5 Content Formats To Try This October
Easy suggestions to diversify your content marketing
The more high quality content you can create the better – in fact, the 2018 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America research from the Content Marketing Institute reports that 46% of marketers attribute more time spent on content marketing as the foundation of their success in the last 12 months.
If you want to put more into your content creation process but are stuck in a format rut, try adding a few of these tried-and-tested formats into your content marketing mix this October.
-
1
Create an infographic
Everyone loves an infographic. So much so that Google searches for infographics have doubled in the last five years. The good news is that an infographic suits almost every business and industry type. They can be as colourful, big or small as you’d like but work best when you have lots of facts, numbers or data that you want to present in a more accessible format.
If you’ve conducted a survey for example, you’ll want to write a press release and issue to press to share your findings but, you can also turn the results into an informative infographic too.
Another compelling reason to create an infographic is that they are visual by nature. If you hear a piece of information, three days later you’ll retain just 10% of it on average. If you’re shown a picture at the same time, you’ll remember 65% says Brain Rules.
-
2
Build a photo gallery
If your content is usually text heavy, creating a photo gallery instead can add a visual element to your blog or website. Bonus – this is also really easy to do. All that’s required is some great images and a caption or two. You can apply this content format to lots of different subjects. If you’re a personal trainer for example, you could create a photo gallery of popular exercises or sequences of exercises to form a workout. If you’re a fashion designer, you might create a photo gallery of your current season look book. A restaurateur? Why not create a photo gallery that documents a favourite dish being prepared?
-
3
Write a listicle
Listicles are a brilliant way to convey a huge amount of information. They also tend to attract lots of clicks and links a they’re inherently useful and entertaining. Not sure what a listicle is? If you read our 10 fresh blog and article ideas post back in March you’ll know that it’s simply an article built around numbers. It could be a top tips style post, things you didn’t know or surprising facts.
Listicles are ideal for social media use and can be used across a whole host of subject matter. Try and make them informative and topical and don’t just state the obvious. You still want to add value to your reader and give them a reason to share, like and forward your listicle to others.
-
4
Build a SlideShare
Most business will already have enough content to hand to create a SlideShare. If you have recently given a speech or presentation at a conference or exhibition you can repurpose this data into a SlideShare with minimal effort.
A LinkedIn site, SlideShare hosts professional content across a range of business topics such as sales and marketing, accounting and management, all served up to an audience of 70 million people. The content within a SlideShare can take a number of formats but the most popular mix images, videos and text so that information can be easily digested.
-
5
Host a podcast
Podcasting is one of those terms that’s been around for a while but, although it’s an established form of content, it isn’t suitable for every business. A Podcast is essentially an audio recording which can then be uploaded to your site or to a service such as iTunes for others to download and listen to. It’s a great way to share your expertise over a series of weeks and can be an effective way to win new business. In addition to subject matter, you’ll need to consider whether you have the technology to record a podcast and then edit it. You’ll also need time to promote it and patience to build your audience.