A few weeks ago, I attended a breakfast meeting with a bunch of entrepreneurs in the technology, space (yes, space travel), software and engineering industry. I felt so blown away by the incredible talent of the speakers. You know, there are people out there building things, like private satellite networks, bio printing facilities, quantum computers and self-driving cars. I was completely transfixed by the incredibly future facing, innovative and exceptionally inventive group in front of me. I also immediately wished I'd worked a little harder in my twenties.
After the presentations, one of the questions that came up during the Q&A session was: "what's the next big thing?"
Wow. Have you ever thought about "the next big thing"?
Part of the magic of predicting innovation is that it's really, really hard to get right. Those that can accurately predict the future (in my humble opinion) are those that tend to understand how people will respond to an idea once they're exposed to it. I think predicting this is a very special skill indeed.
Then again, we're expected to be able to predict the outcome of our marketing, all the time. While predicting it is one thing, making it happen it is a whole different ball game.
Competition for the attention of our customers is getting tougher
In our industry, when you really boil down what it is we do, we're fixing things, making things, or we're communicating things.
Most of the time, we’re building content that communicates: ideas, stories, news and guidance–you get the idea. The problem is, no matter which vertical you work in, we're all competing for something: the attention of our customers.
As our customers get smarter, that competition is getting tougher and tougher.
The most successful marketers in our industry all have a special trait in common. They are good at finding new ways to communicate ideas. Take a look at classic presentations like this from Ross Hudgens to see just how powerful it can be to observe, imitate and develop an idea with astounding viral reach.
I particularly enjoy the idea of taking a piece of content and making improvements, be it through design, layout or simply updating what's there. I like it because it's actually pretty easy to do, and there's growing evidence of it happening all over the Internet. Brands are taking a second look at how they're developing their content to appeal to a wider audience, or to appeal to a viral audience (or both!).
For example; take a look at this beautiful travel guide to Vietnam (credit: travelindochina.com) or this long form guide to commercial property insurance (credit: Towergate Insurance / Builtvisible.com) for examples of brands in competitive verticals developing their existing content. In verticals where ordinary article content has been done to death, redeveloping the medium itself feels like an important next step.
Innovative isn't the same thing as technical
I’ve felt for a long time that there's a conflict between our interpretation of "innovative" and "technical". As I've written before, those that really understand how the web works are at a huge advantage. Learn how it's built, and you'll find yourself able to make great things happen on your own, simply by learning and experimenting.
In my opinion though, you don't have to be able to learn how to build your own site or be a developer. All you have to do is learn the vocabulary and build a broad understanding of how things work in a browser. I actually think we all need to be doing this, right now. Why?
We need more innovation in content marketing
I think our future depends on our industry's ability to innovate. Of course, you still need to have your basics in place. We'll always be T-Shaped marketers, executing a bit of technical SEO here, a bit of content strategy there. But, we're all SEOs and we know we need to acquire links, build audiences and generally think big about our ambitions. When your goal is to attract new followers, fans, links, and garner shares in their thousands, you need to do something pretty exciting to attract attention to yourself.
The vocabulary of content development
I've designed this post to be a primer on more advanced features found in innovative content development. My original MozCon 2014 presentation was designed to educate on some of the technologies we should be aware of in our content development projects and the process we follow to build things. We'll save process for another post (shout in the comments if you think that would be useful!) and focus on the "what" for now.
At Builtvisible, we're working hard on extending our in-house content development capabilities. We learn through sharing amazing examples with each other. Our policy is to always attempt to deconstruct how something might have been developed, that way, we're learning. Some of the things we see on the web are amazing–they deserve so much respect for the talent and the skills that surface the content.
Here are some examples that I think demonstrate some of the most useful types of approach for content marketers. I hope that these help as much as they've helped us, and I hope you can form a perspective of what innovative features look like in more advanced content development. Of course, do feel welcome to share your own examples in the comments, too! The more, the merrier!
The story of EBoy
eBoy: the graphic design firm whose three co-founders and sole members are widely regarded as the "godfathers" of pixel art.
The consistent styling (as well as the beautifully written content) is excellent. Technically speaking, perhaps the most clever and elegant feature is the zoom of the image positioned on the Z axis in a <canvas> container (more on this in a moment).
An event listener (jQuery) helps size the canvas appropriate to the browser window size and the z axis position shifts on scroll to create an elegant zoom effect.
View the example here:
https://www.theverge.com/2014/6/17/5803850/pixel-perfect-the-story-of-eboy.
<canvas> is an HTML element which can be used to draw graphics using scripting (usually JavaScript). This can, for instance, be used to draw graphs, make photo composition or simple animations.
Colorizing the past
Take a look at Pixart Printing’s Guide to Colourizing the Past (credit: Pixartprinting / Builtvisible.com) for a clever example of <canvas> in use. Here's one of the images (tip, mouse-over and click the image):
The colorization feature takes advantage of the power of the canvas element. In this case, the color version of the image is applied to the canvas as a background image, with the black and white version on a layer above. Clicking (or touching, on mobile) erases portions of the top image, revealing the color version underneath.
Chrome Experiments: Globe
Globe is "simple" global data visualization of the Earth's population growth over a set range of dates. The 3d visualization based in webGL: a JavaScript API for rendering interactive 3D graphics and 2D graphics within any compatible web browser without the use of plug-ins.
View the example here:
https://globe.chromeexperiments.com/.
WebGL is a really exciting, emerging option available to content marketers who might want to experiment with immersive experiences or highly interactive, simulated environments.
Some of my favourite WebGL examples include Hello Racer and Tweetopia, a 3d Twitter Hastag visualizer.
If you'd like to see more examples of webGL in action, take a look at Chrome Experiments. Don't worry, this stuff works in the latest versions of Firefox and IE, too.
Polygon's PS4 Review
You might have seen me cover this long form concept over at Builtvisible. Polygon’s Playstation 4 review is a fully featured "long form" review of Sony's much loved gaming machine. The bit that I love is the SVG visualizations:
"What's SVG?", I hear you ask!
SVG is super-fast, sharp rendering of vector images inside the browser. Unlike image files (like .jpg, .gif, .png), SVG is XML based, light on file size, loads quickly and adjusts to responsive browser widths perfectly. SVG's XML based schema lends itself to some interesting manipulation for stunning, easy to implement effects.
View Polygon's example here: https://www.polygon.com/a/ps4-review.
That line tracing animation you see is known as path animation. Essentially the path attribute in the SVG's XML can be manipulated in the DOM with a little jQuery. What you'll get is a pretty snazzy animation to keep your users eyes fixated on your content and yet another nice little effect to keep eyeballs engaged.
My favourite example of SVG execution is Lewis Lehe's Gridlocks and Bottlenecks. Gridlocks is a AngularJS, d3.js based visualization of the surprisingly technical and oft-misunderstood "gridlock" and "bottleneck" events in road traffic management.
It's also very cool:
View the example here:https://setosa.io/blog/2014/09/02/gridlock/.
I have a short vocabulary list that I expect our team to be able to explain (certainly these questions come up in an interview with us!). I think that if you can explain what these things are, as a developing content marketer you're way ahead of the curve:
- HTML5
- Responsive CSS (& libraries)
- CSS3 (& frameworks)
- JavaScript (& frameworks: jQuery, MooTools, Jade, Handlebars)
- JSON (api post and response data)
- webGL
- HTML5 audio & video
- SVG
- HTML5 History API manipulation with pushState
- Infinite Scroll
Want to learn more?
I've amassed a series of videos on web development that I think marketers should watch. Not necessarily to learn web development, but definitely to be able to describe what it is you'd like your own content to do. My favourite: I really loved Wes Bos's JS + HTML5 Video + Canvas tutorial. Amazing.
Innovation in content is such a huge topic but I realize I've run out of space (this is already a 1,400 word post) for now.
In my follow up, I'd like to talk about how to plan your content when it's a little more extensive than just an article, give you some tips on how to work with (or find!) a developer, and how to make the most of every component in your content to get the most from your marketing efforts.
Until then, I'd love to see your own examples of great content and questions in the comments!
I'm delighted to see our piece on Vietnam being featured!! Such a steep learning curve and the most difficult thing I find with content is, like SEO, there is no silver bullet and some things succeed whilst others fail. When a client invests $10K, $20K and more in content and it then flops, how do you explain that?
