2018 has been a banner year for creative content.
Multiple brands are doing great things with custom content such as white papers, infographics, and ebooks. Companies are turning traditionally dusty annual reports into colorful, high-value must-reads for customers and investors alike. And interactive content is quickly becoming the de facto way to create content in general by combining worthwhile information with entertaining animation and responsive web design.
Want to follow these sterling examples and give your creative content a boost in 2019? Try out these tools and tech:
For Easy-to-Edit Video
Over half a billion people are watching video on Facebook per day. You don’t have to be a professional photographer or video editor to capture some of that mindshare. You just need an online, web-based app like Animoto that makes creating pro-quality slideshows and marketing videos a cinch.
The editing tools are simple enough to make a short video in about 15 minutes. You can add filters, music, adjust the video’s ratio, and you can even edit and adjust the pacing of audio tracks. Want to add your logo or watermark? Or just use a pre-made template? You can do that, too. It’s a robust service, so there’s a fee—but it’s minimal, with packages that go up to $34 per month. If you want an easy-to-use web-based video editor for your branded content or social media campaigns, but don’t have the budget for an in-house video editor, check out Animoto.
For Social Media and Content Distribution
To amplify your creative content, you’re going to need a scheduling and social sharing tool and organizational database for you and your teams. Need an editorial calendar template for your blog, podcast, or print vertical? A film budget sheet or film crew list template? Or just a simple spreadsheet for your planned social media posts? Project management software Airtable can provide all that. There are even pre-designed templates for nonprofits, publishers, and venture capital firms, and you see how your social media posts look before they go live so you can stay consistent across social media channels.
Need stuff to post in the first place? Feedly is a content curator’s best friend. In case you’re out of the loop, content curation is a great way to keep your social feed looking lively and up-to-date. Posting the content of others also saves time if your creative efforts have hit any bottlenecks. Feedly provides you with a constant stream of relevant articles, blogs, YouTube channels, and other content that you can arrange by category or keyword, save for later, or easily share to your own social channels. Give it a shot for those creative content lulls.
For Content Creation
Coming up with well-optimized, catchy headlines can be a headache for some content writers. Take the pressure off with this blog title generator. Yes, it’s a little cheesy to hand your creative spark over to a bot, but it can help you brainstorm ideas with the rest of your content creation team. Add a topic or keyword, tap the button, and let the good times roll.
Okay, got your headline. Is it any good? Analyze it with this tool, which scores your headline out of 100 and suggests more emotional, powerful words to use instead of the generic, common ones you may already be using. It also suggests alternative keywords users are searching for, and lets you know if your title is a force for positivity or a Debbie Downer. Pretty handy.
For Memes
Look, we’re not exactly sure memes are a good idea or not for 2019. So many brands refuse to use them correctly or they straight-up ignore what makes them so special to begin with. So, instead of rushing head-first into the great, funny world of meme-sharing next year, you should use this tool to cut your teeth on the emotional, shareable power of the meme picture/text format.
Get some practice in, share your funnies with your friends and co-workers, and consider all the implications (and trouble) your meme-making could have on your brand. Do you want to make the jokes or become a joke? With memes, it could go either way, so wield this mighty power carefully.
For Analytics
The best, free metric-measuring tool to gauge your traffic performance is still Google Analytics. We’ve been using it to gain audience insights, segment audiences by various categories, and for researching high-volume keywords for years now with nary a bump along the way. If you want to track how your creative content is doing for the new year, this is one of the most comprehensive options.
Are you creative? Want to discuss the tech and tools of content marketing further? We’re always open to collaborating.
Trackbacks/Pingbacks