Whilst this is all part of the process, there should also be a major focus on design, as this actually aids content marketing and can help ensure your content swims and reaches as many as possible, rather than sinks.
As social media has become much more of a visual medium, particularly in regards to those who browse social networks on their mobiles and tablets, it means that brands need to up their game in terms of how they market their content. Stories must be told clearly and succinctly to get the message across as quickly and clearly as possible, and images are one of the main ways to do this. Design has a broad definition, but in terms of marketing, its end is to provide the visual story and create a positive user experience.
To go about this, there are many strategic principles that designers can follow to ensure they create the appropriate, yet engaging experience for the audience they are targeting. Many of these are loosely related to psychology and the notion of human behaviour which can affect the outcome of your content campaign.
For example, it helps to understand the psychology of human behaviour, particularly when designing content for social media. This is the notion that different aspects of your design resonate with people in different ways, and will affect how your overall content connects with your particular intended audience. Each element, such as colour, shapes, fonts and even spacing all send their own subconscious message which makes up the overall picture the audience receives.
Colour influences about 90% of our subconscious judgements, according to a Quick Sprout survey, so it’s definitely worth taking the colour palette into consideration when designing content. Each colour represents different emotions, strengths and ideas, from the trusting blue to the happy yellow and exciting red. If you think about this you will have seen brand logos from top companies which all play on these connotations, from Ford (blue) to McDonald’s (yellow ‘M’) and Coca-Cola (red), in order to send out the desired message to their audience. Once you engage with a brand on this emotional level, you can then engage on an intellectual level with the rest of the content you provide.
Of course this is just the beginning in terms of how important design is for content marketing. If you can apply these basic principles, that will get your content noticed and will certainly create some emotional engagement among users. However going above and beyond communicating an effective message through design will allow you to excel in the content marketing space. That’s why it is important to understand human behaviour, and what content would be engaging and entertaining to that particular audience specifically.
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