The 5 Content Marketing Trends to Watch in 2019

According to John Hall, the 5 content marketing trends to watch in 2019 (published in Forbes) are:

   1. Content marketing is becoming marketing

   2. Strategy will become more essential

   3. Customer success will emerge as the new frontier

   4. The marketing funnel will change shape

   5. Distribution will remain a driver of success

Here in Brussels I would like to add another trend: Content Marketing is (finally) appearing on the radar. After many years of focusing on monitoring - be it brands or policy makers - communication teams are confronted with a key question: how can we evolve from reputation monitoring towards reputation building? Evolve from measuring the impact of the past to actively influencing the future?

Content marketing can take many shapes and forms. From inviting clients to share pictures of their creations to a comprehensive strategy for being recognized as a trusted source of information in their sector, ultimately aiming for a thought leader and reference position.

Brussels is an extremely busy and noisy environment, with 11.892 organisations in the European Parliament Lobby registry. All trying to get their message across, to be heard above the noise and influence the decision making process of the policy makers. Too often the focus is still on presenting and highlighting their expertise, view point or solutions.

Communicating as an expert, not a thought leader.

This will certainly start changing in 2019 as the pressure will increase on communication teams to position their organization as thought leaders and the reference instead of experts. Exiting times ahead for those in the communication arena in Brussels!

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash