Are you looking to craft share-worthy content? Do you wish to get recognition in a crowded internet landscape? New sites are always popping up on the digital scene, and it’s getting incredibly difficult to succeed in the cutthroat world of the World Wide Web. How can you get people scrolling on their smartphones, tablets, laptops, etc. to stop for a moment and at least catch a glimpse of your content? If you include the following types of content in your content marketing/blog production strategy, you’re likely to begin seeing good results.
1. List-Based Blog Posts
Website owners usually categorize content according to the different kinds of posts in existence. Here’s how they’re usually classified:
- How-to post: Posts that tell the reader how to carry out a certain task, step-by-step.
- List-post: Posts that contain a specific amount of points or a compilation of a certain number of things. An example of a list post would be “10 best portable scanners”.
- Why post: These blog posts give the reason behind a certain idea, and usually contain the phrase “why” in the heading.
According to Hubspot’s data, list posts perform well than any other type of post. In terms of gaining social traction, why posts and list posts were the most reliable, receiving around 21k shares a month with a less than 2.5 percent variance. Between the two, list posts stood out, resulting in the most traction on social at 22.45 percent.
Renowned content marketers like Brian Clark and Darren Rowse have long acknowledged the ability of list posts to attract eyeballs. Clark even gives out 7 exclusive reasons why list posts will always be powerful. One of the primary reasons is that it is a tempting piece of content with magnetic headlines. Also, the human brain is hardwired to explore lists. Because of this, people are more likely to engage with and spread the word about list posts on the internet.
2. Expert Ebook
What if there was a way to benefit from the expertise of others and save yourself the months it could take to produce an Expert Guidebook? The Ebook/Guidebook based on experts’ industry knowledge is a great way to share the expertise of others, give recognition where recognition is due, create goodwill and drive traffic to your website.
The key to creating an Expert Ebook is to ensure that it doesn’t just feature links to other web pages because it won’t be of any value to the user and might look like a click bait, to be honest. Instead, try organizing the titles, subheadings, images, etc. into the informational section and then add your own advice, insight, expert knowledge, and reasons why you have mentioned certain experts in the guidebook.
People want a reason to click through and consume the content you mention as they’re of the opinion that they’ll be able to get the answers to their pain points through expert insight and recommendations. So, with your target keywords in order, begin to gather the resources you’ll be using. The ideal way is to put together a high-level outline of the 7-9 topics that are relevant to your primary keyword.
For instance, let’s assume you’re targeting a keyword phrase such as, “guide to affiliate marketing”. With affiliate marketing, there are a few aspects that an average person would need to know to get familiar with the concept. You could, therefore, create an outline like this: 1) what is affiliate marketing 2) types of affiliate programs 3) eligibility 4) best practices 5) affiliate marketing success stories 6) conclusion. If you’ve trouble coming up with an outline just go through Amazon. Amazon has several hundred resources based around topics of all nature. Go through a few books and browse through their TOC (table of contents) to get the inspiration you need to create a good outline.
3. Snackable Content
You might have noticed the influx of videos in your Newsfeed over the past handful of years. And you may have been transfixed to many of those on your commute to home. Almost everyone is obsessed with those short videos, even if they’re not interested in its theme. That’s the power of snackable content. It can engage readers in the form of tiny infographics, GIFs, videos, and images. Snackable content is easy to engage with, is eye-catching, as well as easy to follow, which is why it gets shared like crazy.
While videos get the most shares, there are other ways to create snackable posts:
- Use a software like ripl to create short videos.
- Divide a longer post into snackable text with bite-sized images.
- Create SlideShares that aren’t more than five pages long.
People like to snack on such content in the evening or at breakfast. But it’s the best practice for every site owner to think about when their target audience is most likely to look for such bite-sized content in order to deliver them the information when it matters the most. Big brands from Bacardi to BuzzFeed rely on snackable content to offer information to their audiences in a few minutes (or less).
A major aspect of snackable content is the visual attraction it offers, but you need variety in order to keep it interesting. Fortunately, the digital universe is full of variety, with options like podcasts, GIFs, images, memes, video clips, slide shows and infographics to choose from. All of these options make for a smorgasbord of variety for the busy readers to snack on, as long as you’re offering them tempting-enough content. And if they enjoy what they get, they’re likely to talk about it in their circles, increasing the reach of your site and boosting your bottom line.
4. Timely Content
When it comes to blogging or content marketing, a lot of people aren’t sure what “timely” actually means. Simply put, it’s about being in the right place at the right time. It’s a great opportunity to get the word out about something before anyone else in your niche of an industry does. However, you need to be able to encourage yourself and your content team to take quick action, whether it is putting together a video on an undiscovered feature in the latest iPhone or capturing an image of an exotic creature.
Also, it’s important to plan ahead be savvy with your schedule. Ideally, you’d want to release timely content around celebrations, occasions, and events early morning to inform people right after they get out of bed. If it’s out early at a time when everyone is gearing up for a special news or celebration, your post is likely to get more likes, shares, and comments. The best way to do this is to set up a content calendar that uses a combination of timely releases and evergreen content.
For example, you’re aware that the Super Bowl takes place each year, but no one is sure about the teams that’ll be in attendance. However, you don’t have to wait to craft a Super Bowl-themed blog post. Just align a piece of evergreen Super Bowl-related blog post with the teams that’ll be contending. If you’re familiar with your audience well enough, you’ll be able to tie into someone’s side story or backstory, an approach that could potentially pair well with your brand’s mission.
Another way to produce timely content that can engage site visitors is by engaging with your audience in real-time. This is quite effective but could take some time to put together. If people pose questions on Facebook, start answering them. If you’re able to use those answers to come up with new ideas and expand on the key points discussed in the conversion, you’ll likely create top-notch timely content.
Final Verdict
Now that you’re aware of the most shareworthy types of content, what step should you take next? Most people would just start to produce the contents mentioned above and share it on their website. In an ideal world, that’s the right strategy to adopt. However, there’s something else you can do to gain traction. Before doing anything, learn what makes your audience tick. That’s because even if something has data-backed reasons to be shared, it doesn’t mean it’ll always bring you the same results. Your audience may wish to receive something entirely different. They might give a better reaction to a snackable post but might totally ignore a list post. The best way is to make sure you’re aware of your audience interests, analyze your content marketing strategy, A/B test different types of content, and develop a powerful content calendar.