5 Ways that Content Marketing Has Changed Over the Last Decade
For those of us who have been in the content marketing game for a while, it’s striking just how much the industry has changed over the last decade, and how few of the tactics of the past are even remotely relevant today.
Effective content marketers are those who are prepared to embrace change. Taking a look at the key changes of recent years is a crucial part of anticipating the future. Here are five ways I’ve seen content marketing evolve over the last decade.
1. Organic social reach for written content has collapsed
One of the first startups I worked with built a sizable audience on Facebook simply by creating and sharing fun, engaging blog content. At its peak, this company could post an intriguing blog link and consistently count on tens of thousands of clicks without spending any money on boosting it at all. This was the era of BuzzFeed quizzes, endless listicles, and content designed—for better or worse— to appease the clickbait gods.
But in the mid-to-late 2010s, Facebook introduced changes that completely killed this strategy. Organic reach for links was throttled, while content that kept users on the platform (like videos and native posts) was rewarded. Look up the infamous “pivot to video” for an illustration of how this impacted media brands. For more check out Cory Doctorow’s concept of “enshittification,” a pattern that continues to today.
2. SEO Is more competitive, niche, and less gameable
When I first started in marketing, the SEO playbook was riddled with black-hat tactics: keyword stuffing, low-effort link farms, duplicate sites—you name it. But then Google got hip and rolled out a series of algorithm updates that penalized low-quality tactics. Some clients I worked with lost half their SEO traffic overnight as various core algo updates rolled out.
Since then, Google has continued to bang the drum that all it wants is high-quality, useful content that fills the needs of the person searching. Of course, this is not a bad thing, and in-depth, original, and niche content that truly addresses search intent should be rewarded. What's challenging is that over this same period, it's become increasingly difficult to "win" at SEO as Google has stuffed its SERPs with ads and new features like those recent AI summaries. SEO remains one of the only viable content channels for startups, but in many ways, it's more competitive and more difficult than ever.
3. Mobile-first everything
Even the most professional UX designers (working as they do from their 27-inch monitors) can forget that most web traffic comes from mobile devices. It’s no longer enough for your site to be mobile-friendly—it has to be mobile-first. This has been as much of a change for marketers as it has been for devs and designers. After all, the experience that someone has when landing on mobile page can make or break every one of your marketing metrics and channels.
4. The ascent of vertical video
If you're reading this, than you already know that the rise of TikTok and Instagram Reels has fundamentally reshaped content consumption. Vertical video has become the dominant format, and its influence extends far beyond these platforms. Since these apps are more about keeping users on the app than driving them to external links. This shift forces marketers to rethink how they approach content creation. Instead of using social media as a referral engine, it’s all about building brand awareness and engaging directly with audiences. And even this has already started to become more difficult (see again, "enshittification").
5. The AI revolution (and/or apocalypse)
Finally, there’s the rise of AI tools like ChatGPT and Jasper that have already transformed content marketing workflows with new tools cropping up every day. While we’re still in the early days of the AI revolution, it’s clear that this isn’t just a fad. AI will continue to reshape how marketers create, distribute, and measure content.
Here at Callio, we're leveraging AI to streamline processes like content research, scheduling, and repurposing. Our goal is to continuously update our platform as new trends and best practices emerge to enable anyone to manage a world-class content strategy. Signup to give it a shot today!