Forecasting may be an inexact practice, but there’s no shortage of New Year-triggered calculations flourishing across the web. The proliferation doesn’t deter us from reading them, of course, and we’ve come across at least a dozen content-related links we’re genuinely inspired to share.
Before we jump into 2012, let’s take a quick look at 2011—the year “content became the new black.”
Richard Ingram has once again curated monthly highlights from the year in content strategy, starting back in January.
Our own publisher, Toby Murdock, recently joined a group of other thought leaders over at the Content Marketing Institute to reflect upon “favorite content marketing lessons” of the year.
You have to produce great content. But even the best content will fail if you don’t promote it to drive traffic to it. Because if no one reads your content, what’s the point?
A List Apart posed a similar question to its readers, reeling in wise words from Brain Traffic’s Kristina Halverson:
Content strategy suddenly went from ‘you should do this’ to a five-alarm imperative. With the advent of HTML5 and responsive design, as well as the worldwide mobile regime (finally here!), content has taken center stage.
Relevant Trends in Social + Search
The business professional’s preferred social network has released a list of 2011’s most overused buzzwords in LinkdIn profiles. Are you guilty?
The number one most overused buzzword in LinkedIn Profiles globally and for professionals based in the United States is ‘creative.’
You may have read that Twitter’s “Golden Tweet 2011” award went to Wendy’s for garnering the most retweets this year. Ragan takes a closer look:
How did Wendy’s get there? The company had a little help from some big names. It was a promoted tweet. And it was for a good cause.
Need some motivation for your next SEO project? Poke around Google Zeitgeist 2011 to encourage your inner “search” geek:
As we leave the year behind, we’re taking a look at the biggest events, news, and people who shaped the year. We analyzed the billions of queries that were typed into Google over the year to give you a glimpse of 2011 as seen through the lenses of Google searches.
Predictions for 2012
Writing for Adotas, Molly Glover, vice president of marketing and communications at Compass Labs, predicts content marketing will be “critical” to brands in ’12:
The brand is the media. The brand is no longer just a buyer of media. Social media is the place where brands will become more aggressive, and it could be the most important brand trend of the next year.
B2B Marketing Insider author Michael Brenner reviews his predictions from last year before listing out 13 for 2012, including:
…the emergence of the content strategist into senior positions within marketing organizations, where they have some authority over budget and planning discussions.
Look for content marketing icon Joe Pulizzi to bring up a concept you may have heard from him before:
Back in 2009, I went around the country talking about how brands should start seriously looking at purchasing media/publishing companies in their industries as a core content marketing strategy. Well, I’m back on that soapbox again.