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"Shafqat Islam is the co-founder and CEO of NewsCred, a platform that connects publishers and brands with the world\u2019s best journalism. Follow him @shafqatislam.\nWhen Felix Baumgartner jumped from the edge of space, it represented a watershed moment for content marketing. With 8 million people watching live, Red Bull showed the world that the \u201Cbrands as publishers\u201D movement was here to stay. \nAs we look forward to 2013, it\u2019s not just consumer brands that will lead the way. Corporate and B2B brands are investing millions of dollars into content-marketing campaigns that help generate leads, bolster their reputations as thought leaders and help inform and engage their customers. In the year 2013, marketers will break through with innovative content-marketing strategies. Here's what we have to look forward to:\n1. Practice will be over\nIf 2012 was after-school practice, 2013 is the varsity championship game. Many marketers spent the past year getting up to speed on content marketing. They were interested in the growing trend, and realized they needed to leverage it, but didn\u2019t quite know how to do it. Now that it\u2019s game time, marketers face increasing pressure to drive traffic, leads and sales through content marketing. With the right data and strong analytics, marketers will have to prove that their efforts have real business value.\n2. The microsite will die\nThe microsite just won't cut it anymore. Social media and new technologies have allowed people to hyper-curate their web experiences, meaning they\u2019re way more likely to go to a brand\u2019s Twitter page than homepage. Marketers need to think creatively to gain distribution\u00A0beyond\u00A0their owned properties. In the words of search-marketing guru, Li Evans: \u201CContent doesn\u2019t win. Optimized content wins.\u201D Marketers will need to find out exactly where their audiences are, and use relevant content to drive them back to owned sites. Marketers must activate and amplify the content they create.\n3. You\u2019ll have to scale or fail\nIn 2013, marketers will need to figure out how to scale and sustain their content-marketing efforts; and the answer is technology. Having an intern write three measly blog posts a week isn't going to cut it. Even a network of freelancers isn\u2019t enough. Scaling means customizing content to specific targeted audiences and delivering enough content to consistently capture their attention.\n4. You'll either go big or go home\nIn the spirit of scale, marketers need to fully commit to their content-marketing efforts. If you\u2019re going to be creating and pushing out content, it needs to reach all target markets, from international to hyperlocal. Our \u201Calways on\u201D culture demands that marketers devote sufficient resources and time to carefully planned content strategies.\n5. People will judge a book by its cover\nAlthough the phrase \u201CB2B\u201D invites conservative and utilitarian associations, this does not mean B2B companies should offer user experiences that prove them true. Savvy, plugged-in consumers expect innovative platforms and design wherever they are, and B2B marketers need to deliver them. Innovation in design should not be limited to consumer brands or the new generation of publishers.\n6. There will be 50 shades of copyright concerns\nThe copyright laws surrounding digital content are pretty gray. While marketers have gotten some practice purchasing stock images or using photos with a creative commons licenses, content distribution is new territory. Although navigating copyright is a mystery to many marketers, the proliferation of content marketing means that they need to get smart quickly. Squeezed out of print revenue, publishers are adapting quickly. They\u2019re looking at what it means to steal or share content, and marketers would be served well to catch up to their publishing counterparts.\n7. Brands will break news\nThe \"brands as publishers\" trend means brands need to think like newsrooms. Speed is everything. If the Twittersphere is buzzing with news about a company, that particular company can (and should) own that content. What are audiences interested in right now, and how can brands deliver it to them? Brands no longer need to rely on PR and publishers to react to news; they can be and break the news. Red Bull is the ultimate example of this, with 8 million people tuning into its Stratos mission. Think beyond evergreen content, and create relevance among content, audience, and current events.8. Social content will be the new ad unit\nWe've seen the obituaries of the banner ad in pretty much every major blog. Now what? New ad formats are coming, such as the one from\u00A0Flite, which put content front and center.\u00A0\u00A0With content at the heart of every campaign, brands will drive engagement, leads and sales. Again, technology will make these efforts scale.9. Native advertising will start to scale.\nNative advertising is the next big thing, but many properties haven\u2019t quite figured out how to scale it; that\u2019s bound to change. We\u2019ll start seeing a marketplace or ad exchange for native ads where brands can buy and sell sponsored posts. The success metrics for these ads will likely be social sharing and engagement. A marketplace or ad exchange will be the key to scale and sustainability for this ad format in 2013.10. Brands and publishers will be better together.\nAs the line dividing traditional publishers and brands continues to dissolve, we\u2019ll see new partnerships form between the two that will open up opportunities\u2014beyond the native ad\u2014to engage audiences in creative, innovative and profitable ways. One example we\u2019ve loved is the online/offline campaign from Microsoft and Conde Nast. Partnerships will be critical to standing out and gaining greater distribution in a sea of content.Thumbnail image courtesy of Flickr, Red Bull Air Force"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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