Marketers have learned that brand-oriented content can deliver ad messages to engaged and interested consumers, and this practice will likely continue to grow in popularity in 2014. Advertisers looking to go one step further would be wise to get ahead of the following trends in the coming year.

In an online social community flooded with content, attempts to effectively communicate your message can feel like sending a letter out to sea in a bottle. Effective content marketing requires an atlas to help you navigate the stormy digital space so you can not only get your message across, but get it to the people who need it most.

B2B advertisers are increasingly developing their own video content as marketing tools. Online video can inform prospective clients, create thought leadership and even drive leads. However, there are many pitfalls associated with creating B2B content. Here are five tips on how to better manage your custom video content efforts.

In my last column, "Content Reigns Supreme," I talked about how "creating branded content is not easy, but when done well, it shines." To create content that inspires customers to engage, I suggested some basic guidelines that included paying close attention to the storytelling aspect of content creation. The "not easy" part, particularly for content purveyors, is protecting that story as it is being created. The greatest threat to compelling, branded content is losing the story along the way, on a road that's fraught with peril.

Now that marketing has become a truly revenue and data-driven discipline, we marketers can rejoice in the fact that we're able to make a tangible impact on our businesses. But this also means that we're accountable for hitting revenue targets that are, in most cases, going to be exponentially larger this year than they were last year. Thankfully, we no longer need to sell our organizations on the value of content in meeting these goals, especially in B2B. Content in all its forms has demonstrated its value along the entire marketing funnel. However, the idea of a content marketing "department" …

History sometimes repeats itself. So those with longer memories may start to see parallels between the rapidly growing content amplification space, led by content marketing distribution platforms like Outbrain and Taboola, and the rise of the search engine marketing industry in the early 2000's. Will the CAA (content amplification agency) be the new SEM agency?

All due respect to the recent research to the contrary, content is not king in shopper marketing. In order for companies to hit any target -- whether it's a shopper, a seller or an influencer -- content marketing needs to embrace the concept of sustained relevance if it is to live up to its high expectations.