Yesterday, while I was using some tools for better content marketing, I thought I could write a new post mentioning all those exceptionally brilliant tools that can help you in going viral. The same as I told one of my friends and the immediate response I got was a question- “what actually is content marketing?”. That’s a brilliant idea to get started with, I thought and replied with thanks.

Even I got to understand this term only a few months back and I subscribed to all content marketing blogs immediately. Don’t you surprise; the results are amazing with content marketing. Yes, positively.

If you are a business owner (or work for any business), content marketing can surely bring you the best results ever.

So, What is Content Marketing?

“Content marketing is yet another marketing strategy where content is produced in many interactive formats and is used to connect and engage with the target audience to create a stronger bond.”

Content marketing is actually a clever process. Here, you don’t send them annoying product promotion emails, yet you present content, which makes them realize how important your product is. Providing more valuable information to make your customer more intelligent is what you’re supposed to do. Persuasive content is what you should give here.

Let me explain to you. A few months back, I wrote this post on Press Releases and as a part of the research, I was browsing through countless random blogs related to press releases. And, unsurprisingly, most of the blogs are PR agencies, which offer press release writing and publishing services to their customers.

So, when someone searches for press release writing tips on Google, he obviously lands on any of their PR agency’s blog. Of course, the content is outstandingly valuable and correct, that he won’t stop reading it. He continues to the author bio and there he finds about the author/company, who/which offers press release writing services. You see, the company has just bagged a potential customer through content.

Content Formats

Content, in terms of blogging, is words but not in terms of content marketing. Here, content can be any visual form, which is interactive. It can also be a little game but should be able to educate the reader.

How would you like to get updates on the FIFA world cup? Not through radio and better be a television, right? The same here. When you have the chance of presenting the text in a more interactive way, why should you opt-in for the old-school strategies?

The type of content you create directly decides how influential your content is. The percentage of influence the very format shows is as follows-

• Social Media – 79%
• Article Posting – 78%
• Case Studies – 55%
• Blogs – 53%
• White Papers – 43%
• Webinars – 42%
• Videos – 41%
• Podcasts – 16%
• Ebooks – 9%

Now, you can start working on the very specific format as you knew how big the reach and influence would be.

Wait! Maybe, you can act better once you know how the audience would actually like to see. It can be easier for you to produce the content, then.

• 37% prefer email newsletters
• 33% like the business page on Facebook
• 23% love to watch videos
• 15% play games
• 9% follow updates on Twitter
• Only 7% comment on blogs

Yet, it is obvious.

Inserting images/videos at proper places will make sure the engagement with the audience.

Social Media

Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms are the best place to find the target audience. Because, today, everyone started using these social networks and, this is your chance to make the right use of it.

As the primary goal, should be to create relevant and engaging content, you can expect a lot of responses on social media platforms, unlike the others.

I know you already liked (I’m talking about the Facebook-like) the Coco-cola fan page on Facebook (except in the worst cases). It is the third-largest fan page on Facebook with 62,861,297 likes, followed by Facebook and YouTube. With attractive and creative images, videos, and some contests too, Coco-cola keeps itself trending all the time. Just between 2011 and 2013, it has increased its fan-base by 65%. Few other brands also are creating such trending stories on Facebook, like MTV, Disney, Starbucks, Oreo, McDonald’s etc.,

Even on Twitter, we can see Huffington Post, YouTube, Instagram, MTV, UberSocial, NBA, The Onion, and other brands in the most powerful list.

Article Posting

This can often be taken as posting relevant articles on the web (for global reach). No different from guest blogging, in a perspective.

If you are aware of Bill Gate’s The Gates Notes, where he writes about the future of food; he recently posted an article Food is Ripe for Innovation on Mashable. This would’ve surely given him a positive response.

Case Study

For your knowledge, here’s how Red Bull’s content strategy got its wings.

You see, I just shared this article published on Contently. Because it’s worth it. Now, this case study has helped contently in going viral, if you analyze. This is how you get a lot of attention.

Moreover, bloggers today, are also doing their case studies on the most interesting niche topics and are stunning their readers with amazing reports.

