Staying active with your content creation is important. Whether running a blog, posting content to Facebook, or, better yet, producing material for a number of outlets, you need to know what works and what doesn’t. Every business is a little different. The specifics for what works with your company and what doesn’t will depend on a number of factors, ranging from your location, demographics, and what you sell. So while you will need to edit, tinker, and test, these are some of the best performing forms of content in 2019.
Live Video
This is something you’ll need to do on your own (or have someone at your company do), but it is a form of content you absolutely need to take advantage of. Nearly every social media platform has a live video feature. Whether you’re on YouTube or Instagram, Facebook or Snapchat, there is a live video option.
So what makes live video so great? The social platforms will let all of your followers and subscribers know you’ve gone live. The platforms will also highlight your account when you do go live. This brings a substantial amount of new attention to your profile that you don’t receive through any other form of content creation.
It will take a bit of experimentation, and you may not feel completely natural in front of a camera your first time through, but if you haven’t started with live video, you need to.
Don’t Try To Sell In Every Post
This might sound a bit counter-productive at first. After all, your a business, so you will want to try to sell content. However, this isn’t the best way to go about bringing in customers and to keep them coming back.
If you think about yourself, when you receive a sales email from a company you subscribe to, how often do you actually open it up? When you know it’s going to be sales copy every single time the only times you actually open the email is if the headline WOWs you (and chances are, that’s few and far between).
Instead, you need to create product focused content and educational material. For example, maybe you are a restaurant that sells hot dogs. Don’t just send out sales copy on your hot dogs every email or with every Facebook post. If you do people will start to ignore you. Instead, offer educational material, such as the history of the hot dog, the difference between a Chicago dog and a Detroit Coney dog.
Best Performing Formats
Not all formats are created equal. In fact, according to a Q3 2018 survey conducted by Altimeter Digital Content, there is a substantial difference between top performing content formats and material that generates reduced visitor interaction.
According to the survey, 52 percent of businesses said short form video (less than two minutes) perform exceptionally well, followed closely by static images (such as photos and infographics) at 51 percent.
There is then a drop off to native advertising, which 42 percent of companies said works. Long-form research reports (white papers) and short-form blog posts each received 37 percent and 36 percent approvals by companies, respectively. Nothing else was above 35 percent of reported formats.
Whatever You Do, Have A Goal
One of the biggest problems companies have is identifying a specific goal behind the creation of the content. The business will want a single piece of content to drive social media interaction, boost sales, work well for email marketing, and so on.
Attempting to do all of this with a single post is a fool’s errand, yet far too many businesses try to do so. Instead, every single piece of content needs to have a very specific goal in mind. If your goal is to generate leads, create the content with lead generating in mind. If you want a blog post to boost social media followers, have this as the specific goal. Not only does this make it easier to measure success with the post, but you’ll have a singular target in mind.
Having the singular goal will make it possible to tailor what you write (whether it is an educational post or sales copy). It will also help you produce the right call to action. Because if you’re telling the reader (or viewer) to perform three, four, or five different actions, chances are they won’t do any. Give them one call to action and have one goal.
Creating Content That Works
The best course of action for promoting your business and connecting with consumers is to both remain active with your publishing schedule and to openly communicate with your customers and potential clients through social media. All of this will play dividends in the long run. Of course, everyone has their area of expertise. So if you’re looking for assistance with content creation, from Facebook updates to long form blog posts, the team at WriterAccess is here to help.
Whether you have questions or are ready to get your content marketing strategy off and running, now is the perfect time to contact the team at WA.
Greyson F. has been writing online content for over eight years and has extensive experience writing in a variety of formats. These formats range from travel reviews and how-to instructional essays to professional journals and academic papers. Major publications such as USA Today, Yahoo!, IBM, Google and others have all produced his work. Additionally, Greyson works as an online video producer and travel photographer. He has worked extensively with the New York Times as well as had video work appear on ESPN and NBC Universal. His travel photography is regularly features by Yahoo!
