How Content Marketing 2.0 is Changing the Game

Still early into the 2020s, digital marketing is already experiencing some growing pains. Just when marketers have finally mastered blogging for SEO, suddenly written content isn’t enough to keep audiences engaged. So you might be wondering, what’s working now?

The short answer: rich media.

In other words, today’s prospects would rather watch a video or listen to a podcast than read a written blog article or ebook — which, up until recently, were the most common ways to engage top-of-funnel traffic.

Another interesting shift? Even social media photos are receiving lackluster engagement, and prospects are looking for something more.

Given this new era of interests, SMBs find themselves straddling an awkward space between making their traditional SEO and social media efforts count, while trying to give their audiences what they’re asking for — which is (you guessed it) more video and audio content.

Of course, many marketers have already caught onto the fact that rich media content is the next “big thing.” In fact, plenty of businesses have started to add rich media to their own marketing mix.

However, there’s one big problem: they’ve realized creating more video and audio content isn’t always as easy as the TikTok generation makes it seem.

As it turns out, producing effective video content and working it into your existing digital marketing strategy often eats up time and resources without yielding much return on investment.

So the real question is, if rich media is a necessity to stay relevant and grow the top of your funnel, how do you work more video and audio content into your marketing strategy in a way that supports your bottom line?

The simple solution is to stop adding rich media content to your existing strategy and instead build a new strategy around video content that’s better suited for a fresh approach.

That’s where Content Marketing 2.0 comes into play.

This updated shift in strategy puts videos and podcasts at the heart of your marketing efforts.

With a Content Marketing 2.0 approach, a video is more than just a video and a podcast is more than just a podcast: they’re also overarching sources of content that can be effectively distributed via your social media channels, email marketing campaigns, sales outreach efforts, and more.

What is Content Marketing 2.0?

Content Marketing 2.0 is a practical, effective solution based on the production of video podcasts. Video podcasts are the perfect medium for SMBs to embark on a rich media strategy for a few reasons:

1. Recording a video podcast provides both video and audio-only media formats.
   
   
2. Video podcasts are accessible to any budget, requiring minimal recording equipment and allowing for interviews through Zoom or any other video conferencing software.
   
   
3. Video podcasts are simple to edit and produce.

Each episode can be easily trimmed into countless pieces of high-value micro-content. With just one 30–40 minute video podcast, any SMB can fill its marketing pipeline and even provide video content for sales outreach and other areas of business.

How Does Content Marketing 2.0 Work?

The key to Content Marketing 2.0 is strategic thinking during the content planning phase, and resourceful utilization once the media is produced.

Here are the basic steps marketers should be mindful of:

1. Decide on your video podcast theme and premise. Research Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts to find the right categories and titles for your video podcast. You’ll want to pick a subject that is engaging to your audience, but also one that is likely to show up in one of the category lists on the major podcast hosting platforms.
   
   
2. Plan each episode like you would plan a pillar page on your website. Pick a topic for your episode, then plan for 4–5 subtopics to discuss.
   
   
3. Record your video podcast, making sure to spend 5–10 minutes on each of your subtopics.
   
   
4. In post-production, you’ll edit your video podcast into shorter videos, each containing one of your subtopics. This way you’ll have individual clips that each focus on a different subtopic, with each representing a different opportunity to engage with your audience across the various channels you market yourself on.
   
   
5. Upload your audio-only podcast to all podcast platforms, using detailed show notes and optimized titles to help the episode get indexed for the keywords you’re most interested in ranking for.
   
   
6. Upload your full episode to YouTube, optimizing it for organic search through YouTube’s search engine by placing keywords and phrases in the title, description, and even captioning of your video.
   
   
7. Upload your 5–10 minute clips to YouTube once a week to boost your YouTube SEO results. YouTube’s algorithm favors accounts that post content regularly and frequently.
   
   
8. Break your video podcast down even further into 30–60 second bits of “micro-content” to use in social media, newsletters, and blogs, and 2–3 minute clips for your sales staff to include in outreach efforts.
   
   

How is Content Marketing 2.0 Changing the Game?

This new model gives SMBs a chance to get ahead of the curve when it comes to rich media content. 

You can compare it to the early 2010s when marketers more frequently started talking about blogging for SEO. The businesses that threw their energy into SEO early seized the market, and everyone else was left playing catch-up.

However, playing catch-up with rich media content will be much more difficult. The brands that start now — and stay consistent — will potentially flourish. By doing nothing, others will certainly not.

By optimizing content creation and distribution to work with rich media-based algorithms, SMBs can open new channels and appeal to new audiences. Using the Content Marketing 2.0 strategy, any SMB has access to these benefits without using an exorbitant amount of resources.

Content Marketing 2.0 is changing the game by providing a framework for a sustainable, efficient, effective rich media strategy for the small and medium-sized businesses that need it most.

If you’re ready to shift to Content Marketing 2.0 but need a little guidance, don’t hesitate to reach out.

The team at Tobe can help you get started and set you up for success.