Here’s the latest case study published on my favorite, Copyblogger- How to Build a Vast Audience by Mastering the Art of the Interview

Blogs

Are you new to this term, by any chance? I hope not. Because, what you are reading now, is published on a (my) blog.

It has become so easy to set up a blog, now. All you’ve to have is a domain and space to host your site. Once you install it, Google (no, Bing!) will teach you everything.

It is highly recommended for every business to have a blog. You get more exposure and so do consumers if you have a business blog.

It is also noticed that companies with blogs get more inbound links than usual.

Whitepapers

White papers are all different from blogs. Length is what separates them. Because a white paper is generally short in contextual data.

It provides short and accurate data about the considered resource. Leads are seen faster through white papers and not blogs and that is why marketers start white paper marketing, as a blog generally takes more than six months to start generating leads.

This live example from Hubspot can throw more light on it.

Webinars

Webinars help extremely. Both to the consumer and marketer. Because a consumer/reader can really learn a lot.

Last week, I attended a webinar on Guest Blogging and it did really help a lot in executing new strategies.

Today, you can see every top-notch blog organizes free/paid webinars to increase their leads/sales/whatever.

Videos

Videos, in other words, helps your site with decreased bounce rate. Because we can’t expect a video to be less than a minute (except in worst-cases). And, readers will spend an extra minute on your blog, which obviously reduces your site’s bounce rate.

Content Marketing Institute and Hubspot create a lot of videos to engage with their readers. And, creative videos can easily go viral. Because, they however have quality content and added with creative execution, you hit it!

Derek Halpern also uses this strategy to engage with his blog readers.

Podcasts

If you can’t possibly make a video, go with the audio. There are people who love listening to podcasts.

Ileane Smith of BasicBlogTips loves to create podcasts. Give a look to get an idea (a better idea, in fact).

Ebooks

Scribe Library, Hubspot Ebooks, Content Marketing Institute Ebooks, and a ton more. Ebooks are now everywhere.

Free ebooks are yet considered to be the best giveaway to get started with building a list.

With your ebook, you can market your content more effectively and expect better results, as well.

Yesterday, while I was using some tools for better content marketing, I thought I could write a new post mentioning all those exceptionally brilliant tools that can help you in going viral. The same as I told one of my friends and the immediate response I got was a question- “what actually is content marketing?”. That’s a brilliant idea to get started with, I thought and replied with thanks.

Even I got to understand this term only a few months back and I subscribed to all content marketing blogs immediately. Don’t you surprise; the results are amazing with content marketing. Yes, positively.

If you are a business owner (or work for any business), content marketing can surely bring you the best results ever.

So, What is Content Marketing?

“Content marketing is yet another marketing strategy where content is produced in many interactive formats and is used to connect and engage with the target audience to create a stronger bond.”

Content marketing is actually a clever process. Here, you don’t send them annoying product promotion emails, yet you present content, which makes them realize how important your product is. Providing more valuable information to make your customer more intelligent is what you’re supposed to do. Persuasive content is what you should give here.

Let me explain to you. A few months back, I wrote this post on Press Releases and as a part of the research, I was browsing through countless random blogs related to press releases. And, unsurprisingly, most of the blogs are PR agencies, which offer press release writing and publishing services to their customers.

So, when someone searches for press release writing tips on Google, he obviously lands on any of their PR agency’s blog. Of course, the content is outstandingly valuable and correct, that he won’t stop reading it. He continues to the author bio and there he finds about the author/company, who/which offers press release writing services. You see, the company has just bagged a potential customer through content.

Content Formats

Content, in terms of blogging, is words but not in terms of content marketing. Here, content can be any visual form, which is interactive. It can also be a little game but should be able to educate the reader.

How would you like to get updates on the FIFA world cup? Not through radio and better be a television, right? The same here. When you have the chance of presenting the text in a more interactive way, why should you opt-in for the old-school strategies?

The type of content you create directly decides how influential your content is. The percentage of influence the very format shows is as follows-

• Social Media – 79%
• Article Posting – 78%
• Case Studies – 55%
• Blogs – 53%
• White Papers – 43%
• Webinars – 42%
• Videos – 41%
• Podcasts – 16%
• Ebooks – 9%

Now, you can start working on the very specific format as you knew how big the reach and influence would be.

