In content marketing, besides pictures, texts and videos, what other content forms are there?

Before we determine what forms of content marketing there are, we can split “content marketing ” into “content + marketing”. At this point, you may find some interesting things:

Content Marketing = Content (Media Company) + Marketing (Advertising Company)

Content is generally produced by media companies, and marketing is generally handled by advertising companies or the marketing department within a company, right? Content is generally obtained by users paying media companies, such as magazines, comics, movies , etc., while marketing is advertising companies paying users to watch, right? When these two seemingly contradictory words are combined, a wonderful chemical reaction occurs: using the content industry (media) thinking to do marketing.

To understand what this sentence means, we must first understand what the content industry is:

In 1997, the "Standard Industrial Classification SIC" used in the United States for many years was replaced by the new "North American Industry Classification Standard NAICS ". An important change in the new classification system is the establishment of a brand new secondary industry - information industry. This information industry does not include computers, etc. that we usually think of, but includes publishing (including software publishing), film and recording industries, broadcasting and communication industries, information services and data processing services. The industry group with code 51 is the content industry.

The EU's "Info 2000 Plan" defines the main body of the content industry as "those industries that manufacture, develop, package and sell information products and services." The scope of the content industry includes printed content disseminated on various media (newspapers, books, magazines, etc.), audio and electronic publication content (online databases, audio product services, electronic games , etc.), audio-visual content (television, video, radio and cinema), and various digital software for consumption. Therefore, the dominant content industry is the audio-visual media industry.

From the concept of content industry, we can see that traditional content forms include newspapers, magazines, books, television, movies, radio, games, software, etc., but in the Internet era, many new content forms have emerged, such as blog tweets, micro-movies, live broadcasts , user reviews, etc. In content marketing, more attention needs to be paid to these emerging content forms. But no matter how things change, these new content forms are essentially the digitization of traditional content forms.

Theoretically, all content forms in the content industry can be applied to content marketing. Therefore, according to the division of the content industry, content can be divided into:

Graphic content (i.e. printed content)

Audio content and game content (i.e. audio electronic publication content)

Video content (audio-visual content)

Software content (i.e. various digital software for consumption)

Although event content is not classified as part of the content industry, it often appears in corporate content marketing, so it is also included in the basic form of content marketing here.

1. Graphic content

Traditional graphic content includes magazines, books, white papers, etc.

Magazines are the oldest form of content marketing, with John Deere launching The Furrow, a customer magazine in 1895. Many big brands such as Red Bull and IKEA have their own brand magazines.

Books are also used by many brands for content marketing. This in-depth content format can not only expand the brand influence, but also deepen the brand connotation. For example, the JD Data Innovation Group (a team in JD Mall's Marketing R&D Department that focuses on data-driven operations ) compiled and published the "Win at JD" series of e-commerce tutorials; Hua Shan, the founder of the well-known domestic marketing company H&H, regularly compiles and publishes company consulting cases, for example, the most famous "Super Symbols Are Super Creativity" is one of them.

A white paper is a special report written for industry issues. It is generally longer and contains more data. It can demonstrate the company's leadership position and position the company as an industry leader. Including research reports, e-books and other forms.

For example, the well-known public account "Restaurant Boss Insider" in the catering industry, in collaboration with Nielsen, the world's number one strategic research organization, established the "Taste Data Research Institute", the first domestic catering consumption data research organization, and joined hands with Meituan Dianping. After 2 years of accumulation and 4 months of research and analysis, it published the "China Catering Report", which conducted a comprehensive and systematic analysis of consumption data in China's catering industry, further establishing the brand's leading position in the industry.

Digital graphic content is the most common form of content, including pure text, pure image, graphic and text, and other types. It can appear in many channels such as corporate websites, blogs, and self-media . In order to achieve better marketing results, companies should plan a series of articles to increase their influence. For example, the "Kitchen FUN Research Institute" under Fotile's official website has created a series of tweets around Fotile's various kitchen appliances.

"Kitchen FUN Research Institute" series of tweets

2. Audio content

Traditional audio content includes radio, tapes, etc. In the Internet era, companies have to use more online audio for content marketing. Online audio mainly refers to audio content that is listened to through network streaming, downloading, etc., in addition to complete music songs or albums. Currently, it mainly refers to online radio stations.

The content covers news broadcasts, audio novels, variety entertainment, crosstalk and storytelling, emotional life, education and training and other types. According to statistics from the Himalaya Research Institute, the top 10 contents in the Himalaya FM listening popularity ranking in 2015 were audio novels, children, music, variety entertainment, crosstalk and storytelling, history and humanities, emotional life, foreign languages, radio dramas, and the latest information.

