It’s a new year and decade, and experts across all industries are waiting to see if their predictions for 2020 trends will come to fruition. The digital publishing landscape is no exception -- professionals in advertising and media have a lot of ideas about what's coming this year. What's more, these predicted trends have the potential to leave a significant impact on marketers and content creators.
To give you a better idea of what may lie ahead in the content publishing world, we asked the members of Ad Age Collective about the trends they hope to see this year. From increased live video to more interactive content, keep an eye on your digital feeds for these six things.
1. Live video surpassing recorded video
2019 was the year companies really dove deep into video. The problem? A tidal wave of corporatized videos that all sounded the same -- clean in appearance, but stale in content. In 2020, recorded video will decline as consumers become suspicious of overly polished videos. Instead, companies will turn to live video as a medium to publish content and engage consumers in a more authentic way. - Patrick Ward, Rootstrap
2. Quality over quantity
I keep wondering when we're going to find the end of the internet or when the servers are going to say, "drive full." I hope 2020 will be the year of less content and more substance. Write excellent stories once a month or quarter instead of "producing content" weekly. Don't produce to occupy an audience; select one amazing idea and move them to action. - Moira Vetter, Modo Modo Agency
3. More interactive content
Interactive content lets you engage with customers in a more meaningful way. Customers participate in creating content instead of just consuming it. More interactions will help us understand customers better and connect with them, which will help businesses provide better services and more helpful products. - Syed Balkhi, WPBeginner
4. Removing ‘likes’
The testing of removing "likes" from social media would be a game-changer in the industry. Not only would it remove some of the negative impacts affecting society, but it would also even out the influencer market so only true influencers would work and those with fictional followers would go by the wayside. - Jessica Hawthorne-Castro, Hawthorne Advertising
5. Consistent monetization models for traffic
This year is going to expand the trend of publishers looking for ways to monetize their traffic. Publishers have toyed with models such as affiliate revenue and product development, with each having its pluses and minuses. 2020 will be the year where publishers finally figure out some consistent methods of monetizing their traffic. - Michael Lisovetsky, JUICE
6. Scale of attention
Unprecedented consumer athleticism with devices and distribution has transformed an advertiser’s customer base into a full population of relentless video content editors and publishers. Anyone can sort through a sea of sameness in seconds to get to where their video attention is placed on “hold.” The great news is that the video content being consumed and shared is like a food group to consumers. Look for the individual stories, characters and events that are being "eaten" in real scale (in millions) by real consumers and make the most of technology tools to reach the appropriate audiences for your brand. Scale of attention will differentiate great content in 2020, in real-time, capturing everybody’s appetite. - Sean Cunningham, VAB
