Nick Galov, HostingTribunal.com There is no doubt that content marketing holds the number one spot for the most efficient and beneficial method of promotion and advertising in the world of the internet and social media. This marketing method has been around since the late 19th century and has revolutionized the way marketers connect and engage with their audience.Here’s a brief overview: The first recorded mention of this kind of marketing in history books appears somewhere around the year 1885 when The Furrow magazine provided a guide for farmers on how to grow and improve their business. The next mention was in 1912 when the French tire company Michelin released a 400-page informational guide for drivers, which contained travel advice as well as information about auto maintenance services.The key point is - content marketing has been around for quite some time. We know how it contributed to the historical development of several industries.But now comes the $64,000 question: What can we expect in the future?Nobody knows exactly how or in what specific way content marketing will continue to develop. But thanks to several studies and a bit of research, we can put the information side by side and dive deeper to get an idea of what we can expect.According to a study conducted by the CMI (Content Marketing Institute), as many as 87% of brands are currently using content marketing, with 53% of those claiming they aim to further increase investment in the next few years.What’s more, further information reveals that, at the current rate of development, the industry will see an annual growth of 16%, skyrocketing from $196.58 billion to $412 billion by 2021. This report highlights several contributing factors, such as global smartphone adoption, loyalty and brand objectives, lower cost of advertising than usual, and increased conversion. Content marketing is also expected to be dominant in two major sections: video and evergreen content. On the one hand, evergreen content has compounding returns which are much higher than temporal content.On the other hand, video content represents 82% of all IP traffic. Marketers have already started and are expected to continue using video to personalize the marketing process for each buyer.All in all, experts believe LinkedIn will see one of the largest growth in brand and user engagement among social media networks and websites. In turn, this will provide a rich opportunity for brands to grow and leverage a presence.The famous “Alexa Voice Search” is also going through accelerated growth, offering new opportunities for marketers to build higher integration with both delivery services and ecommerce.Numbers speak for themselves, but there is only so much information we can gather right now. All we can do at the end of the day is to sit back and observe how things are going to develop in this billion-dollar industry.We hope you learned something new and are going to find this information useful in some way!