Content is Key - 3 Key Content Marketing Trends of 2015

At the end of the day, any good SEO strategy revolves around providing high quality and engaging content to your users. As such, it is no surprise that Content Marketing is bigger than ever; content creation and publication is at an all-time high, and traditional marketing budgets are being reallocated to content marketing efforts.

Below are a few key themes that have arisen throughout 2015:

1. Publication is only the first small step; real value comes from distribution - Strategic distribution of content is what will set businesses apart. Optimizing for search, and specifically mobile, building relationships with branded publications, and reaching out to influencers in your field are just a few ways to make sure your content actually reaches your target market.

2. Content marketing is becoming inextricably inked with social media marketing - Businesses have realized that social media is an amplifier for content. While the majority of firms already know the importance of social media in their marketing, in 2015, we have seen businesses more fully realize its role as the capstone of any distribution model.

3. Companies who embrace content marketing achieve higher search engine rankings - SEO and content marketing now go hand-in-hand; better, more frequent content attracts likes, shares, and stimulates other brand building signals that boost search rankings. SEO will continue to be an important part of the marketing mix, but it will increasingly become about technical aspects like keyword research, indexing issues, meta tags and penalty recovery. Content marketing, on the other hand, may soon become the key marginal driver of search rankings.

If you'd like to know more, check out the below link for a more thorough list of Content Marketing trends expected in 2015.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2014/12/01/the-top-7-content-marketing-trends-that-will-dominate-2015/

The New York Times Gets Instagram!

In the face of hyper-digitialization, one could say that the newspapers struggled the most to find ways to survive. It was no exception for the worldly renowned company like the New York Times in its 160-year history. Last year was especially difficult with the executive editor Jill Abramson suddenly fired and leak of an internal report how the paper has been struggling to keep up with digital trends.

Well, it seems like this year has brought a fresh scene of change for the beloved newspaper company. Earlier this week, the Times got -- drumroll please -- Instagram! 

Already with 27.9k followers in four days, they have been posting photographs and snippets from their articles on the theme of "Beginnings" as exemplified by their first post on Insta:

On the company's new presence in social media, the new executive editor, Alexandra MacCallum said, "It's raising our profile with a different set of people than we're used to reaching, and I think that's a really important thing for the Times going forward." (source: Mashable article) 

So what does this mean for the Times and social media in the long run? People have increasingly been using social media as a source of their news feed (literally), and does the Times' Instagram acknowledge that? Is it simply a way to reach out to and engage more variety of audience for them? Or, is this a new way for the people get the real news fed into their minds while spending infinite hours on Instagram? How will the stories be curated anyways?

So many questions aside, many are responding with warm welcoming into their Insta world, instead of raising their eyebrows. I have a gut feeling that we could be witnessing a milestone moment in the history of news and journalism.