Wait! Maybe, you can act better once you know how the audience would actually like to see. It can be easier for you to produce the content, then.

• 37% prefer email newsletters
• 33% like the business page on Facebook
• 23% love to watch videos
• 15% play games
• 9% follow updates on Twitter
• Only 7% comment on blogs

Yet, it is obvious.

Inserting images/videos at proper places will make sure the engagement with the audience.

Social Media

Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms are the best place to find the target audience. Because, today, everyone started using these social networks and, this is your chance to make the right use of it.

As the primary goal should be to create relevant and engaging content, you can expect a lot of responses on social media platforms, unlike the others.

I know you already liked (I’m talking about the Facebook-like) the Coco-cola fan page on Facebook (except in the worst cases). It is the third-largest fan page on Facebook with 62,861,297 likes, followed by Facebook and YouTube. With attractive and creative images, videos, and some contests too, Coco-cola keeps itself trending all the time. Just between 2011 and 2013, it has increased its fan-base by 65%. Few other brands also are creating such trending stories on Facebook, like MTV, Disney, Starbucks, Oreo, McDonald’s, etc.,

Even on Twitter, we can see Huffington Post, YouTube, Instagram, MTV, UberSocial, NBA, The Onion, and other brands in the most powerful list.

Article Posting

This can often be taken as posting relevant articles on the web (for global reach). No different from guest blogging, in a perspective.

If you are aware of Bill Gate’s The Gates Notes, where he writes about the future of food; he recently posted an article Food is Ripe for Innovation on Mashable. This would’ve surely given him a positive response.

Case Study

For your knowledge, here’s how Red Bull’s content strategy got its wings.

You see, I just shared this article published on Contently. Because it’s worth it. Now, this case study has helped contently in going viral, if you analyze. This is how you get a lot of attention.

Moreover, bloggers today, are also doing their case studies on the most interesting niche topics and are stunning their readers with amazing reports.

Here’s the latest case study published on my favorite, Copyblogger- How to Build a Vast Audience by Mastering the Art of the Interview

Blogs

Are you new to this term, by any chance? I hope not. Because, what you are reading now, is published on a (my) blog.

It has become so easy to set up a blog, now. All you’ve to have is a domain and space to host your site. Once you install it, Google (no, Bing!) will teach you everything.

It is highly recommended for every business to have a blog. You get more exposure and so do consumers if you have a business blog.

It is also noticed that companies with blogs get more inbound links than usual.

Whitepapers

White papers are all different from blogs. Length is what separates them. Because a white paper is generally short in contextual data.

It provides short and accurate data about the considered resource. Leads are seen faster through white papers and not blogs and that is why marketers start white paper marketing, as a blog generally takes more than six months to start generating leads.

This live example from Hubspot can throw more light on it.

The screenshot is taken from HubSpot

Webinars

Webinars help extremely. Both to the consumer and marketer. Because a consumer/reader can really learn a lot.

Last week, I attended a webinar on Guest Blogging and it did really help a lot in executing new strategies.

Today, you can see every top-notch blog organizes free/paid webinars to increase their leads/sales/whatever.

Videos

Videos, in other words, helps your site with decreased bounce rate. Because we can’t expect a video to be less than a minute (except in worst-cases). And, readers will spend an extra minute on your blog, which obviously reduces your site’s bounce rate.

Content Marketing Institute and Hubspot create a lot of videos to engage with their readers. And, creative videos can easily go viral. Because, they however have quality content and added with creative execution, you hit it!

Derek Halpern also uses this strategy to engage with his blog readers.

Podcasts

If you can’t possibly make a video, go with the audio. There are people who love listening to podcasts.

Ileane Smith of BasicBlogTips loves to create podcasts. Give a look to get an idea (a better idea, in fact).

Ebooks

Scribe Library, Hubspot Ebooks, Content Marketing Institute Ebooks, and a ton more. Ebooks are now everywhere.

Free ebooks are yet considered to be the best giveaway to get started with building a list.

With your ebook, you can market your content more effectively and expect better results, as well.