The death of Clip Art hit a personal note for me last week. Scenes started to flash through my mind of projects and papers where I used 90’s-looking graphics to “enhance” my work. Hard to believe those days are over.
Microsoft’s announcement that Office users would now be prompted to Bing Search for images is not really surprising though. Most people go straight to their search engines for images anyway. An abundance of arguably excellent information is literally at our fingertips and in the palm of our hands. And I know that when I was a kid, I never considered this possibility. That’s something that younger generations just won’t be able to grasp.
This development has prompted some serious thinking for us. What is in store for the future of content marketing?
Microsoft recognized the need to end its relationship with Clip Art simply because nobody was using it anymore. This is the typical evolution of most products and services. Case in point: Microsoft also dumped MSN Messenger back in March for the same reason. And is AOL still around? I don’t know, ask your Mom.
As the social world we live in continues to become even more social, we can expect to see more changes. The end of Clip Art most likely isn’t effecting how you do your business, but it’s notable nonetheless. What if social media grew so much in the next five years that people no longer watched the news, or even went to Google Search for information? What if they simply logged in to LinkedIn and gathered resources from their network? Chances are that the information they find would be much more relevant because they belong to a targeted network of similar people. It would be much easier and faster to find exactly what they were looking for.
If that’s in the realm of possibilities, that Google could lose ground to social media in the next five years, who knows what else is in store for us.
The way we find and present information is only increasing in importance. Our audiences demand more useful and informative content than ever before. We will wait and see what the future holds for content marketing, but for now, we’ll sit back and reminisce on the death of the stick figure Clip Art people.
If social media is going to take over the future of content, you better get started with the basics. Download our guide to LinkedIn below and start utilizing the power of B2B networking to generate leads.
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