When asked about their priorities for the year in SEMRush’s “State of Content Marketing” report, the most popular answer, with 79% of marketers agreeing, was generating quality leads.

Not every marketer does influencer marketing, but a large majority do. In our first-ever forecast, we estimate that 67.9% of US marketers with 100 or more employees will use influencers for paid or unpaid brand partnerships in 2021.

Internet memes are not a new phenomenon, but the events of 2020 have spurred their consumption. Despite their popularity among social media users, marketing with memes can still be a risky business for brands.

“People spend hours and hours with podcasts in a way that's pretty rare with digital media, especially compared with YouTube videos, or a blog post where you have seconds on the page.”. Publishers have benefitted from the multiple ways they can sell podcast ads today. Direct selling still dominates in Canada, but the scale at which buys can be made and the sophistication of targeting are increasing.

Social listening is helping businesses take the pulse of their consumers and make faster marketing decisions during the pandemic. It’s still not a perfect analytics tool, but right now the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.