What have been the most notable updates in content marketing so far this year? We counted down the top 25 items any marketer or content creator ought to have on their radar — from the newest features in battling social apps to the latest industry reports for keeping your content strategy in check. How many did you know?

2. PINTEREST INTRODUCES
SEARCH ADS
Perhaps Pinterest’s most important
update yet came earlier this year
when it rolled out search ads. The
search ads allow marketers to
sponsor “top result” pins that match
search queries.
Though a simple update, it is also an
important one to marketers who
have products that match items
being searched for.
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3. FTC GETS SERIOUS ABOUT
REGULATING INFLUENCER
MARKETING
In April, the Federal Trade
Commission issued a press
release reminding brands and
influencers that influencers must be
upfront about when they are being
paid to promote a product.
Though there have not been major
reports about crackdowns, hashtags
like #sponsored, #ad, or #partner
have become more prevalent on
influencer social posts.
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4. NATIVE ADVERTISING
SKYROCKETS
From the end of the first quarter of
2016 to the end of the first quarter
in 2017, native ads saw a dramatic
74 percent increase, according to a
study completed by MediaRadar.
These types of ads have been
especially popular in the media and
entertainment industry and the
professional services industry.
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5. SNAPCHAT SPECTACLES
BECOME AVAILABLE TO THE
MASSES
Though Snapchat Spectacles were
first released in 2016, unless you
were able to find a kiosk in a major
city where the glasses were being
sold, you had no chance to buy
them.
That changed earlier this year when
Snapchat made Spectacles available
for anyone to purchase online.
Analysts estimate approximately
60,000 Spectacles were sold in the
first quarter of 2017.
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6. INSTAGRAM ADDS PHOTO
CAROUSELS
Instagram’s update that allows
for up to 10 photos and videos to be
uploaded at once was met with
excitement when it was first
announced in February.
Though Instagram hasn’t released
data about how many times this
functionality has been used, a scroll
through your feed should prove
sufficient evidence that Instagram
users are utilizing the new
functionality.
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7. STUDY: STOP PUTTING OFFERS IN
YOUR EMAIL SUBJECT LINES IF
YOU WANT PEOPLE TO OPEN
A Yes Lifecycle Marketing study this
year found that putting offers in
your email subject lines often does
not yield the response you may be
hoping for.
In fact, emails that do not include
offers in the subject lines get higher
click and open rates than those that
do.
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8. GOOGLE CHROME WILL START
LETTING USERS KNOW IF YOUR
SITE ISN’T SECURE
Google Chrome offered a warning to
brands earlier this year — make
your site secure, or we’ll warn
consumers to not visit it.
Given the amount of Internet traffic
that occurs on Chrome, failing to
make your site secure would be an
awful way to shoot your marketing
efforts in the foot.
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9. CONSUMERS TO SOCIAL
BRANDS: FOCUS ON
HELPFULNESS — NOT SNARK
The brands that are most snarky
tend to get the most attention from
fellow marketers and news outlets,
but consumers are less than thrilled
with the attitude.
A Sprout Social report found that
above all else, most consumers want
brands to be honest and friendly on
social media.
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10. FACEBOOK ADJUSTS ALGORITM
BASED ON REACTION EMOJI
USAGE
When Facebook first rolled out emoji
reactions, these emojis were initially
simply cute ways to interact with
content. That changed earlier this
year when Facebook announced it
would begin prioritizing love, haha,
sad, and angry reactions higher than
“likes.”
That means the more passionate
your users are about using
reactions, the more likely they are to
see your Facebook content.
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11. STUDY SUGGESTS TO FOCUS ON
SEO — NOT YOUR WEBSITE — TO
IMPROVE REPUTATION
People don’t search out content on
your website, but nearly half of all
respondents of a Lumentus
survey said that they research
companies based on search results
— even without ever visiting a
company’s site.
The study reports that almost 75
percent of respondents said they
have chosen to not do business with
a company because of negative
search results.
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12. GOOGLE CEASES SCANNING
USERS’ EMAILS FOR AD
TARGETING
Google announced earlier this year
that it would no longer scan the
content of users’ emails for ad
targeting. This means that the
content in the 1.2 billion Gmail
accounts that Google hosts is no
longer fair game for marketers — a
significant blow for those who once
relied on this information.
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13. INTERNET TRENDS REPORT SETS
MARKETING WORLD ABUZZ
Each year the Internet Trends Report
allows digital marketers to examine
trends. Some of the top findings in
this years’ report:
• The average adult in the United
States spends more than 5 hours
per day with online media.
• More than 3 out of 5 marketers
claim accurately measuring ROI is
their biggest challenge.
• Mobile advertising spend
surpassed desktop advertising
spend for the first time ever in
2016.
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14. INSTAGRAM DOUBLES ITS
ADVERTISERS
Instagram now boasts more than
one million monthly advertisers — a
number that doubles the previous
number of 500,000 that was last
recorded in late 2016.
Instagram claims that 1 in 5 of its
users have used the app to contact a
brand or engage with a brand
website. Likewise, more than 80
percent of Instagram users follow a
brand on the channel.
