Summer may be winding down, but things picked up in the content marketing world in August. Click to play our recap video below, or read on for the biggest content marketing insights from last month, and some ideas to freshen up your strategy this September.

No more anonymous posts: Authorship has arrived

It was a big month for the case that Authorship is becoming more important for search marketing success, as Google announced the new in-depth section of SERPs and listed authorship markup as a factor in rankings. An Official Webmaster Central blog post reported Authorship markup is just one signal it considers, alongside compelling in-depth custom content, but it maintains that Authorship helps in-depth search algorithms better understand your content.

Google continued the conversation by answering frequently asked questions about Authorship. Pages should provide the markup if they contain a single piece of content written by one bylined author. Google also confirmed that you shouldn’t give Author credit to company mascots, because it can confuse internet users. The point of Authorship is to bring transparency to content creation.

Authorship has been a long time coming, and Brafton built a resource that explains why it’s time you provide writer information for your web content and how to set it up. You can download it on Brafton.com.

Google: “+1’s do not cause SEO ranking boosts”

Google was also in the spotlight for a “new” ranking signal that it ultimately denied. Last month, a Moz study offered compelling evidence that Google+ engagement is more influential for search rankings than fundamental SEO practices like link building.

It’s been a long-standing suspicion in the SEO world that Google+ participation will have an impact on search rankings, but following the study, Matt Cutts firmly stated ther aren’t any direct ties. He immediately denied the study’s findings in a thread on Hacker News, asserting Google +1s do not provide higher search ranking positions in Google SERPs.

While it can’t hurt to share brand content on Google+, Cutts reminded marketers that creating great content remains the best way to earn higher rankings.

Video content: Reel results

And speaking of great content, August was an important month for video content, as studies showed brands are seeing results from their video marketing campaigns. A new report from Pixability found 99 out of 100 Top Global Brands create video content to share on their YouTube channels. The study highlighted one key difference between those doing video marketing right and those missing engagement opportunities – frequency.

Companies must go beyond one-off video production and develop video marketing campaigns around to drive views, clicks and engagement. When you find your stride with video practices, you’ll join the 75 percent of B2B marketers who said video is one of the most effective channels for content delivery. (Stat courtesfy of  a survey by LinkedIn’s B2B Technology Marketing Community Group Owner Holger Schulze.)

Want to talk more about video? Join Brafton’s upcoming Twitter chat on Sept. 11 – our #CmQs is all about video marketing. And on September 17, we’re hosting a webinar dedicated to video marketing, and how it’s different from video production. Be sure to check out these events, and happy content marketing.

Katherine Griwert is Brafton's Marketing Director. She's practiced content marketing, SEO and social marketing for over five years, and her enthusiasm for new media has even deeper roots. Katherine holds a degree in American Studies from Boston College, and her writing is featured in a number of web publications.