Videos will continue to be a dominant format for content marketing in 2016. Short videos that get to the point quickly and tell a story without high production value will engage users with short attention spans. Quality of content will be more important than quantity, so brands should focus on creating a few truly exceptional pieces of content rather than many average ones. Instagram and WhatsApp may become important new platforms for distributing branded content as ad blockers rise in popularity and content must earn viewers on its own merits rather than through advertising.

2. Videos Will
Continue To
Dominate
2016 will be the year of videos,
more than 50% mobile traffic is
already dominated by videos.
Start experimenting with video.
Think story-telling not high
production value.
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Content Marketing 2016 Trends - By Aashish Chopra

3. Attention Spans
Will Continue
To Fall
Create content which gets to the
point quickly and engages.
For videos, engage in first few
seconds. For Images, drop the
collages and keep them crisp.
For articles, listicles :)
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Content Marketing 2016 Trends - By Aashish Chopra

4. Quality Will
Beat Quantity,
Hands Down
Instead of creating a lot of
content, focus on the kick-ass
ones, which engage and deliver
value to users.
Remember the 80-20 rule?
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Content Marketing 2016 Trends - By Aashish Chopra

5. Rise of
Instagram And
WhatsApp
I'll be experimenting a lot with
creating native content for
Instagram and WhatsApp and
build them as an alternate content
distribution platforms in 2016.
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Content Marketing 2016 Trends - By Aashish Chopra

6. Rise of
Branded
Content
2016 will see rise of branded
content, not ads masquerading as
content but genuine content
which is useful, relevant and adds
value to users’ lives. Also, with Ad
blockers becoming popular,
content must earn the eye-balls.
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Content Marketing 2016 Trends - By Aashish Chopra

7. Not Visual,
But Virtual
Content
The second half of 2016 should
see the rise of virtual content and
with Facebook acquiring Oculus
Rift, virtual reality could
eventually become mainstream.
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Content Marketing 2016 Trends - By Aashish Chopra

8. Think Big
But Execute For
Tiny Screens
When you’re reviewing any
creative or video, the first
questions to ask before any
creative or story-telling logic:
How would it work on
that tiny screen?
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Content Marketing 2016 Trends - By Aashish Chopra

9. Multi-Skilled
Storytellers In
Every Team
We’d need filmmakers to double
up as designers, writers to pickup
design skills, and filmmakers to
learn how to write headlines.
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Content Marketing 2016 Trends - By Aashish Chopra

10. Keep
Experimenting
Let 2016 be the year of crazy
experiments: try new formats,
new features, get obsessed with
your users' lives and add value in
every content piece.
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Content Marketing 2016 Trends - By Aashish Chopra

11. There's One
More Thing
I’m finally writing that book!
About the story of learnings from
the content marketing trenches,
of how experiments became best
practices for multi million views
viral videos.
Join the mailing list and I’ll
inform you when it’s out :)
www.aashishchopra.com/the-book
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