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15. REPORT: PEOPLE DON’T TRUST
YOUR DIGITAL MARKETING
EFFORTS
If some in your own organizations
still have concerns about your
company’s digital marketing efforts,
they aren’t alone.
According to data released earlier
this year, nearly 2/3 of consumers
say they would respond more
favorably to an ad on social media if
it had been published to a more
traditional channel instead.
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16. DITCH PLANS FOR YOUR MOBILE
APP — YOU’RE BETTER OFF
OPTIMIZING FOR THE WEB
A report released earlier this year by
Adobe Digital Insights indicated that
mobile app downloads have
decreased by nearly 40 percent
since 2014 and apps opened are
down by 28 percent. Conversely,
since April 2016, sites optimized for
Google’s Accelerated Mobile
Project have seen nearly 5x as many
hits.
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17. LIVE VIDEO IS BECOMING THE
NORM FOR MILLENNIALS
Though brands are still perfecting
how to use live streaming video,
Millennials are not only on board
with more live videos — they expect
them.
According to information released
earlier this year by eMarketer,
approximately two-thirds of 18-34
year-olds have watched live videos
and 2 in 5 have published their own
live videos.
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18. 1 IN 3 ORGANIZATIONS ARE
PLANNING FOR A BIGGER
MARKETING BUDGET NEXT YEAR
An American Express survey earlier
this year indicated that roughly 1in 3
chief financial officers are planning
for a larger marketing budget in
2018.
If you haven’t yet had substantive
discussions about your 2018 budget,
there is no better time than now —
especially considering nearly 57
percent of marketing officers said
they don’t plan to increase the
budget at all for 2018.
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19. STUDY: INSTAGRAM GIVES YOU
MORE BANG FOR YOUR BUCK
THAN FACEBOOK
Instagram has always been viewed
as the little brother to Facebook, but
a report from SocialBakers earlier
this year showed that Instagram is
clearly superior to Facebook in at
least one important area —
engagement.
According to the study, even when
brands have a larger presence on
Facebook, they are still getting an
average of 3x as much engagement
with their Instagram content.
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20. TWITTER FINALLY GETS SERIOUS
ABOUT CUTTING DOWN ABUSE
After years of being called out for
not being a safe place for people
and brands to spend their
time, Twitter finally started to get
tougher on bullies, trolls, and others
who use their platform in abusive
ways.
The efforts from Twitter may have
worked, seeing that it added nine
million monthly users in the first
quarter — the social channel’s
largest quarterly increase in more
than two years.
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21. STUDY: PEOPLE ARE USING
MOBILE MORE THAN EVER
The Interactive Advertising Bureau
released a study earlier this year
that simultaneously condemned
mobile users and empowered digital
marketers:
• More than 60 percent of people
use their smartphones at least
once every half hour.
• One out of five smartphone
owners use their mobile device
every five minutes.
• 9 out of 10 respondents access
the web on a mobile device every
day.
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22. NOBODY (WELL ALMOST
NOBODY) IS OPENING YOUR
MARKETING EMAILS
A study performed earlier this year
by GetResponse found that the
average open rate for a marketing
email is only slightly higher than 20
percent.
Ironically, the digital marketing
industry was found to have the
lowest open rate, with a paltry 13
percent of digital marketing industry
emails being opened.
Get 5 email marketing secrets from
HubSpot power-users.
05

23. BOTS ARE FINALLY READY FOR
THEIR CLOSE UP
Although discussions about game-
changing “bots” started a couple
years ago, the beginning of 2017
finally saw bots thrown onto the
main stage of content marketing
thanks to Facebook Messenger
launching a bot discovery tab and
group bots.
Facebook has said bots will continue
to be a high priority in the years to
come.
See our great post on building a
Facebook chatbot in 10 minutes.
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24. FACEBOOK PRIORITIZES ITS
NEXT 5 YEARS
Seeing that Facebook reached 2
billion active monthly users in the
first half of 2017, rumors of its
demise are obviously premature to
say the least. When the
company announced its top
priorities for the next half decade,
wise marketers paid attention and
planned accordingly to go along for
the ride.
A word to the wise: Focus on
building communities and creating
videos, and your Facebook
marketing efforts will do well.
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25. INSTAGRAM OUT-SNAPCHATS
SNAPCHAT
Coming into 2017, Snapchat was
threatening Instagram to
be the social channel for teens and
young adults. Then a funny thing
happened: Instagram started
incorporating all of Snapchat’s
features — and improving on them.
Now, in the middle of 2017,
Instagram is more popular than ever
and Snapchat is playing defense to
remain a player in the social media
game.
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26. SOCIAL MEDIA GETS STORIES . . .
AND STORIES . . . AND STORIES
A story: Once upon a time there was
an upstart social channel who let its
users tell stories. Then every other
social channel copied it. The end.
You can’t think of the first half of
2017 without thinking of stories.
Snapchat may have started the story
phenomenon, but 2017 saw
Instagram, Messenger, and
Facebook all come out with their
own versions of stories, with varying
levels of success.
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27. • The Top 30 Content Creation Tools of 2017
• Ebook: 2017 Best Content Marketing Practices for Education & Non-Profits
• Case Study: How One Agency Used ClearVoice to Boost Output 50%
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