I read somewhere just last week that it is very much like the Hollywood model where most films are failures, but are carried by the few blockbusters. A handy anecdote, albeit one I hope I don't need to use too often.
"attempt to deconstruct how something might have been developed" - that is a super piece of advice and one we employ, although not to the extent you are suggesting and I think THAT is indeed a better way if you are to grow and learn in this exciting space.
Congrats Ralph!
The Hollywood example is a quite good one. In fact, what I believe is that the movie industry model (or even the videogames one) is somehow similar to what "content marketing" is leaning toward, with big productions (like the very recent piece Airbnb created for the 25th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin's Wall), independent productions (like the Travel Indochina one) and Z serie ones.
But the similarity is not reduced to just that, IMHO. The complexities of creating a content that really stands out from the mass of Z series posts is stepping up very fast, so much that figures like the "Director" or the "Executive Producer" are becoming a need. Personally, I think that SEOs could aim occupying those chairs, because they have the knowledge (not all SEOs, sure, but ideally many of them) for that:
Yes, alone a director can't achieve that much, because he needs a Producer (the client), a Screenwriter (the content marketer/strategist), the Director of Photography, Editing and Sound (the devs).
And that's why, even with all its defects, I constantly look at how the movie industry acts, especially in the online arena.
Thanks Ralph - I didn't know that was you! Great work mate.
That Vietnam guide piece is amazing Ralph!
I once managed a project on a so called Star Trek "Navigraphic". Don't know if some of you bumped into it back in 2013. We came up with that navigraphic term, pitched it to the client, launched it and thought we were going to take over the Internet.
We managed to get decent coverage including Mashable. But looking at it now, it was a failure considering the investment. But a great learning curve for all of us!
Amazing post and thanks especially for pushing us to be better everyday and innovate(and quite proud that you presented one I helped with).
Said that, I'd like to alert people that one basic thing is needed before even thinking in creating a content like the ones you suggested: consistency.
Let me explain.
The "big content" production should be consistent with all the innovation we are guiding the site's marketing to. That means that we should not put all our efforts on just producing an amazing infinite scroll guide with special effects in and great information, if we don't pay the same kind of attention in leveraging the "normal" actual content of our site: product pages, landings, categories, search pages et al.
And all of that starting from the principles the client usually distills in its "mission" page.
I am in my journey for writing a post here on Moz about Lego, and what the success of Lego shows us is how having few clear mission statements, and consistently basing on them all our communication (institutional, marketing, selling et al), make it the basic storyline of our Content Bible, which will deploy our branded histories in different way and parts using the best of each channel.
Finally, please don't fall in the same old mistake, of putting all your attention in the specific content (once were infographics, now interactive content): remember that your traffic in 90% goes to regular pages. If they are shitty no blasting shining SVG effects will bring you conversions.
Definitely. I think I tried to make that point with "Of course, you still need to have your basics in place" - by which I meant content strategy is key, but it's a given - "develop a content strategy" has been a staple of industry advice for years.
On your last point, I'm working on that point right now. We've had some really viral yet simple guides go out and outperform entire channels on revenue. It's easily possible if you set out wit ha goal (not just: "build something awesome")
Good points. Like most more advanced marketing tactics, we need to invest in all of the foundational aspects (branding, messaging, site architecture, on-site optimization, etc) before the next 'innovative' idea will have value.
Love the post Richard, (thinking outside the box) I think the trick and challenges will always be to find that content that will gain traction to the specific audience in respective field. You have great examples here, but obviously it wouldn't work with the clients that I work with.
Cheers!
I learned a lot with this post has given me good ideas for my blog but.
my question is ... how committed this type of designs to speed page load? where the boundary between design and practicality of the page?As interpreted seo search engine of this type of presentations?
Ty Richard
Excellent post. Kinda reminds me of a couple of years ago when not many people were doing infographics; they were seen as being the innovative thing that would get you eyeballs and links. Now that's saturated, it's basically on to the next thing (again).
