Is your Content Boring? 8 Types of Content Every Business Should Consider Publishing

Ever sat down at a dinner party and after a few minutes of conversation the guest opposite you started yawning?

Is your content boring?

Most of us have been brought up on a diet of vanilla text and photos and sometimes forget that the online publishing world is now multi-media rich.  If you really get your neurons firing you can transform one written article into several formats.

Add some content excitement.

This can include a podcast, video or even a Slideshare presentation that takes your content from monochrome to multi-dimensional and maybe even entertaining.

Content marketing has boomed and is a type of inbound marketing. It requires the consistent creation of content that is shared and published to multiple social networks to engage and attract readers and potential customers.

The mantra is: “Engage first, sell second“.

The E-commerce sector often comes up with excellent new concepts targeting higher level of interaction and engagement with users and customers for acquiring more bslaes. The owners of online stores should have as a minimum a blog and videos, even if it is for SEO.

Online stores show the way

Pure online stores like Mr Porter have built a large global menswear fashion business based upon a diet of rich content. To achieve this they hired the editor of the fashion magazine Esquire to be their content genius.  This site includes content so good that they send out an email every day showing men how to dress!

Men even read it and don’t hit the unsubscribe button.

They include these content components

• The Journal – An online magazine
• Style Icons – This includes iconic examples of movie stars and famous men such as Robert Redford and David Bowie
• Style Advice – Tips on what to match and wear

To achieve an edge over the competitors in the market, you should avoid developing the same type of content again and again; rather should experiment with new types of contents.

Have some fun!

Below are the eight different contents that every enterprise should try.

1. Animated GIFs

This has been used for long on chat boards and online forums, but never been used for mainstream internet applications.

Recently, the animated GIF is back again for their ability to add fun of animation to the contents of your webpage. This is able to introduce more charm and attraction to business content. You can always consider incorporating animated GIFs to the landing page of your website and blog to make your content visually more stimulating and appealing to the potential consumers.

2. Visualization of concept

Concept visualization is categorically different from Infographics but definitely is a good addition to marketing tool.

Here is a an example from John Jantsch’s blog showing how Michael Port who published a book titled Book Yourself Solid Illustrated uses this method.

This is a powerful way of expressing difficult ideas that is hard to understand if described through text. Concept visualization is frequently used today to illustrate inbound marketing related complex information. This is often used in e-books, blog posts and social media.

3. Live-streaming video

This serves dual purpose: increasing traffic to your webpage and enhancing the quality of content.

This is really important for real-time social engagement. The video displayed should match the logic of the contents in blog-post. It should also be relevant to your business ideology and discuss something new about current data or popular topics.

Live streaming video is very effective in drawing the attention of more visitors.

4. Controversial content

Controversy is so provocative that only a fragment of controversy is able to drive huge amount of traffic, comments, as well as inbound links.

Open your article with a controversial question.

Example: “I am starting to wonder if Google+ is a waste of time as a marketing platform for bloggers and brands?”  That post generated 320 plus comments, 1,586 retweets, 438 Facebook shares and 581 LinkedIn Shares in less than 2 hours!

It can stir up the emotion and passion of the viewers that leads to motivated action. If executed in a positive way, controversy can introduce brand identity and brand awareness, as well as able to enhance customers’ commitment to the brand and thereby creating thought leadership.

But you should be aware of the negative effect of controversial content and should adopt a clear stand in favor of your argument.

5. Comics or cartoons

These fun elements are powerful tool for introducing brand identity to greater number of consumers.

The fun of seeing cartoons and comics can relate to more people to assemble much social share than just updating text or content. The cartoons should be designed wisely so that they can attract the targeted group of customers. Generally the younger generations are drawn more towards the creativity and amusement of cartoons and comics. They also stick around the webpage for longer period of time.

Use of cartoons and comics for content can bring valuable inbound links to your website, which ultimately results in more traffic.

6. Infographics

This is a highly useful tool for visual representation of complex data or information in a simplified manner.

This post titled “20 Stunning Social Media statistics plus Infographic” has been retweeted over 3,300 times

The eye-catching colors and extreme creativity of graphical designs are able to decorate any blog posts or landing page in the most gorgeous way. Like concept visualization, Infographic designs are also suitable for social sharing and visual sites.

7. Original data

This might sound a little bit boring, but is very important and useful to support your content.

Data can be represented through colorful charts and graphs that come in 2-D or 3-D view for easy-understanding of complex statistics. You must be very careful about the authenticity of data and always try to rely on good research reports. Publishing original data will help in establishing your company’s image as a thought leader in the market.

8. Slide Share Presentations

This has more extensive use than just corporate presentation.

This is useful for sharing any confidential data with the selected viewers as it provides option to restrict common people. Slide share is excellent for presenting any executive presentation that was displayed during a  conference.

Even long form content like e-books can also be created using this amazing tool.

Apart from the above-mentioned types, there are many other types of content that can be used for viral marketing, where pre-existing social media is used for creating brand identity. Modern business is gradually shifting towards inbound marketing. You need to think about suitable contents that can be leveraged for more profit and success of your business.

The conclusion

Development of just textual content may cause boredom for your customers.

You might need to think about that.

Guest Author: Celina is a freelance writer, who writes regularly about current topics on web designing and graphics. She has written many articles on viral marketing, where modern tools like Infographics are frequently used. 

Want to learn how to create great content?

My book – “Blogging the Smart Way – How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.