Question: Our company has been doing content for about 2 years, but mostly just blog articles. What are your thoughts about expanding beyond blogging for business?
In the past few months I have seen this creeping up more and more. When we first started doing content partnerships they were almost entirely focused on written blog content. A lot of this hedged on using relevant and recent content paired up with keywords and links to drive improved search rankings and guess what…it worked.
However, behavior is changing, our attention spans are getting shorter and mobile is impacting the way we consume content.
For anyone that has tried to read a long written blog on their iPhone (even the giant 6+), we know it isn’t ideal. But guess what looks great on your Note 2 or your iPhone? That is right, Video!
Here we add video to a blog post on Millennial CEO. Easy to consume by reading or watching.
For short tutorials, fiery conversation or some good old fashion brand story telling, video is a great way to diversify and add context to a written piece while also adding authority to your search engine efforts.
So besides written blogs and videos, what are some other types of diverse content that can help businesses be found, seen and heard online?
SlideShare: For highly in depth content, the Slideshare platform is a great way to provide deep insights that can be consumed quickly and visually. These oft-short powerpoints tend to be visually stimulating, informative and popular in the business arena.
Click here to see an example of a slideshare that tells a story and drives visibility
Infographics: Perhaps the fastest growing segment of visual content is the infographic. Both informative and often interesting (read: funny), the infographic is a tremendous way to grab a readers attention and walk them through a visual story that helps them become more aware, supportive or interested in purchasing from your brand.
Click here to see how using an infographic in your content can create a more engaged audience.
Cartoons, Memes, Images: Perhaps nothing is more viral on social than funny memes and cartoons. Depending on your brand, a short and simple cartoon can be captivating and used to quickly portray a message in a way that can take hundreds if not thousands of words. What is it that they say about pictures?
Click here to see how visual imagery can be incorporated into a post to make it more memorable
E-book and White Papers: For technical or highly in depth content, ebooks and white papers are a great way to go deep and get very specific on a topic. Also very popular for inbound marketing, these types of documents can also be rich in data and research in order to help readers build support of their business case for investing in your products or services.
While just blogging is a great start and still puts you ahead of the curve for sharing your business story, there are many ways to go deeper and get more eyeballs on your ideas.
The most innovative brands are doing more visual and deep content. What is your brand doing to inform, educate and inspire your market?
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Daniel Newman is the co-founder of V3*Broadsuite and is an experienced C-level executive, serving as a strategy consultant for small and mid-sized businesses. He’s also an insight/analyst partner to four Fortune 50 enterprises and previously served as the co-founder and CEO of EC3, a hosted IT and communications services provider. Prior to that, he served as the CEO of United Visual, Inc. in Chicago Illinois.
He is a widely published writer who contributes weekly to Forbes, Entrepreneur, Huffington Post and industry publications such as Commercial Integrator, Sound & Communication and Corporate Tech Decisions. He’s also author of three best-selling business books including The New Rules of Customer Engagement, The Millennial CEO, and just recently Evolve: Marketing (^as we know it) is Doomed.
Daniel has established a reputation as a leading thinker in topics such as Social, Big Data, Cloud and Mobile. He has been named to many top influencer lists in all of these areas, including recognition by the Huffington Post as one of the 100 business and leadership accounts to follow on Twitter. He is also an adjunct professor of management at North Central College.