The great thing about innovative content is that it's time consuming. The terrible thing about innovative content is that it's time consuming. <-- that's not a typo. What I mean is that it's not possible to automate the development and marketing of an innovative piece, which is great for whitehat businesses out there. They also happen to be a lot more fun to make. At the agency I work at, when something big happens in the news we all jump in a room and brainstorm ways of leveraging it with a piece of innovative content. For example, for Tesco's recent profit overstatement we made this: https://www.trolliesofmoney.com. Coming up with an idea, then developing/designing it, and then marketing/outreaching it, all in a day or two is really fun.
It's so much easier to market these innovative projects if they are (or appear to be) non-commercial. For example, for my recent project https://www.dearsirrichard.com, people were going well out of their way to help me. People in Sir Richard Branson's own network were willing to ask around to help me accomplish my mission. If this one had even a hint of commercial or for-profit stench about it, you can guarantee that it wouldn't have been successful. My differentiation compared to all the other people trying to get through to Mr Branson was that I wasn't doing it for the money. <-- Always create something with a target persona(s) in mind.
This is evidently another great post about content, this time discussing the possible future innovations in content creation.
I'm not really into web dev, coding and what have you, but I do like the idea of weightily incorporating UX and Design to content. Well, admittedly today, many marketers are still in the old age of content marketing, thinking that articles, photos, videos will translate to something more beneficial to the website, brand, client. The point here after all is leading the innovation. In this approach, businesses can change the game from being the 'challenger' to an 'industry leader.'
Your competitors are doing content - article, infographic, photos, videos - but remember to stay steps forward from your competitors by innovation. And hey Richard, this is a heck of a good start!
We don't do a lot of the "fancy" coding and stuff either. While many of these examples are highly interactive, there's probably ways of making engaging, innovative content that doesn't require a ton of money. And you're right that UX design is a big part of it. You could have the most beautiful content ever, but if your site is a pain to navigate, no one will care!
So You are saying that
You need to be OUTSTANDING , OUT OF THE BOX , OUT OF MIND , CREATIVE , GENIUS , DESIGNER , FLASH DEVELOPER , GIF CREATOR , STATS COLLECTOR , HTML DEVELOPER , ANIMATOR , WEB DESIGNER , WEB DEVELOPER , CONTENT WRITER , CONTENT CURATOR , PHOTOSHOP EXPERT , ILLUSTRATOR GENIUS to create innovative content?
Or you can work on the plan with your client, work on content ideation, and then hire great companies to do the job for you.
Great article! It's nice to see some good examples of taking content beyond basic articles and graphics. I'd love to learn more about making content that is more interactive without high levels of technical knowledge. I guess my big question is: where is the line between engaging and annoying? For example, when I land on a page it drives me crazy if the content is on a slideshow that I have to click through, especially if the slides (or worse, pages) don't load quickly. Comparatively, I don't mind the scroll effect webpages. At least the content is all on one page that way.
Amazing post Robert! I loved all these amazing examples of amazing visual content. My biggest question in terms of grabbing the attention of potential clients is the idea of just plain informative content vs. content with a visually appealing aspect. It seems like these ideas really draw people's attention by being technically innovative, but in your opinion is this more effective than just delivering people great educational content? Or is it the combination of both that is most effective?
Robert?
Hey Justin! It's very much a combination of both. You've got to have the need for the content in the first place, and IMO that's *got* to exist before you do anything. I think Brian Fishkin once said, If you can't think of who your content would be useful / informative / entertaining for, then its definitely not a good idea to develop it. I'm definitely not saying ignore all of the basics - these are basics in content marketing: identify problem / establish a need / investigate best alternative / evaluate feasibility of improvement / identify stakeholders in target audience / establish route to promotion / etc etc etc
Hope that helps!
Robert
Hi Richard,
thanks for putting this post together. My favorite example is the Guide to Vietnam.
You're right it's getting harder and harder to get attention of your customers/potential customers, no wonder when millions of blog posts are published on a daily basis. You have to be creative, innovate and stand out from the crowd. I think the two keys of success are investing in great design and promote your content. If you can create an outstanding piece of content it will promote itself and drive traffic in the long run.
At Kinsta we try to create content that is more than just a regular blog post. We put a lot of work (time, money and effort) but all I can say 100% worth the investment. Here are two of our latest guides:
https://kinsta.com/learn/page-speed/
https://kinsta.com/learn/taking-small-business-onl...
