Digital Publishing Trends Publishers & Audiences Need To Follow

To learn more about these emerging trends in 2022 and beyond, we have put together a list of the most important digital publishing trends to track this year.

1. Brand Loyalty
2. SEO
3. Content Quality
4. Information Accuracy
5. Engagement
6. Algorithms and AI
7. Cookieless Future
8. Media Types
9. Mobile-first
10. Brand Loyalty

In 2022, publishers will need to shift their focus on strengthening brand loyalty. One of the primary ways to do this is through community building. In the wake of the pandemic, many consumers feel the need to find their own digital community to subsidize the lack of in person communication. In addition, many are wanting current and reliable information. This results in consumers seeking information outlets that consistently produce quality content.

Due to this need, many publishers have begun to build their own community platforms and focus on gathering consumers’ data to be better informed on their audience. Once a publisher knows who their audience is, it is easier to create content that their audience wants to see.

In addition to community building, publishers are noticing a growth in the amount of people who rely on social media platforms to get their news. Brands are branching out to reach their audience through many different platforms. Publishers are investing time in creating robust social media platforms. This consolidates their authority, allows them to grow their audience of loyal readers and bolster the feeling of community.

SEO 

Digital publications can take many forms on the web. There are magazines, news aggregates, pop-culture blogs and more. Still, no matter what type of publication a publisher has, all of them need to regularly share content and monetize it. They need to build a loyal brand base and in order to do so they need to ensure their content is discoverable by their target audience. To do this, they need a robust understanding of Search Engine Optimization, also known as SEO.

Investing in SEO is becoming crucial as the market becomes more and more saturated. Following the latest trends and practices can not only make a publication discoverable, but it also helps them generate advertising revenue. In 2022, many digital publishers are optimizing their website layout to improve user experience. In addition, they are focussing heavily on SEO to see an increase in readership, audience interactions, and content redistribution.

Content Quality

If a digital publisher wants to bolster their credibility, then creating quality content is a must. Audiences are typically more engaged with content and information they deem valuable.  By tailoring content to user needs and wants, publishers will see a higher success rate.

Not only does high quality content increase reputation and user retention, it also is heavily linked with best practices in SEO. Quality content attracts the right audience via key words and can even get a user to take action on a given website. It also increases a web page’s search ranking. Google filters sites by quality of content and links within a given page to produce search engine results otherwise known as SERP’s.

Information Accuracy  

Much like content quality, information accuracy is a means to the same end. Audiences are not only looking for top notch content, they also want it to be reliable and trustworthy. This is where information accuracy comes in. With a market that is oversaturated with information sources, many are looking to streamline their online experience by finding a source they know and trust. Information accuracy can increase a publisher’s brand loyalty and even boost its SEO traffic. It’s a win on all accounts.

Engagement 

Information accuracy, content quality, and reliability all lead to one thing—engagement. This is essentially a way publishers can assess an individual’s response to a digital product. User engagement is crucial because engaged users are the ones who are likely to buy or share feedback. Digital publishers track user engagement by monitoring a user’s activities such as downloads, clicks, and shares.

User engagement is often correlated with overall profitability of a digital publication. When a user deems a product valuable, they will spend time engaging with it. This allows digital publications to make profit by showing users ads or promoting subscriptions when they are on the page. To learn more about the world of digital publishing monetization and what publishers need to do to prepare, see our blog post here.

Algorithms and AI

An upcoming trend that is sweeping the publication market is AI-generated content. Digital publishers are employing AI-Generated content that revolves around the 3Ps: propagation, persistence, and personalization. Publications are working to create original and high-quality content to attract their target audience. In order to produce at a higher volume faster, AI content aggregation helps. Through machine learning, AI can recognize trending and current stories. This allows more dated original content to resurface on a platform and trend along with a current story of similar nature.

Algorithms and AI allow digital publishers to know their audience better than ever. The tech is analyzing multiple pieces of user data like how they interact with a site, their preferences, clicks, etc. This information is used to produce a detailed profile of an audience and helps to develop a content strategy of how best to serve them.

Cookieless Future

Cookies are quickly becoming a thing of the past. Big name companies like Apple and Mozilla have announced they will block third-party cookies for its Firefox and Safari apps. What’s more, on June 24, 2021, Google announced its plans to phase out third-party cookies in its Chrome browser leading up to 2023.

The newest prediction is that publishers can start phasing out cookies. With cookies gone, this will create a massive shift in the market. Ads will target users in new ways. Many think advertisements will be more personalized than ever before. Currently,  80% of marketers depend on third-party cookie data. In addition, 70% of digital publishers believe that the removal of third-party cookies will result in a change for marketing technology. With cookies depreciating, consent based first-party data is on the rise. With this new data, ads can become more personal and publishers are hoping to see higher revenue streams from it.

Media Types

Incorporating multiple different media types on a given page can help boost user engagement. The reason is that it provides something for everyone. Including an in-browser video to pair with an article, or linking a podcast on the same page can be useful to users who want to engage with a digital publication in different ways.

Videos have shown success in bridging the gap between text and real world application.  It increases user retention as well. On average, 88% more time is spent on a website that includes a video. In addition, creating other media types for a given set of materials allows publishers to get more out of a given topic. This way there is a constant cycle of content a publisher can put out for their audience.

Mobile-first

With 97% of people in the United States owning a cellphone, the importance of mobile optimization is becoming apparent. Publishers are beginning to optimize their articles and web pages to serve mobile users as they are quickly becoming just as important as a computer or tablet.

Joining in on the mobile-first trend allows digital publishers to boost their traffic. Publications that aren’t easy to read on a mobile are often instantly navigated away from and receive low engagement. Rightly so, as readers want mobile-friendly and responsive pages for a better reading experience overall. With 46% of Americans spending 5 to 6 hours a day, digital publishers don’t want to miss out on a key audience.

Being trend focused

Things are changing fast. In order to have the right blend of engagement, SEO, and brand loyalty it is important for digital publishers to stay up to date on emerging trends. With the right information, digital presses can prepare themselves for changing advertising practices and have up-to-date content strategies to better serve their audience.

The hope is that these new ideas result in higher user retention and profits. To learn more about how Invisibly is adopting these trends and pushing the boundaries forward, visit our homepage.