Over the next few months, we’ll be talking a lot about the importance of having great online content. In fact, that’s what our upcoming webinar series is all about: content development, content sourcing and content marketing. So let’s kick it off with a discussion of what I believe are the hottest content trends for 2013.

Trend 1: Newsjacking

Newsjacking is when you build awareness of your services by riding the wave created by a popular news story. In healthcare, we get these opportunities quite often as celebrities deal with health issues. Here’s a great example by Adventist Healthcare in Maryland. When Kate Middleton suffered from severe morning sickness, Adventist partnered with a local radio station to highlight their role as a local expert and appeal to peoples’ desire to learn more about it:

Another example comes from Avera McKennan Hospital & University Health Center in South Dakota. When news outlets ran out of things to say about the 12/12/12 story, Avera McKennan gave the local media a new personal interest angle:

Newsjacking requires a real-time messaging commitment to catch news stories when they’re on the up-swing. It doesn’t replace the importance of creating good original content, but it can be a solid technique for garnering attention and media mentions.

Trend 2: Sharable content

Content is a form of marketing. With Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest, people are searching for interesting items to share with friends, family and professional colleagues. Provide them with sharable content.

Instead of writing a traditional press release or a dry research summary, try something fun, clever and visually interesting – it can dramatically increase the reach of your efforts.

One of my favorite tactics is infographics.

Last year we assembled some statistics about how health consumers engage online. We could have just placed them on our website, but that kind of presentation only gets a handful of views. By making a fun, engaging infographic , we were able to share this information on our blog and through social channels. More importantly, other people shared it through their blogs, Pinterest pages and social sharing accounts.

And this doesn’t just work for Web experts. Have a look at this great infographic from Nationwide Children’s Hospital!

In other words, social sharing isn’t just for funny cat photos. With the right content, it can become an important marketing tool for your organization.

Three other trends…

There’s more! We have three more content trends to share with you. Attend our webinar Five Content Trends for 2013 on January 24th at 3:00 p.m. CT to learn about these trends as well as others we see for 2013. Hope to see you then.