Cheers
Tom
Sometimes spending money, time and efforts in guides like the great ones you are sharing is more effective than writing gazillion posts just because "someone said so".
Congrats for the guides.
Thank you for your feedback it means a lot!
Hey dude - I used this guide https://kinsta.com/learn/taking-small-business-online-the-honey-elixir-project/ as an example in a presentation I gave in Vienna a few weeks ago. Thought it was pretty cool, told a nice story, solved a problem, it was super actionable - very cool!
That's awesome Richard! So good to read a feedback like this :-)
Content marketing is the most popular strategy to be adopted by business owners all over the world. Hi, this is Shikha. Firstly, really appreciate this post and really thankful to share this kind of post. I am a blogger and specialize in providing the content on different niches. Sharing a unique content, means the huge leads and traffic.
Well informative article Richard Baxter!! I really thankful to you for sharing this article.
Nice work mate! The bulk of the work is to provide quality content for well-defined target readers.
Good article.
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I have seen different posts on this topic but none so complete and so well explained, thank you very much
If done right, GIF infographics can be a link builders dream.
thanks mate,the article was superb
This was such a delightful and intellectual read that many can get a great takeaway from. Innovative content is not always the easiest to create, but this blog really shed light on what is truly important in any industry that is trying to innovate and do new things. The art of innovation is truly amazing, and this post has highlighted what helps to make those who innovate, correctly, successful. This world is changing at such a high rate that developing the "next big thing" quickly and with ease will be what helps the technology industry flourish. Particularly entertaining in this blog post was the reference to "EBoy." That is one of those stories that really speaks to an innovator and shows them that even the simplest of designs and consistent layout can be successful. It is about finding the next big thing and making logical changes; not changing something that does not need to be changed. The story of EBoy highlighted that well. Overall, amazing post that anyone who is wanting to be innovative should read and take to heart.
I completely agree with that unique content, vocabulary etc are vital components for innovative content writing. But i think along these key points relevancy of data should also be considered. we should be keep our content within our domain.
very nice article. I think most publishers aren't serious enough about the visual part of the content presentation. I think that is the key factor to stand out from the competition.
Gave me some good idea about what to write in my wedding photography blog!
Cheers
[link removed by editor]
Hi:
Visual aspect is more important for your content strategy because exists many contents but the most attractive content wins.
Good article.
I think the hardest thing about content is making sure it is original. It's so easy to get caught up in writing about the latest trend or write about a topic that's been covered a million times. Also is really hard to write about something risky, something controversial, or to disagree with a prominent person in the industry. The thing is, those types of blogs are usually the ones that do really well. Here's an article that I found that explains just that: bit.ly/1whiJHY
Thanks for the well written article!
Excellent description with amazing headlines. Overall, nice article!
Great post and very informative. Glad I found this site, I can see my SEO going to a whole new level.
this article is awesome thanks for sharing
These are all such great ideas for making better, more innovative content. I'm excited to show my creative team that we can create content like this for our clients, too. Thanks for sharing, and I look forward to the future installments of this post!
You're right about trying to capture the elusive customer attention. Proof: look how YOU are as a consumer. There are tons of options out there for just about everything. In the old days, things were invented because there was a need for them ("Necessity is the mother of invention"). Well, now, things are invented and the marketers have to find ways to convince the consumer they need the product. And maybe they DO need the product but dont yet realize it. A good marketer will find a way to communicate that need to the point of realization.
Sandy @ Workadoapp
Cheers Richard that was a very interesting read and that Colorizing The Past post is very cool. I've got to admit I've never been a huge fan of the scroll effect webpages though, it always feels like masses of scrolling to read several paragraphs.
Alongside the more innovative effects and web design advancements coming up, I think the other thing that's often left out is better in post/content navigation. I don't have any numbers to compare "big content" or long form articles with and without, but personally on most of that sort of content I'm dying for a scroll menu which sits alongside the content (like the one in the PS4 guide) and moves with me. If I revisit the content a lot it makes navigation easier, if it's the first time I come across a monster article it makes it easy to scan to see if it contains what I want.
Richard, thanks for sharing this info with us. Your message has been properly conveyed. I totally agree on that, content innovation is needed in today's tough competition. If you are really good in content, you can win any race.