With the popularity of mobile devices and the increase in car ownership (which has promoted the development of in-car audio), online audio has become one of the important forms and choices for brand promotion and value enhancement after traditional television, radio and newspapers. According to statistics from the Himalaya Research Institute, as of 0:00 on January 1, 2016, the number of users of Himalaya FM, the largest audio platform in China, has exceeded 220 million. With its huge user base, Himalaya FM has formed cooperative relationships with thousands of brands and media.

The degree of intuition in transmitting information through sound is not as good as that of video and pictures, but it has an incomparable advantage, which is to achieve "Eye Free". With the rapid development of voice control technology, this advantage will be rapidly magnified. At the same time, under the long-term bombardment of videos and pictures, users will experience visual fatigue, and their motivation to switch to audio content will be significantly enhanced.

As a content marketer , discovering and taking advantage of this trend early will be an excellent opportunity to overtake others. For example, in 2014, Durex entered Himalaya FM and launched the official radio station "DuDu Radio". In less than a year, it developed nearly 100,000 fans and successfully created a popular radio program. Durex also achieved unimaginable brand promotion effects.

3. Game Content

Gaming marketing is an effective way for brands to reach males aged 16 to 34. Game marketing can be divided into in-game advertising (IGA) and game content marketing (Advertising using games, AUG). In-game advertising (IGA) is a typical traditional marketing thinking, while game content marketing (AUG) conforms to content marketing thinking and is the focus of our discussion.

In-game advertising (IGA) is a marketing method that embeds brand advertising in games. For example, it is highly integrated into the game's billboards, store signs, posters, clothing, vehicles, weapons and other scenes, or appears in the game loading interval, similar to the mid-roll ads in TV dramas. For example, a large number of advertisements were embedded in PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, the popular “chicken-eating game” in 2017.

JD.com ads embedded in PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds

In-game content marketing (IGA) is a marketing method in which a brand tailors its own games to promote its brand or product. The earliest in-game content marketing was spread through floppy disks, produced and released by Chef Boyardee, Coca-Cola and Samsung , which needed to be installed and downloaded before they could be played. In November 2006, Burger King began selling the King Games series, which was produced to promote its products. This series includes three games: PocketBike Racer, Sneak King and Big Bump in'. Any user who purchases a promotional package can purchase the game for $3.99.

Burger King's King Games Series

The use of game content for marketing has developed very maturely abroad. In recent years, domestic game content marketing has also developed very rapidly, especially the use of H5, AR and other technologies for mobile game content marketing, which is particularly popular. For example, Taobao has been playing the AR scanning game for several years. The New Year's Eve game in which players collect five blessings and try their luck to grab red envelopes has been very popular every year.

Taobao 5-blessing game

In recent years, H5 games have been popular on the Internet in large numbers. For example, before the Army Day in 2017, the People's Daily officially released an H5 game with face-changing military uniform photos titled "Look! This is my military uniform photo". Users can upload their own photos to generate handsome military uniform photos. This H5 was released on the evening of July 29. By 18:00 on the afternoon of July 31, the total page views (PV) exceeded 200 million, and the number of unique visitors (UV) accumulated to 38.32 million.

H5《Look! This is my military uniform photo.

In August 2017, Tencent Charity and the charity organization "wabc Accessible Art" jointly produced the H5 "Children's Gallery". After users scan the QR code, they can "purchase" their favorite paintings for only 1 yuan or enter any amount. The loving paintings can be saved to the mobile phone as screensavers. After the “Little Friends” gallery went viral, the campaign’s goal of 15 million was quickly reached, with nearly 6 million users participating in the donation.

Screenshot of H5 "Children's Gallery"

4. Video content

Video content can appear in many channels such as television, movies, video platforms, live broadcast platforms , and self-media. It is the fastest growing content type in recent years and is predicted by major consulting firms to be the mainstream content form in the future.

According to a forecast report released by Cisco in 2017, by 2021, Internet traffic generated by online videos will account for 82% of total Internet traffic. Webdam's research shows that in 2018, video content will account for 79% of total Internet traffic, and graphic content with video will be three times that of ordinary text content. Online video revenue is growing at 110% per year, faster than any other advertising category.

The classification of the video industry is very broad. According to the differences in the distribution channels and terminals, it can be divided into traditional videos and online videos. Among online videos, it can be divided into live and non-live according to whether the post-synthesis and broadcast are separated. Among non-live videos, it can be divided into short videos and long videos according to the playback time.

