Quite a few companies in many industries are realizing that a blog does a lot for a business. It’s a kind of steady marketing addition that provides a stream of page views from interested users, whether they’re on laptop or desktop computers or mobile phones. Blogs are a way of creating a great conversation with potential customers. But these days, with so many companies having implemented blogs already, some of the smartest and most forward-thinking firms are looking beyond this medium for new opportunities to interact with an audience online.
Go In-Depth with Long-Form Content
Some companies are moving toward a strategy that includes creating more technical content — writing white papers, or e-books, or other in-depth materials that people want to scroll through, or even print out. A “white paper” is something that sounds authoritative and can provide inside wisdom on a particular industry or process. Likewise, an e-book promises to be more than just a passing message.
Some of the value propositions here are around thought leadership and the ability to generate detailed information about an industry. Companies even hire journalists or others to go in and do specific long-form pieces that give the company an authoritative voice on their field or industry.
Infographics and Slideshows: Visual Appeal
Companies also like to gravitate towards visual resources such as slideshows and infographics. In particular, infographics are very popular right now because of the way they blend traditional text reading and visual appeal. You see a mix of short text blurbs and clever, attractive and compelling images. You get facts extremely quickly, and internalize messages without having to read through full documents.
In addition, companies are looking to reinvent their old material by, for instance, repurposing blog posts into infographics and other more visual pages.
Do I Want Video?
Video is a tough one. Some companies will stay away, because of the issue of whether low-bandwidth users and those on aging machines will want to click in and access these data-rich media pieces. However, video can be extremely effective for “show and tell” – where a business doesn’t want to restrict outreach to crabbed rows of letters on a page. One solution is to embed youtube videos into a page, so that users can always access the streaming video right through the aggregate site.
Rich Media for a Local Business
These types of marketing materials can be a great way to put companies in touch with a local audience or customer base in a community. For instance, a well-placed infographic can give readers a choice — whether they want to put on their reading glasses and go through a detailed blog post, or just look at a series of fast facts and consider what a given company has to offer.
At WebSubstance, we excel at helping companies to find the right online footprint. We know how to integrate rich media results into websites — to add things like infographics, slideshows and long-form content to what used to be a generic corporate site. Ask us about how to improve your web presence today.
