13 Types of Highly Engaging & Shareable Content
Do you have a content marketing strategy for your business?
Does your content strategy include creating content that your target market wants to share?
Whenever the topic of content marketing comes up, it doesn’t take long before somebody throws their fist in the air to once again proclaim that, “content is king!”
But how often have do you take the time to truly define a content creation strategy for your blog posts and social media content? It’s easy to throw the term “quality content” around but it takes a lot more effort to ensure your content marketing plan consists of content that is worth looking at.
In fact today, you may even say good content isn’t enough, the goal is to create content that is shareable. In this article I’ve outlined 13 types of content that people love to share.
13 Ideas To Inspire Your Content Strategy
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1. In-Depth Tutorials & How-To Style Articles
A good old-fashioned tutorial never fails to impress audiences when done right. Some great examples of tutorials include:
- How To Use LinkedIn Sponsored Updates
- How To Use Facebook Power Editor: A Detailed Guide
- 9 Steps To Getting Started With LinkedIn Contacts
2. Expert Interviews
Everyone always wants to know what the experts have to say on a certain topic and experts generally are open to interviews with blogs or websites that are regularly maintained and credible. I’ve connected with some of my favorite international speakers in minutes just by sending a LinkedIn message to them.
3. Product Reviews
If you are using a popular service or product that might be useful to your customers, you should write a review on it. These articles are search engine magnets because people like to do a little research before committing their hard earned dollars and will take your advice seriously if you’ve already been there.
4. Statistics
Nobody can resist a good collection of stats on a given topic. We’ve seen great success whenever we’ve produce content with stats and it always results in a lot of shares and comments on social media. Collect statistics from credible sources across the web and cite your sources at the bottom of your article because people will ask for them!
5. Case Studies
If you need to convince your ideal clients of a certain view, case studies have a powerful affect on persuasion because it’s real-life. What else do people have to discern marketing-fluff from tangible results?
- Watch Discovery Honda In Victoria, BC Make A Sale On Twitter
- 7 Useful Social Media Case Studies From 2013
6. Top 10 Lists
You might think that Top-10 lists are overdone but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that they will never get old and should be a part of your content strategy. They key is to keep it very easy to read so that “scanners” can quickly look over the points if they don’t feel like reading the entire article and still get value from it.
Here are the most popular list-style articles we have put out recently to give you an idea of what performs well:
- The 10 Commandments of Social Media Marketing
- The 15 Best Free LinkedIn Training Resources on The Internet
Improve Your Content Strategy With Embeddable Content
Embeddable content increases reader engagement and time spent on page. Double win! I wanted to include a special section just to discuss the various embeddable options you have available to take your content strategy to the next level.
7. Infographics
We have tripled our web traffic since adding infographics to our content strategy. It requires a bit of an investment but you can also start with using other people’s infographics and writing articles around them. Make sure you have permission to share any graphics you use.
If it is relevant to your audience, feel free to share any of our graphics anyway you choose, as long as you don’t modify them. We release one quality piece of content per week on average; here are a couple examples:
- 25+ Social Media Tasks The Pros Never Forget
- 20 Do’s & Don’ts of LinkedIn Etiquette
- How To Create A Kick Ass LinkedIn Profile
8. Slideshow Presentation
Slideshow presentations from Slideshare are an amazing way to increase reader engagement and time spent on page. I find them particularly useful when trying to illustrate a point. The value of these if you can add a lot of visual data in a confined area. Adding a Slideshare presentation to any blog vastly increases its density of content and value.
9. Screenshots
Incorporating screenshots into your blog posts and social media content helps people “get it” faster without overcomplicating explanations or creating unnecessary long posts. It is especially helpful in the online marketing industry since almost all tasks are computer-based.
10. Videos
Whether you make a video yourself or find one that helps illustrate your point on YouTube, embedding video content is an extremely reliable way to bump up the amount of time your readers spend on your blog. Videos should definitely be a part of your content marketing strategy.
11. Survey, Quiz or Poll
A quick way to learn more about your readers is by embedding surveys, quizzes or polls into your blog posts and social media content. Everyone loves to share their opinion and see what the crowd has to say.
12. Embedded Social Media Posts
Take advantage of this super cool feature and start embedding comments from Facebook, Twitter and Google+ into your blogs. Whether you want to show various opinions on a specific topic or even embed pearls of wisdom you’ve come across, the sky is the limit.
13. Podcasts
Not too long ago we declared podcasting as one of the booming social media content trends for 2013. This is a piece of content that you can create that is able to travel just about anywhere with your audience without needing a computer since they can download the podcast to their smartphone and portable media player.
The growth for podcasting has been slow but very steady with no signs of dropping off anytime soon. I highly recommend integrating podcasting into your social media content strategy and the tutorial below is the perfect path to help you get there.
Developing a content strategy has become a key focus for many businesses in 2013, it is absolutely essential to your success online. What other types of content do you enjoy? Share your favorite types of content in the comments below.