Reference: "Radio and Television Dictionary"

The history of using traditional video for content marketing is very long, dating back to 1924, the year television was born. Since then, a large number of companies have participated in the investment and production of brand-related TV series, movies, animations, etc. For example, the long animation "Haier Brothers" invested by Haier Group and "Mole Manor" invested by Taomi.com have achieved very good market response.

With the rise of the Internet, companies began to choose PC and mobile terminals for video dissemination. These videos are called online videos. For example, the show "I Am Jiang Xiaobai" produced by Jiang Xiaobai chose to be broadcast simultaneously on multiple online platforms including iQiyi , Mango TV , Tencent, and Youku.

Starting in 2004, Tudou, 56.com and Jidong.com, which were positioned as user UGC video sharing websites, gave birth to the earliest short videos in China. Starting in 2012, with the popularization of mobile Internet , mobile short videos began to sprout. Leading self-media platforms such as WeChat , Weibo, and Toutiao have invested heavily to support the development of short videos, prompting the short video industry to heat up rapidly, and giving birth to well-known short video self-media such as " Yi Tiao " and "Papi Jiang".

Many brands have also begun to experiment with short video content. For example, Apple condensed its September 2016 fall new product launch into a mere 107-second flash video, which sparked widespread dissemination and discussion, received rave reviews, and attracted many imitators .

Apple 107-second flash short video

The "FOTILE Q&A" short video series produced by FOTILE mainly features short videos of less than 1 minute in length, which specifically solve difficult kitchen-related problems and help users quickly upgrade from novices to kitchen experts.

Live streaming was initially used mainly in the field of e-sports. In recent years, with technological breakthroughs, the live streaming industry has developed rapidly and begun to show its prowess in the marketing industry. Compared with traditional videos, online live streaming has both content attributes and social attributes. The explosion of mobile Internet has further enhanced the convenience of online live streaming, allowing it to play a more effective social role.

In April 2016, Maybelline New York invited celebrity Angelababy and 50 internet celebrities to its brand launch in Shanghai. A live broadcast was started in the dressing room, and the 50 internet celebrities witnessed the entire process of makeup artists applying makeup to models from 50 perspectives. The live broadcast attracted 5 million people to watch online at the same time, and 10,000 lipsticks were sold in just 2 hours, converting actual sales of 1.42 million yuan.

In October 2016, Maybelline New York created the first domestic beauty live variety show "Please! Maybelline" and debuted on Tmall and Youku live platforms. The show airs twice a month on Thursdays. Different from traditional live broadcasts that are purely for selling goods, the content of "Please! Each episode of Maybelline has a different theme and invites big stars from various industries to participate in the interaction, using a variety show format to help everyone solve makeup problems.

5. Software Content

The cost for brands to make their own software for content marketing is relatively high, and there are few related cases at this stage, but some brands have begun related attempts. For example, Excedrin, an American brand for treating migraines, provides patients with free software on their official website to help track down the source of headaches.

FOTILE has developed an APP called "FOTILE Lifestyle", which provides users with exquisite healthy recipes and world food guides, and also allows users to share cooking experiences and life skills.

6. Activity content

Event content is also one of the main forms of content marketing. Like producing white papers, planning events also requires relatively high costs. Activities can showcase a company’s leadership position and enhance the brand’s influence in the industry. For example, Weibo holds the "Weibo Night" every year to discover and review Weibo's hot figures and hot events of the year. Since its inception in 2003, it has become the most influential industry indicator and barometer in the Internet industry.

According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, activities can be divided into 5 categories:

(1) Activities targeting physiological needs

Activities targeting physiological needs can be understood as material incentives. They are the most common type of fan-increasing activities in daily life. The most classic ones are “ scan the code to get a drink” and “scan the code to get a red envelope”. The “retweet to win a prize” commonly seen on Weibo also belongs to this type of activity. For the stage of increasing followers, this type of activity attracts a wide audience and is simple, direct and effective.

(2) Activities targeting security needs

Safety needs include personal safety, health protection, family safety, etc. Typical activities of this type are health knowledge lectures, especially those for middle-aged and elderly people, which are often overcrowded.

(3) Activities that target the need for love and belonging

Everyone hopes to be cared for and taken care of by each other. The need for love and belonging is mainly reflected in the need for family, friendship and love. For example, McDonald’s launched the offline “McMc Experience Camp” event, which gives parents the opportunity to bring their children to experience the craftsmanship behind McDonald’s, which not only enhances the relationship between parents and children, but also brings consumers and the brand closer.

