With online marketers already likely well advanced with their plans for Q1 of 2015, some of the lessons learned throughout the last 12 months or so could prove useful.

For example, according to Corporate Executive Board, a members-only advice firm, business-to-business (B2B) online content is currently hugely significant.

In one of its surveys, it found  that 57% of B2B purchase decisions were made before human contact was made, with a supplier usually following an online lead.

Gartner Research goes even further, suggesting that in as little as five years, 85% of enterprise relationships will be conducted without humans talking to each other.

That will be, to many at least, a sad indictment, but really throws into context the importance of good, actionable, and well-written content.

As such, search engine optimisation (SEO) firms should be on standby for a rush of orders. Over 60% of firms already outsource to them, according to the Content Marketing Institute, so it’s reasonable to assume that number will go up.

However, according to collated facts and figures from Chicago-based firm Design & Promote, only 52% of content being posted is original. While many may view this as odd, assuming perhaps that some companies are repurposing information as their own, this also includes shared social content.

In fact, New York’s NewsCred agency claimed that around 27 million pieces of online content are shared each day.

Of course, this does not mean that original content can be neglected. Far from it, as when you do repurpose and rewrite content and stats, you can only take so much credit, and have to give some too.

Creating new content, and paying the value that is representative of that, will always gain far more traction and be likely to be shared, producing a more referenced and establish presence. This online reputation is where the real success of a firm’s content can truly be measured.

John Murray

John is every inch the wordsmith and loves a game of Scrabble above all else. With experience writing for newspapers, John’s time at university was spent studying Creative Writing – something which comes across in his love of the pun.