The 4 Most Effective Content Marketing Channels

Content marketing is a strategy where your end goal is to get your content to the masses. Basically, you have to use different channels to get your content out there. 

Why is this important? 

The internet is huge. More than 4 million blog posts are published every day. In a sea of written words, how are you going to get found? 

The solution is content marketing, and today you will learn the following tips: 

• Blogging
• Social Media Marketing
• Video Marketing
• eBooks

By the end of this article, you should be able to choose at least one that you want to focus on.

Blogging

Blogging is the most crucial factor when building traffic to your website. As the saying goes, content is king. If you have not noticed, even the biggest corporations have blogs. 

To make your blog work and drive traffic to your website, consider the following: 

• Quality – your blog posts must be written in the same way that a professional does; check your grammar and syntax, and make sure you write in a manner that befits your niche.

• Length – gone are the days when it was alright to publish blog articles that were only 300 words in length. At a minimum, you must write at least 1,000 words per article.

• Headline – your blog post must have a title that is attractive or interesting; this is the first thing people see in Google search results. 

• Value – the content of your blog post must be helpful; it should address questions and solve problems rather than talking about your personal experience.

• SEO – you can never undermine the power of SEO; this includes using the right keywords so the search engines know what your blog post is about.

A blog is still the ultimate source of free traffic. It is the only thing that can really build your credibility on the internet.

If you need blog content, check out this resource on content creation. It is a list of more than 100 content providers where you can outsource your content. 

Social Media Marketing

This refers to the actions you do on Facebook, Instagram, and other social media channels. In social media marketing, you are trying to reach out to people by posting photos, quotes, and inspirational content.

The difference between social media and blogs is that social media posts are usually photo-oriented. These are eye-candy, and your goal is to get someone’s attention as he is scrolling down his feed.

Social shares can help boost your website traffic as you grow your followers and subscribers. The great thing about social media is you can grow your fan base without advertising. On the other hand, you can advertise if you have an online store. 

Social media is great if you have ideas for viral and guerilla marketing. On this platform, your main focus is not leaning towards learning but creating posts that appeal to a person’s emotions.

You can also post your blogs on social media, but make sure you use clear and attractive images, along with great headlines. 

---

---

Video Marketing

This works like a blog, but it is reserved for the kind of audience who do not want to read. There are millions of people who would rather watch a video than read a blog post.  

With video content, you can show demonstrations and tutorials while you are doing it yourself. You can do a screencast to let people see how you are using a software or tool. As you grow your subscriber base, you also grow your credibility.

Video marketing is great if:

• You are not camera shy
• You are good at public speaking
• You know how to edit videos or you have the budget to pay someone do it
• You want to drive traffic to your blog and monetize this traffic

While this is effective, it is much more difficult to do because you need to shoot and edit the video. Also, the only popular platform today is YouTube, so you do not really have much choice. 

As effective as it may seem, video content marketing does not have the same power as a blog. On a video, the only thing a search engine can read is your headline. With a blog, the search engines can read through the entire content.

eBooks

eBooks are one of the best ways to market your content,. It works best if you offer it for free. In exchange, the customer or site visitor would give you his email address. 

eBooks are great if:

• You have a niche where a tutorial is much appreciated
• Your niche requires long-form content that people may not finish reading on one sitting

From a site visitor’s perspective, an eBook is something he can keep on his device and come back at it at a later time. To you, you can build an email list and send marketing materials later on to monetize your website. 

Ebooks take some time to write. You can do it yourself or hire an affordable copywriter to do it for you. Should you decide to go this route, the most effective eBooks are those that offer long-form tutorials, or those that provide a business report that people can use. 

If you have articles that are at least 3,000 words in length, you can actually turn them into eBooks and ask the site visitor to download it for free. They can read it later on, and you would have their email address. 

Summary

Content marketing requires your active participation. It will not work if you cannot put your time and effort into it. 

One mistake that you must avoid is this: do not get yourself into all types of content marketing all at once.

The thing with marketing is that learning it is so easy. All of these are effective methods, but they will take you off focus if you do them all at once.

The best approach is to do one, and then move on to the other. Start with a blog and once your blog is full of useful content, start your content marketing efforts on the other channels.

Marketing is the keystone to the success of any small business and should always be given careful consideration and allocated sufficient resources to ensure it’s proper implementation.

---

---