marketing conference – 880
Top 20 Questions about Content Marketing Asked on Google
What is content marketing
What is content strategy
Why is content marketing important
Why content marketing
What is content marketing strategy
What is content marketing in seo
How to create a content marketing strategy
How content marketing drives sales
How to do keyword research for content marketing
How to write content marketing
What is b2b content marketing
What does a content marketer do
What is visual content marketing
What does content marketing mean
How content marketing is changing the game
How to develop content marketing strategy
How much do content marketers make
How to create content for affiliate marketing
What is good content marketing
How to write effective email marketing content
What do you think about the results of our study? Which hashtags do you use on Twitter and what are your favorite topics to discuss with the marketing community? Share your opinion by leaving a comment!