The WeChat emotional giant Xin Shi Xiang successfully held a series of activities about love and belonging, such as " Escape from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou ", "Why Don't You Want to Go Home", etc. During the Mid-Autumn Festival in 2016, Xin Shi Xiang and Ecovacs gathered 10 users with "stories" to have a live in-depth chat with their fathers. The topics included being single, coming out, DINK, mental health and other issues commonly faced by people in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. The cumulative number of viewers for this live broadcast exceeded 4.7 million, bringing a large number of fans to Xin Shi Xiang.

(4) Activities targeting respect needs

Everyone hopes to have a stable social status and hopes that their personal abilities and achievements will be recognized by society. The voting activities that are popular in the circle of friends have, to a certain extent, taken advantage of people’s need for respect. Candidates in voting activities actively forward voting links to canvass for votes. On the one hand, they want to win the game and get gifts, but more importantly, they want their relatives and friends to know about their talents in certain areas and gain recognition.

However, for big shows of international brands like Victoria's Secret and CHANEL, even though the tickets are sold at high prices, there are still a large number of users scrambling to attend. Why is that? In addition to being able to see supermodels up close, what’s more important is that you can show off. The purpose of showing off is actually to gain respect.

2018 CHANEL Fashion Show

(5) Activities targeting self-actualization needs

The need for self-actualization is the highest level of need, in layman's terms it is the need for "I want to become better." These types of activities have one common feature, which is that they can improve the participants' abilities or experiences in certain aspects, or at least improve the participants' "self-perception".

For example, Lululemon, a Canadian yoga clothing brand, has turned its originally expensive yoga fitness classes into a part of its brand content marketing.

In Manhattan, USA, Lululemon holds open yoga classes twice a week, with more than 400 women wearing branded clothing participating enthusiastically each time. It also holds free yoga, Pilates and other exercise classes all year round. In 2017, Lululemon launched its first national fitness event in front of the Imperial Ancestral Temple in the Forbidden City in Beijing. It was held simultaneously in Shanghai and Chengdu , attracting a large number of yoga enthusiasts and tickets were sold out overnight.

Brands generally try to hold various types of activities. What kind of activities fall into the category of content marketing?

Only when the needs satisfied by the brand (note, the brand, not the product) are consistent with the needs satisfied by the activity, it is considered activity-based content marketing. Take the functional beverage brand Red Bull as an example. The brand positioning of Red Bull is "sports and adventure", which meets the needs of self-realization. The sports and adventure activities organized by Red Bull, such as the "Red Bull Human Arrow Plan Flying over the Great Wall" and the "Red Bull Freestyle Football Challenge", also meet the same needs and are in line with the brand positioning. Therefore, such activities are part of Red Bull's brand content marketing.

Sports and adventure activities with Red Bull

But Red Bull will also organize some activities to meet the immediate physiological needs, such as "Drink Red Bull, send red envelopes with the code", etc., using material incentives to obtain more reposts and attention. This type of activity obviously does not fall into the category of content marketing.

Red Bull’s material incentive activities

7. UGC, PGC and PUGC

Depending on the content production entity, the content can be divided into PGC (content produced by enterprises), UGC (content produced by users), and PUGC (content produced jointly by enterprises and users). All the content mentioned above, including pictures, audio, games, videos, software, activities, etc., are in PGC form.

At this stage, UGC is mainly used in pictures, videos and event content. Compared with PGC content, UGC content has higher credibility. If brands want to use UGC content for marketing, they need to build their own user creation platform to attract users to actively create content.

For example, Xiaohongshu, a well-known e-commerce brand, has attracted users to share their overseas shopping experiences and popular products by building a community. At the end of 2014, it launched an e-commerce channel to sell popular products in the community, with a purchase conversion rate of up to 9%. The American sports camera brand GoPro also encourages users to share their GoPro "adventures" on Youtube, which not only draws the public's attention to how attractive the images brought by this brand's cameras are, quickly increasing brand awareness, but also earns the brand the label of "special camera for extreme sports."

Screenshot of a video uploaded by a GoPro user

The application scope of PUGC is also relatively small, and it is mainly used in graphics, videos, and game content. For example, the military uniform photo H5 mini-game "Look! "This is my military uniform photo" is a typical PUGC content. The brand provides the template, and the user provides his or her own photos, and finally a handsome military uniform photo exclusive to the user is generated. In order to ensure both user engagement and content quality, more brands will try PUGC-type content in the future.

The author of this article is @草莓学堂 and it is compiled and published by (青瓜传媒). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

Product promotion services: APP promotion services, advertising platform, Longyou Games