Have you ever wondered how some of the companies are cashing in a tremendous amount of money online? How have they become so popular that everyone is talking about them? How have they attracted huge audiences to their websites?
Do you want to get the same publicity? Are you experiencing issues while publicizing your business?
You’ve likely heard about and used content marketing for a long time. However, do you know which types of content can work great for your business? If no, don’t worry because I’ll answer that question today.
What is Content Marketing and Why is It Important?
Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach used to develop resourceful, relevant, and consistent website content. It’s essential for acquiring a particular audience and ultimately driving higher returns.
Content marketing may not seem magical, but trust me that it can do wonders for a business. It can help you get more exposure for your brand, attract new audiences, and convert them into potential customers.
In reality, every online business faces problems while promoting themselves online. With so many search engine updates and fiercely high competition, content marketing is the ultimate weapon to fight for traffic via referrals, organic and social. Since content marketing involves cost, not all companies can afford thousands of dollars every month.
It’s important that you maximize your ROI by picking the right types of content because not all types will work for every business.
Now the most important task here is to explore which types of content will lead to successful marketing for your business and how.
What Are Some of the Different Types of Content You Can Leverage?
Before we proceed, let’s first take a look at the different types of content you can use to attract and engage your target consumers.
Although there’s an enormous list of possible content types, we’ll focus on discussing a few of the most popular ones.
Content Type #1: Infographic
Infographics are visual representations of complex data, information, and knowledge. They present information in a fun, engaging, and easy-to-understand format.
If you have compelling data or some interesting statistics, infographics can be an ideal choice to share such types of content.
Why?
That’s because people are more attracted to visual content than text. In fact, our brain processes visuals 60,000 times faster than text, and 40% of people respond better to visual information.
Why are infographics one of the most effective types of content for your business?
Infographics can help you:
- Increase brand awareness
- Drive more traffic to your website
- Attract and engage more people
- Improve SEO
- Increase your ROI
You should make sure that the infographics you create are eye-catching, colorful, easy-to-understand, and fun to share.
While infographics are quite popular today, brands often find it difficult to determine the right types of content to create one. As a brand, you can create an infographic to:
- Roll out a new product or service
- Present data collected from a survey
- Showcase your product line
- Show your company’s growth over time (important milestones)
- Make comparisons between two of your service plans
Looking for an example?
One of the most successful brands in the world, Coca-Cola, created the following infographic about the development of their product and logo.
Content Type #2: Video
Why are videos are one of the most engaging types of content?
There is no doubt that videos are one of the most engaging types of content. An average person spends over an hour and a half of their day watching videos online.
That’s why 81% of businesses use video as an effective marketing tool, and 99% of them will continue to use them.
As the human brain processes visual content better than text, people are likely to remember a message they see through videos.
What kind of videos can you create for your business?
You can create videos that are emotional, informative, or inspirational. They are the best medium for storytelling too, and people love stories.
Another great thing about videos is that they can include all of the other types of content such as text, images, music, sounds, and even links. This makes them the king of all types of content.
The rising popularity of Instagram Stories and IGTV videos along with the evergreen YouTube videos also add to the credibility of videos.
However, there are thousands of videos that people don’t even look at since there’s a long list of videos available online. So make sure that your videos are appealing enough to capture the attention of viewers.
Content Type #3: Listicle
People often tend to read articles that come with a numbered list, such as “10 Easy Steps to Create Android App.”
Let me be very honest that even I’m more likely to start reading an article if its title hints at a list being involved. It’s easy to read XX titles and understand the basics of the article within a few seconds. Listicles are, therefore, one of the most popular types of content that brands use.
Want to learn more?
Check out this report where physiologists shed some light on how our affection for numbered lists might bias the way we observe certain items on these lists.
Content Type #4: “What” Post
“What” post is an article that asks “what” in their titles.
For example:
“What are the different ways to earn money online?” or
“What titles make readers curious about reading the article.”
Why should you create this time of content?
Posing questions typically will pique the interest of viewers and make them want to find the answer.
Content Type #5: “How-To” Article
“How-to” articles directly suggest the procedure of doing a certain task. People are often interested in understanding how they can successfully complete something.
You’ve likely found these types of content perform better online. “How-to” articles can cover anything from making money online to jumpstarting a car or applying makeup.
Content Type #6: “Why” Post
As the title itself suggests, “why” posts are articles that involve reasons. These posts generally provide readers with facts and details that support a certain focused conclusion.
For instance, the post could be:
“10 Reasons Why We Love Marketing.”
These types of content help get extra attention from the readers.
After looking at all of the major types of content, let’s now figure out which content type works best for different businesses.
What Kind of Content Works for Different Types of Businesses?
I’ve used BuzzSumo to gather data for each business type. The website has analyzed over 14K articles of various types of content and found which suits each industry.
Let’s take a look at the type of content that will work for different niches.
1. Business
Analyzing more than 14K articles in the business category, it was found that why, what, and infographic posts work great. These types of content gain more social media shares listicles, how-to, and video content.
For infographics, Pinterest is the better medium over LinkedIn and Google.
Takeaway: For the business category, content asking “what” or “why” and infographics work the best, so take the benefit to gain more social traction.
