By this point in 2016, pretty much everyone and his mother is using content marketing. Eighty-eight percent of business-to-business marketers currently utilize content marketing; that number is expected to eclipse 90 percent in the near future.
At this point, content marketing isn’t anything new. Amid the onslaught of articles, lists and stories that abound on the Internet, how can a small content marketer in Utah garner the short-lived attention of his chosen audience? Let’s think about this closely.
Most of today’s content marketers in Utah and elsewhere know that content with images garners more engagement and more shares. Visual content is more than 40 times more likely to be shared on social media, and Facebook posts with images experience 2.3 times more engagement than posts without images.
But that featured image at the top of the article isn’t enough — did you know articles than feature an image every 75–100 words are shared twice as often as articles with fewer words? Consumers can’t get enough of images; so go Shutterstock shopping and build up that relevant image library.
Speaking of social shares, did you know that long-form content is actually significantly more likely to be shared than short-form content? On social media, content with 3,000–10,000 words is almost twice as likely to be shared as content with 0–1,000 words.
Considering most people in the content marketing business focus on pumping out a large quantity of short-form pieces, long-form content represents a serious area of opportunity for online marketers in Utah and elsewhere.
In terms of written content, additional length and image usage can go a long way. But that’s not all — research shows viewers don’t interact with all parts of a written piece equally. Across numerous sites analyzed by Web analytics company Chartbeat, 65.7 percent of viewer engagement on written pieces occurred below the fold, and most of that engagement is with the beginning of a piece.
What does that mean for content marketing professionals? Don’t save the most interesting part of the article for last — no one will ever read it. Instead, make sure the first couple of paragraphs are composed of rock-solid, share-able material. Your business partners in Utah will thank you later.
