NEW YORK ? Brands and publications must work hard for their content to stand out amid a flood of content in today?s mobile-centric and social media-filled landscape, according to executives from Buzzfeed and Mondelez International at Forrester?s Forum for Marketing Leaders.

Publications must focus on creating content that is easily shared through social media and accessible on other platforms. Articles and content cannot be rooted to the Web sites of these digital publications, or they will be overlooked. 

"I think that there?s a feeling of being overwhelmed," said Tessa Gould, vice president of Ad Innovation and monetization at Buzzfeed, New York. "Consumers are being informed more than ever before because of the democratization of content. 

"Every 60 seconds on YouTube, 300 hours of video footage is uploaded; there are 3,000 tweets every 60 seconds," she said. "There is all this information flooding our streams."

"It is kind of hard to cut through that as a brand, and even as a publisher, from our prospective. It means that because people are consuming content on so many different channels now, they are much less likely to go to the Buzzfeed.com and sit there and sift through that content, we mainly produce content that works on every channel and not be rooted to our homepage and driving everyone there."

Evolution of consumers
The platforms and technology that content is being produced through have changed so drastically that these brands must adapt and develop with this evolution. 

Consumer behavior has changed as well. The human attention span has dropped dramatically, forcing brands to create content that is becoming increasingly shorter. 

The length of time content is considered relevant is dramatically shorter as well. Brands have to work hard to produce continual content because consumers are constantly searching for something, and are uninterested in content considered old.

Without staying relevant, brands will fail. This is the challenge facing them today. 

"I think when you really look at the past few years, what it boils down to is that the economics of content has changed," said Laura Henderson, head of U.S. media and communications at Mondelez International, New York. "So what I mean by that is, I don?t think content is new but I think everyone is in this content marketing frenzy right now. 

"The reality is that content is not new in any way, shape or form," she said. "It is media that has changed quite a bit."

"So our job as marketers is in terms of the types of content that we?re having to create and distribute, the utility of that content is changing for a different purpose. When you look at sort of what has been happening with audience and consumer behavior, it?s changing rapidly."

Cost of relevancy 
This upheaval in the marketing environment means that marketers must constantly stay on their toes and be open for change. It also means that the cost for brands to stay relevant has increased.  

Brands constantly need to research and pay attention to the data from their consumers and the technology to do this is there. This is now a staple in the marketing industry, making it an imperative part of a brand?s plans. 

The information about each separate markets? interest is available, and content for that needs to be created and shared. 

"If you think about that from a marketer's perspective, reach is becoming more and more expensive to get," Ms. Henderson said. "Relevance is what we are after. 

"Financially and operationally from the way that it used to be done, the models are just breaking left, right and center,? she said. ?It is expensive, complicated, hard to do, complex, hard to navigate."