It's All About Delivery - Mastering Your Content Medium

When you’re creating content it can be daunting to figure out what medium you should use to best present your ideas. There are so many different options for presenting information. However, if you’re using the same medium to present every idea that you have every time, you probably aren’t utilizing some of these tools you could be using to more effectively convey your idea. Here are a few different mediums for presenting your content online, and the pros and cons of using each:

Article: This is generally the most common medium for content marketing. Articles are fast and easy to create, and virtually anyone can produce them. While editing and a strong voice will help elevate the level of quality content, first and foremost it is necessary for the basis of the article to have depth. Generally, in order for people to understand an idea through an article they are going to have to spend a few minutes reading the entire article, or at least a good portion of it. This is not the medium that you want to choose if you are trying to get an idea across quickly. However, because people are so comfortable with articles, it is generally the most common medium used.

Picture: Humans tend to rely on vision as our most prioritized sense. We will trust our eyes over our other senses in most cases. The best time to use pictures is when you are trying to show something. Like the old saying, sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. There are some concepts that you just convey better with a picture. In journalism, it’s impossible to describe the devastation that happens after major events or disasters, such as a big tornado. You need a picture to convey the complete effects. The same concept applies in marketing—sometimes you just need a picture. Readers’ eyes are naturally drawn to visually striking images. Many times, even if you are going to be writing an article to deliver an idea, you will want to have a picture to go with it.

Infographic: Infographics are another great way to grab people’s attention. If you have a large set of data, or you want to display data in a way that is easier to digest, you should consider creating an infographic. When you are trying to show a correlation with data or explain a concept that is hard for many people to grasp, the best way can be through a visual graph or chart.

Video: This might be one of the most time consuming products to make, but there’s a reason that the movie industry is so successful. Videos are costly to make, but often they reap great rewards. Videos can show and evoke emotions just as something in real life would. Visuals also tend to get shared more on social media, which can help you deliver your content to an even bigger audience.

Social media: Does your idea involve feedback? Then your idea probably needs to be shared on social media. You can share most of your content on social media platforms, but many times you will also need to be creating content that is specific to each medium. While the types of content you can share on each of these platforms can be repurposed to share on each different medium, these are some things that do well on a specific platform.

• Facebook – The most mainstream of platforms. Generally, Facebook is the platform that gets the most feedback. If you are trying to reach a lot of people from different demographics, this is the social media tool for you.

• Twitter – You can share the same content on Twitter as you share on Facebook, but make sure it’s more condensed. If you are trying to get an idea across quickly, this is a good platform.

• Pinterest – This platform is key for sharing portfolio work or products that are available for purchase. This is also a key platform to reach the female demographic.

• Instagram – This is great for showing behind the scenes shots of your work. Make sure that content you are sharing on Instagram is very visually appealing. This is also a great platform to reach young people.

• Hyperlapse – If you are trying to show an overview of something, this is a great app in addition to Instagram that allows you to speed up videos. This is a key tool for giving someone a sense of what happened or what something looks like in a short period of time. 

• Tumblr – If your idea is strong artistically, this is probably where you will have the most success with presenting your idea.

Slideshow: A unique, new tool for sharing content is Slideshare, an online platform for sharing content that ranks really well with search engines. It also can provide a greater depth to content than just a regular article might. You might consider using this medium if your idea requires multiple steps that progress in an orderly fashion.

A good idea can get lost in the shuffle if you aren’t presenting it the right way. Unless others can hear and understand your idea, the idea is worthless. It doesn’t matter how good it is. When people create content they tend to think the only way to convey their idea is through words. However, there is almost always more than one way to deliver an idea. By using a different medium, you can make it easier for your content to pop and standout among the millions of other things that are vying for the attention of your consumers.