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By now, you may have noticed that you’d typically get more reactions and engagements whenever you upload funny and less-salesy content versus when you post an advert of a product or your entire business.
The problem is not far-fetched; people hate advertisements. People are naturally inclined to avoid being sold something to. Fortunately, this problem can be largely solved through the use of Content Marketing.
What is Content Marketing?
Content Marketing is a type of inbound marketing strategy that involves the creation and sharing of online content (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts) that does not directly promote a brand/product/service but is intended to stimulate interest or desire towards such brand(s), product(s) or service(s).
Content marketing is our main marketing strategy here in Branditechture, and we thought it is a nice idea to share this one with our readers. One of the most popular content marketing strategies on social media is by posting educational content, then making ‘subtle attempts’ to sell practical resources (such as e-books, blueprints, CD, products etc.) to assist the reader in achieving the set objectives discussed.
What more? Google loves content! Setting up a blog and posting original content would only help your website rank higher in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs), thereby helping you reach a wider audience.
20 Brand Content Ideas For Your Content Marketing
In this blog post, I will itemize 20 brand content ideas that will help you in your content creation process. I will try to sort them into categories as follows;
- Educational
- Inspirational
- Community-focused
- Trend-based
- Promotional
Educational Content
Educational content can help your brand build authority over the topics that matter most in your industry. The purpose of this type of content is to provide answers, solutions, and information to your audience. Aside from educating your audience, it also portrays you as an expert in the field, thereby making it easier for prospects to trust you.
1. How-to Guides
Creating how-to guides is a great way to showcase your experience in cases that your target audience is interested in. Guides can range from simple instructions for accomplishing small tasks or how to use a product, to fully detailed guides about important topics that are relevant to your niche. Do-it-yourself (DIY) guides are a popular example of How-to content.2. Lists List content, such as this post, is another way to effectively communicate informational content and itemize related information. List-oriented posts can help people keep track of everything that they need to know about the topic being discussed. Think of lists as a tool for delivering all available options on a certain topic — Not every item on the list is required to be accepted by the reader, but you definitely have all your options in one place.
3. Tips and Insights
There’s no denying the fact that we’ve all browsed the internet in need of some tips or advice before, and we’ll do that over and over again. Consumers are likely to trust brands that provide tips and insights that are crucial to their buying decisions. The more trust you can build, the more powerful your brand becomes. Offering tips and detailed insights is a surefire way to gain some reputation in your industry.
4. Case Studies
A case study is an in-depth and detailed analysis of a particular situation. It requires the writer to have reporting skills. A good case study must report what transpired behind the scene;
- The initial problem
- The goal
- Methodology
- Challenges encountered
- How the challenges were tackled
- Final results.
Delivering this type of insight to your audience is an excellent opportunity to prove your originality, knowledge and awareness.
5. Tutorials
A tutorial is another great example of how you can supply information that will solve some of the problems that your target audience often encounters. Tutorial content is similar to How-to content in so many ways, but the biggest difference between a How-to content and Tutorial content is that a Tutorial is commonly aimed at permanently imparting knowledge, while a how-to is more of a list of detailed steps to achieve a particular goal.
In summary;
- Tutorial: Interactive set of instructions to teach by example, with the ultimate goal of imparting or transferring knowledge in a certain area of expertise.
- How-to: Simplified and short description of how to accomplish some specific task meant to help non-experts. Here, the goal is not to impart knowledge but to help accomplish a specific task by providing (easy-to-follow) steps.
6. Analytical Content
The use of charts, diagrams, tables, and other frameworks are a great way to deliver an analytical type of content that organizes topics into contextual pieces of information.
The benefit here is that these frameworks are usually very engaging, and they may keep the attention of the consumer for a long time as they try to understand the idea behind it.
Inspirational Content
This is all about motivation and inspiration. Motivation is the driving force behind soldiers putting up their lives at the war front. Just like these soldiers, we all need those small nudges toward making the best from life, and this is where your brand can come in.
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While educational content is there to inform your audience, inspirational content is more lighthearted, yet powerful — It’s there to inspire creativity and happiness.
7. Ideas
Inspire your audience by offering smart and creative suggestions that they can implement or adopt in order to add value to their lifestyle.
8. Perspective-based or Opinion-based
Creating content that gives your opinion on relevant topics shows how much you care. Take a stance on some important things that matter in the life of your audience. Be nice to them when they disagree with you or when they request to know more on the rationale behind your opinion.
