We're hurdling towards 2026 quickly, and we are bracing for impact - in more ways than one! The coming year calls for quality messages with engaging formatting to stand out amongst the crowd. We are also expected to explore the capabilities of AI in our daily grind. Keep reading to find three of these major marketing trends to watch out for in 2026.
1. Content Types
Curating content to what your audience enjoys is crucial to conveying your message. Before you can even get your message out to your target audience, you must consider how they will consume your content, where it will be seen, and by whom so you don't waste your time on low quality content.
Video
Video as a crucial marketing technique isn't necessarily new. We even talked about it at TMSA Elevate in June (check out Michelle's presentation here, and see the video we made below). Whether long or short-form, video has proven its staying power in the marketing realm.
Video is perceived as "higher value" because it provides users with immersive and engaging experiences. However, videos must stop the scroll in order to be successful. Ways of doing this include captions, visual components, trending audio, or personalized experiences like a live stream. Utilizing video is a great way to educate and engage with your audience. Videos are a good opportunity for recruitment, showing a behind-the-scenes look at your company.
While certain platforms are more popular for video (like TikTok and YouTube), other platforms are gearing up for video publishing as well. LinkedIn video uploads have increased 45% year-over-year, and there's still space to ramp up your LinkedIn video strategy.
Vertical
If your content doesn't fit on an FYP, then people will probably keep scrolling. Instead of making one piece of content and sharing it on all forms of social media, make sure it's tailored to the platform. Most of us are on board with vertical videos to fit with the formats of Reels and TikTok, but this year Instagram updated its default aspect ratio to 3:4 from the original 1:1, giving images a more vertical feel.
According to this report by Emplifi, Instagram is set to be a top priority amongst marketers in 2026. That's not to say that the other platforms are to be ignored, but Instagram's performance can push your brand ahead of others. Create your content with Instagram KPIs in mind while you curate your content. Think carousels, Reels, high-quality images, and stories!
2. Content Goals
Of course, everyone is going to have their own unique content goals. However, on a broader spectrum, there are a few things that will be of particular note as we go into 2026.
Brand Awareness
In a study by Gartner, marketers will be prioritizing brand awareness as a response to AI Search Engines. Getting in front of potential drivers and customers is always a challenge. A lot of times, people think "brand awareness" just means more content, but that's only half the battle. Increasing brand awareness comes from the quality, strategy, and discoverability of that content.
One powerful way to expand your reach is through SEO-driven content, especially blog posts. Strong SEO is more than a technical tactic — it's one of the most effective brand-awareness tools available. By intentionally targeting a broader set of keywords, your brand can show up in more of the searches your audience is performing every day. This not only puts your company in front of more potential customers but also positions you as a knowledgeable, credible source in your space.
SEO isn’t just a lead-generation strategy — it’s a brand strategy. When people continually see your content in Google and AI search results, they start to recognize your name, associate you with expertise, and trust you long before they ever become a customer.
Attention Metrics
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has recently released their guidelines on Attention Measurement. This is designed to provide more context on our typical KPIs like watch time, impressions, clicks, and so on. While these metrics may not be standardized and collected amongst basic social media channels, you can certainly take into account things like reactions, swipes, replays, and skips to give you a better picture of how your audience is engaging with your content as opposed to simply whether or not they are engaging with your content.
Let's take a look at LinkedIn Ads specifically. If you're putting out a video ad, knowing how many impressions you got may not encompass a person's attention and retention. Here are a few things you can look out for as attention metrics in this case:
- Audience penetration (how much of your targeted audience have you reached)
- Ad frequency (how often people see your ads in a specified time period)
- Video completion rate (or 25%, 50%, or 75% video completion rates)
- Full screen plays - how many users expanded your video to full screen to watch it
Inspirational & Provocative Content
To meet their attention metrics, carriers will have to invoke a reaction. Since all brands are competing for our attention, we have to find a way to distinguish ourselves. While differentiated messaging is hardly a new idea, it's freshly relevant in an era where two in five adults are cutting back on phone time and 50% have actively limited their social media usage. Audience attention is more limited and fragmented than ever before, and marketers need to respond by creating content that has a purpose, whether that's for research, inspiration, or discovery. Focus your content with a journey in mind and skew positively. Really show drivers why your company is the best to work for, and make potential drivers imagine themselves on your team. For the business side of things, consider creating content that promotes clicking through the post like carousels on Instagram or documents on LinkedIn.
3. AI - Competition or Teammate?
To say there is a lot of tension between marketers and AI is an understatement. In some ways, we are encouraged to utilize it to speed up our workflows. In other ways, we're demonized for its negative impacts on the environment and social sphere. So, which is it? Is AI or competition, or our teammate? The answer truly boils down to both being the case.
AI Content
AI wants your attention just as badly as we do. AI can work faster than we can in both production and strategy. Sometimes AI sets the trends and perpetuates them with more videos, like those AI videos of animals on trampolines this summer. Despite this type of content being popular for short bursts, not everyone is jumping (pun intended) on board. TikTok recently added an option to limit the amount of AI-generated content that can appear in your feed. So, when it comes down to it, AI for content just isn't sustainable. Instead, organic content remains the top method for now.
That being said, there is another form of AI with which we are competing, and that's the AI Search Engine. Large Language Models (LLMs) are crawling sites, gathering data, and pushing that information out in the AI overview/answers. The LLMs are definitely great for impressions, but it's starting to disincentivize people to click on your website, which leads to a phenomenon people are calling "the Great Decoupling." Impressions and clicks used to be intrinsically linked, so when one goes up, usually the other one does, too. AI has changed the way we approach SEO forever. Not only do you have to consider SEO for your website, but now you must also consider AI SEO (sometimes called GEO or AEO).
This disruption in SEO is no cause for alarm, although it may feel that way. There are a number of ways to ensure your website is structured for LLMs. For instance, you could render your HTML so bots can easily interpret your content, and you can train your team to track GEO successes. Above all, it's important to make sure your content consistently on brand and true to your brand values. Take it from Google themselves: "Focus on making unique, non-commodity content that visitors from Search and your own readers will find helpful and satisfying."
AI for Productivity
Christina Inge, instructor at the Harvard Division of Continuing Education's Professional & Executive Development, says this about AI: "There is a saying going around now - and it is very true - that your job will not be taken by AI. It will be taken by a person who knows how to use AI. So, it is very important for marketers to know how to use AI."
So, the good news is the robots don't have our jobs just yet. The bad news is that if we aren't willing to work with AI, we may be left in the dust. Our new AI coworkers can help automate our workflow to free up time for creativity and strategy without the hassle of day-to-day tasks. Our CRMs like HubSpot can put all of your information in one place, remove redundancies, and streamline project management. You just have to know where to look.
Takeaways
This year has brought new and exciting updates to our industry. As we look to 2026, we can see a lot of patterns that appeared throughout 2025 that will take shape in the coming year. While this may seem like a lot, drop & hook has been monitoring these changes in real time. Stay on top of the ever-changing marketing landscape by subscribing to our monthly newsletter!
If you are interested in further discussing any of the topics mentioned above, reach out to us!