2. Lifestyle
Using over 14, 292 articles, we determined that people prefer “what” posts followed by videos and “why” posts when it comes to the lifestyle category. Approximately 5K shares are the average number for “what” posts if well-written and promoted.
And the most amazing fact highlighted in this study?
People like and share “what” posts over Facebook more often than on Twitter.
Takeaway: For the lifestyle category, “what” posts are the winning content type over other types of content. Facebook will give you more traction than other social media sites.
3. Finance
Finance is one of the most important and big market segments. Studies reveal that video content and “how-to” guides work better.
Taking a narrow lead, video content ranks at the top but is closely followed by “how-to,” “why” posts, and listicles. These are being shared the most through Facebook, whereas all of the other networking sites lag visibly.
Takeaway: For finance, don’t miss the power of videos and “how-to” articles, especially when sharing on Facebook.
4. Marketing
Marketing is widely known as a channel of communication that helps in inducing your customer’s behavior.
So, what would be an effective marketing technique?
One that leaves a positive impact on users, right?
It’s evident that videos top the charts in this section.
Videos give a sense of personalization to the viewers and create more impact than any other type of content. Videos are widely shared and liked on Facebook.
Other content types like “how-to” guide, “what” posts, and Infographics are highly competitive in marketing.
Takeaway: For the marketing category, take advantage of the video content type to tell stories with some emotional touches to trigger action.
5. Parenting
Parenting is perhaps the most sensitive segment of the market. Today’s parents have become far more aware than the parents of the last decade.
In fact, the search for information starts in the pre-parenting phase when soon-to-be fathers and mothers starting browsing the internet to learn what to expect.
What are the most shared articles in the parenting business?
The most shared parenting articles include “what” posts. If I back this analysis with numbers, then it may cross 12K shares. The next most popular types of content in this category include Why posts.
Moreover, Facebook is the one networking site that’s dominating again. The most astonishing fact discovered was that Twitter, Pinterest, and other sites don’t work well for this category.
Takeaway: If you have a parenting business online, make note that “what” posts work the best and are shared the most on Facebook.
6. SEO
It’s tough to reach a point of conclusion for the SEO category. As you can see in the above graph, all types of content have a competitive edge over the others in this segment.
So, what kind of content should you create? Although the difference is much less here, “why” and “what” posts get a little more social shares. They’re closely followed by video content and “how-to” articles.
Twitter has proved to be the best overall the other networking sites for SEO. However, if you compare it to the previous data, SEO content is least shared among all.
Takeaway: If you work in the SEO or digital marketing domains, then Twitter is the best social network to promote your content, and “why” posts will help make things easy.
7. Technology
Technology has taken over the importance of physical presence around us. It has made communication so easy that distances no longer matter these days.
With increasing popularity, business owners tend to look forward to working on this top-performing content type. “Why” posts and videos tend to suit the technology category the most. Our statistics showed that people prefer to view these more on Facebook as well as Twitter and Pinterest.
Takeaway: For the technology niche, a combination of “why” posts and videos promoted on Facebook will give noticeable results.
8. Entertainment
Facebook again seems to hold dominance in the entertainment area. Content is viewed and shared well through Facebook and Twitter, but there’s almost no sign of presence on any other social media network. The best content type is Listicles posts, which show very high shares close to 50K.
Takeaway: Facebook is the top-performing channel to promote content in the entertainment category and listicles can help you get more exposure.
9. Fashion
Fashion is one of the most significant subjects at this point, especially amongst the youth.
Infographics are the most liked content type.
They’re being viewed and shared widely through Pinterest. All the other types of content lag far behind infographics in this zone.
Takeaway: Fashion brands should take advantage of promoting infographics on Pinterest.
10. Health
The health category is a very significant online community. It was analyzed that there’s a close fight between two types of content – infographics and “how-to” articles, to become #1.
Infographics are widely shared by Pinterest and Facebook, whereas “how-to” articles are shared mostly by Facebook. Yet, Twitter seems to be a part of this show too.
Takeaway: “How-to” guides and infographics perform great on Facebook and Pinterest in the health category.
11. Sports
After analyzing data in the sports category, we could make out that content that includes lists is being preferred more by the readers. Furthermore, the maximum number of views and shares is through the most common site, Facebook.
All of the other types of content hold a competitive position in the sports market. Participation in other sites such as Pinterest and LinkedIn is negligible.
Takeaway: Facebook is the most popular platform to promote your sports category content and listicles work great.
Conclusion
We’ve analyzed various types of content covering all the major business categories.
So, now we can comfortably conclude that Facebook has taken over all the other networking sites. Twitter and Pinterest seem to be a little popular within a few categories, but only after Facebook.
What types of content get lots of social shares?
People prefer to read content that includes a set of questions for which they seek step-by-step answers or responses. Readers like content that comes as a handy list, which is easy to read and saves precious time. People look for convenience and interest everywhere, and the same holds true in content marketing.
What type of content should you create?
I suggest you pick a content type that provides valuable, relevant, and interesting information in a manner that’s simple for viewers to digest.
Do you have any other questions? Please feel free to ask me in the comments below.
Very informative stuff. Kudos!
Thanks for the great info!