9. Stories
Stories bring about a natural way for people to connect and reflect on. You can always find stories to tell your audience from;
- Your brand’s origin and past experiences
- Inspiring stories about some of the people in your organization
- Stories of how your brand made an impact on other people’s lives.
- Stories of how your product helped people
10. Experiments (e.g A/B Tests)
Experiments are interesting because you set the stage up for a surprise outcome. Surprises and uncertain outcomes keep us on our toes no matter what form they come in. Writing content focused on experiments is a great way to learn and grow together with your audience.
Community-focused Content
In the internet world, a community is a group of internet users sharing a common interest. (e.g Web Design, Entrepreneurship, SME, Food Lovers.) When you create relevant community-focused content, you develop a strong connection with your audience, such that they become more likely to follow you, share your updates, recommend to their friends, and so on. This type of content eventually allows you to grow a fanbase and build loyalty through direct interaction with people from varying communities.
11. Events
You can occasionally post content that is not directly related to your brand; for example, general events such as holidays. You can post a written report from seminars, workshops, live conferences, community events, and meetups for those people who did not have the opportunity to attend.
You can also publish images and live videos of your brand in action during related community events such as meetups, conference, workshops etc.
12. Behind The Scene
A lot goes on behind the scenes of a workplace every day, which means that there is a lot to draw from and share with your audience. Sharing behind the scene or work-in-progress content depicts some sort of transparency in your business culture and practices, which in turn would increase the trust that your consumers will place on your brand.
13. Testimonials
Testimonials are a very effective way of providing social proof to those who are in the ‘consideration phase’ in their consumer journey. You can get materials for your testimonial-based content by;
- Collecting reviews and success stories directly from consumers who are willing to share
- Extracting them from places like comments and direct messages on social media.
14. Earned Content
Earned content refers to content that you gain through a third-party ‘publisher’ (e.g., A review of your product by a Youtuber, published on Youtube). If you are lucky to get earned content, please, do not hesitate to share it with your audience.
15. Interviews
A lot of people love to hear conversations and debates on topics of interest. You can interview celebrities, clients or consumers, influencers in your community or anyone else that you think will bring value to your audience.
Trend-based Content
New things happen on the internet every single day. That alone can help you to always find a way to generate fresh ideas for your content. This type of content usually performs well while the trend is recent, and then the interest is lost over time. This is perfectly ok because not all content can be evergreen, but it will help you boost your reach for the moment being.
16. News
You may report breaking news and other happenings in your community. When reporting breaking news, always ensure that it is from a reliable source.
17. Trends
The internet has made it possible for all kinds of activities to go viral, and people love to explore different versions of the same trending topic. Content that revolves around current trends can be a fun way to participate in something that amuses your target audience at the moment. Trends tend to go away quickly, but trendy contents can boost your short-term reach.
18. Reviews
In today’s digital world, it’s a very common practice to browse the web for reviews and experiences reported by users of the things we want to purchase or use. Reviews and comparison-based content are a good way to give your two cents about things that your audience cares about. When posting comparison-based content, please be as neutral as possible so that your content doesn’t scream bias.
Promotional Content
Your content strategy also calls for the right amount of promotional content in the mix. You can use this type of content to bring attention to offers, products, or services that you offer.
19. Sponsored Content
A sponsored content is an all-paid-for placement of content that may contribute to the exposure of your brand. Sponsored content is an effective method of reaching a wider audience within a very short period of time. However, that does not mean that this type of content always has to be an obvious advertisement.
Remember, content full of value is a promotion in itself.
20. Descriptive Content
The idea behind this is to creatively describe a product, service etc., without the pressure of a sales page that indicates your intention is to convert them into a customer. When people are naturally attracted to your product or service organically, they will reach out by themselves.
Conclusion
Content marketing, if done correctly and consistently, will help you achieve your business goals by;
- Building brand awareness
- Generating high-quality leads
- Converting leads into loyal fans
- Customer engagement and retention
- Overall boosting of sales
The level of importance that you give to each category depends on the type of brand that you run and your content strategy goals. Experiment with different types of high-quality content and use the feedback you receive to learn what works best for your audience.
With time, you will discover what they are looking for, and you will find your brand voice. Bonus Tip: Use Keyword.io for ideas on specific topics to write on
Using the comment section below, feel free to add to this list if you have more ideas. Thanks for reading.
