Content marketing is the most powerful tool in your arsenal – it’s also increasingly more difficult to master. Whether you run a solo business, a startup, or an international company, making the most out of your content marketing is pivotal for success. However, audience expectations in regards to content have changed over the years and continue to do so to this day. 

With the advent of platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat, marketers need to be more and more creative with the content they market. Is it better to be different than anyone else or should you try to be better at what everyone else is doing? That is what we will attempt to dissect in the following segments.

Create a Content Calendar Based on Your Industry’s Trends

While the way you write content should be more original moving forward, you should still try to meet the audience’s expectations with the topics you cover. Touching on trending keywords, topics, and questions will automatically elevate your content and make it more appealing. 

Try using Google Trends and Google Keyword Planner to create unique topic titles to write about. Then, organize your topics into a content calendar to give yourself enough time to create said content. Space out your content instead of publishing it all in one go to allow readers and web crawlers to go through each post. It’s entirely possible to cover expected industry trends but still do it in original ways – all you need is a unique writing style.

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Develop a Distinct Writing Style in your Content

Developing your tone of voice as a content marketer is one of the most challenging assignments you’ll take on – it’s also very rewarding. Find several content marketers, bloggers, or online writers whose writing styles you admire. 

Websites like Forbes and Medium are great hubs for content marketers to pick up on new trends and writing pointers. Then, try to dissect their writing to see if you can mimic their success. Developing a writing style takes months if not years so you need to be patient with yourself. Use tools like Grammarly and Hemingway Editor to monitor your writing and detect stylistic errors as they happen. Try to learn from each new piece of content you write and you will eventually land on a writing style of your own.

Provide Visitors with Original Instead of Stock Media 

Relying on writing alone in your content marketing won’t net you the engagement you need to stand out. Instead, you should develop your content calendar by taking different content types into account. Videos, images, audio, and other resources are greatly beneficial for audience engagement. People like to see diverse content on the websites they visit, so try to meet those expectations. 

What you can do differently is to offer original content instead of stock photos or videos. Even though sites like Pixabay and Pond5 do offer plenty of materials for creators to use in their content, they are also often irrelevant to your topics. You should try to create original, more-relevant multimedia fit for each of the topics or trends you want to cover. This will have significant positive effects on your content’s SEO, not to mention the success you’ll experience in converting new leads moving forward.

Invite Guest Writers and Industry Influencers to Create Content

A great way to differentiate from other content marketers is to work with influential personalities in your industries in writing new content. Reaching out to professionals, influencers, and certified experts for their opinions, thoughts, and advice is an amazing perk for your readers. You can either work with them to create collaborative content or, have them write entirely original content for publishing on your website. 

Whichever path you choose, attribute their work to them and share it on as many channels as you can. This will increase both your and their online reach and add much-needed renown to your brand name. Instead of closing yourself off and creating content independently, work with others for everyone’s long-term benefit. This is what will separate you from others in your niche and help you build a noteworthy reputation.

Succeeding as a Content Marketer in 2022

In truth, the best way to succeed in content marketing in the wake of numerous changes the industry is facing is to do a little bit of both. Be as original as you can while still abiding by trending keywords, audience expectations, and general SEO rules. 

Don’t try to go against the grain because Google and similar search engines won’t know what to make of your entirely-original content. The only way for wholly-original content to work is if you dabble into PPC to compensate for the lack of SEO. This is an unnecessary expense as you can succeed in content marketing by relying on organic SEO and a small spark of uniqueness in your content.