4 Content trends to watch

Ian Truscott, Vice President of Marketing, SDL Content Management Technologies Division: The marketer's role will expand into technology. As more companies direct their attention toward improving the customer experience, traditional marketing roles will see a shift in responsibilities and expertise to engage in effective multi-channel marketing. Marketers will need to understand and incorporate the technology that enables marketing through new channels and engagement tactics (whether that be through mobile, social, or other channels). Thus, content management tools that were once in the IT department's domain will increasingly be used and brought into the organization by marketing professionals.

Kristina: Is content management growing to include more than the Internet?

Ian: Corporate websites aren't the only types of content that contribute to a consumer's experience with a brand. Enterprises will need to tailor their content management strategies to encompass everything from social media and mobile content to traditional user manuals, troubleshooting guides and other types of product information. As a result, mainstream CMS tools are evolving beyond publishing just Web pages to support multiple types of content across a multitude of channels.

Kristina: Social media is one new way consumers are asking questions of brands. How can brands better use social for content optimization?

Ian: will have to make sure that their customer care department is aligned with the marketing communications team. Customer care professionals have had their own tactics for managing uncontrolled conversations in public forums, but in an effort to deliver a consistent brand experience across multiple channels, marketing functions will need to merge with customer care to handle social interactions in a similar fashion with similar goals (i.e. improve the customer experience).

Until now, social media responsibilities were typically assigned to junior marketers and social media ninjas often working in silos. The marketing department in New York, for example, had their social media intern posting to Facebook randomly throughout the week, while a marketing coordinator in San Francisco posted once a week whenever they had free time--each with different types of content, tone and voice. The same can be said about mobile content, another trend that's created silos within the organization. In 2013, however, enterprises will strive to build uniformity across the organization. Social media and mobile content will graduate to more formal and elevated roles, becoming a crucial component of the enterprise marketing mix, as opposed to something that people do largely unsupervised in their spare time.

Tags: branded content, content tips, content trends, online content, SDL Content Management Technologies Division