What Are the 7 Different Types of Content Marketing Used Every Day on Social Media
Marketing on the Internet can’t function without content. It’s the reason why people click and share.
Take away content and all that’s left is shameless promotion. Surely, no brand wants that. Consumers want value in the content they consume. This is the currency around which social media’s built as well as other systems of marketing, such as web design, email, SMS, video, and others.
With the right content, a brand can almost do anything. Consider it the ‘secret sauce’ in digital marketing. Content can engage and retain existing customers, entice new consumers from around the world, successfully launch products or services, and spur growth in a way no other strategy can.
Here are the 7 types of content marketing you can find on social media. Here is everything you need to know on how to use them to drive growth in a time-tested social media campaign tailored to your audience.
Should My Website Have A Blog?
Regardless of what kind of website you have and what business your brand is involved in, maintaining a regular blog is central to keeping your website active and in giving you valued information to promote through social media.
How to write the best blog for your customer is simple. The best blogs are relevant to the time, always written well, and set in an exciting tone. At a technical level, incorporating the right keywords ensures it’s found not only on social media but search engines as well.
In your blog, have a clear title, a call to action, and ensure you are posting regularly. For some, this means writing every couple of days. For others, it could be once a week, once every two weeks, or once a month. The important part is to have a regular schedule of blog writing and publishing.
Writing blogs and articles might seem like an old approach but it remains highly sophisticated marketing.
What is the Best Way to Create How-to Content?
How-to guides are great. They can be reused again and again. They never go out of fashion. Instructional content offers a high value and goes in-depth on subjects that sales pages don’t have space for.
Look at your products or services. Think of the problems they solve. Chances are, there’s an instruction article in there somewhere.
Now, look at your favourite tutorials. There may be pictures, video, or graphics included. A how-to guide can be as diverse a creation as you wish it to be. The bottom line is to make the messaging clear. Sometimes, that means using pictures to show what you mean or including a complimentary video.
Break up a how-to guide into steps. Consider the questions that a reader will want answered in such an article. Be sure you address everything in as much detail as is reasonable. When you create high-quality how-to content, you demonstrate your expertise and build trust. This is everything you need to get exposure for your brand or product in a way that doesn’t rely on selling.
Should I Be Making Videos for My Social Media?
Nothing catches attention in 2021 like videos. This year, video will account for more than 80 percent of all Internet traffic. As a society, we love video. They’re expressive, exciting, and we don’t need to read them.
As they relate to social media marketing, the benefits of video marketing are wide-spanning. Product videos are used by more than 97 percent of people to help them make a purchase decision and over three-quarters will be more likely to buy after watching a video.
Video has consistently been shown to drive website traffic while increasing likes, shares, and comments.
Video has all sorts of subcategories of content types as well, i.e. live videos, how-to guides, question-and-answer, interviews, behind-the-scenes looks, and more. A whole book could be written on precisely how to maximize the potential of each.
The only thing that’s not recommended with video is to make it pure promotion. Make it count! Answer questions, share solutions to common problems, and address a user’s pain points. Afterward, you can share your video on social media, embed them in blogs, or pair them with complementary content types.
How Long Does An Ebook Need to Be?
An ebook doesn’t have to be longer than 2,500 words. Build sections of 300-350 words, communicate key points, and use pictures or graphics to emphasize the information you’re sharing.
Consider an ebook as a sort of extra-long blog post. It’s an opportunity to grab leads, build an email subscriber list, and contribute value without pushing a sale. They also feature you as a ‘Subject Matter Expert’. An ebook helps you establish credibility in this way.
The best ebooks are solutions-focused. They are constantly asking and answering questions, directly and indirectly. For this, you may have to invest extra time to do research and ensure every page means something.
Make your ebook evergreen content and you can re-use it for years to reach new audiences!
What Is A Listicle?
A listicle is an article that is written as a numbered list. They are extremely, extremely popular among consumers. Listicles are easy to read, quick to scan, keyword-rich, and highly, highly shareable.
To create a listicle, you just need a topic and a number. From there, you simply fill it in. An informative listicle designed around evergreen content can work for months and months, and sometimes years, engaging new users and cultivating leads.
Like other content types, a listicle has an introduction and conclusion. The beauty of a listicle is that it is a great example of how to write long-form content. Also, catchy, unique titles are important with listicles. This is what’s going to get users to click. That said, beware of going all the way clickbait with it.
How Do I Write A Case Study Social Media?
A case study shares a problem, common pain points, and a challenge. It relates these to your audience. Then, it solves the problem, typically using a product or service associated with your brand.
An effective case study uses emotions and storytelling to get a reader invested in a given predicament.
For example, a busy single mother to two elementary-age children wakes up late on a Monday morning. There’s no time to make their lunches! What does she do – she grabs a healthy readymade lunch.
That was done in a paragraph. A case study is longer, incorporating a few images often that relate to a reader’s perspective. Focus on the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’. Done right, there’s a lot of engagement that can be derived from case study-style social media posts.
What Is In An Infographic?
An infographic is like an image version of a listicle. Where it differs is that an infographic is information-based, usually sharing statistics, research, and data in small bites. An infographic assists in breaking down long-form, sometimes complicated concepts into more digestible, shareable content.
Infographics are very social media-friendly and one of the most shared content types there is, oftentimes outperforming blogs and articles, listicles, and even video. How to create an infographic has a lot to do with art and passion. An infographic is graphic. From colors to shapes, everything has to have a purpose.
Once you have the graphic part of an infographic nailed down, now you need the info. Any unnecessary wording should be removed. Make sentences short and to-the-point. Use white space to keep things organized. Break up content into clear sections. Ensure the font is easy to read as well.
There’s no questioning that social media is becoming ever more image-based. The use of infographics and video should be something every brand incorporates into its social media marketing strategy.
Use your time and effort on content marketing wisely. Strategize. Make every word or image count. The more value a user sees in it, the more rewards you will receive. On social media, this equates to likes, shares, comments, follows sales, and money made. For a fast way to new followers, get started on a digital marketing campaign today with the experts at Unlimited Exposure.