Greatist
The first example is “Greatist”. Greatist is a website that mainly focuses on fitness, food, and happiness. Their content stands out because they actually do a lot of it, and they use really smart techniques in order to allow the website to take off on every single social network that the content pertains to. As for their image just imagine, for example, they decided to create a Pinterest header that really fits the standards of the network perfectly. For the image, imagine it is tall, clear, and appeals to the user so that they go to the landing page.
Also, one should also imagine that there is a text part of the image, and it looks sharp and simply ecological. It would appear frequently throughout all of their content. Those tall photos would work really well on Facebook, it allows them to reuse the content that feels natural on each network without having to start from scratch.
Hubspot
The second example is “HubSpot”. There is no doubt that HubSpot is a content machine. Their techniques for building followers, driving email signups, and growing brand recognition, they are apparently are unlike any other, and because of that, they are a business that a lot of people frequently refer to for inspiration for their marketing. Some examples of their expertise: the first example is that they have custom e-book CTAs for almost every category.
The second example is that they use their blog to, lack for a better word; “push” the SlideShare content, which actually improves the chances it appears on the SlideShare homepage, and the third example is that their recent 30-Day Blog Challenge content campaign, which in fact, ported asynchronously between the Twitter, the Facebook, and their blog while outward moderately easy to build.
Real Simple
The third example is “Real Simple”, yes that is what it is called. The Print magazines are the originators of the action-inducing headline. Real Simple, it was originally a print magazine, and it shows their experience when porting over to the online content, with effective but not overly dramatic headlines along the lines of 10 Things You Should Not Refrigerate, What Does Your Handwriting Say About You?, and 9 Things You Can Do to Be Happy in the Next 30 Minutes.
And it is quite clear that they get to search, too, with a wide array of resources that would say “SEO”, but not too much to the extent that the audience including the user, that will make them feel like they are on the “eHow”. They also get their female demographic and then use a diversity of all of the several types of content in creative ways in order to amplify their visibility online.
UpCity
The fourth example is “UpCity”. UpCity is an SEO software company marketed at small businesses, and in many ways, they’re under the sensor in the internet marketing community. Unlike some, they don’t actually have a big personal brand that is pushing their business, but they’ve managed to really see the huge organic growth last year based on their big investment in content marketing. UpCity inspires people because they get it done without all of the bells and all of the whistles, their content sticks to the fundamentals of successful marketing, and they do it well.
With all of the classic but not overbearing techniques along the lines of ego bait, content roundups, and list posts, they manage to get a good number of the shares and the links on their work. When people are looking for a unique angle on which they apply a classic tactic, they look to UpCity. They would consistently try to find creative topic ideas on which to apply some fundamental but highly effective marketing strategies.
Movoto
The fifth example is “Movoto”. A lot of people are big fans of Movoto. Those people would mention movoto on content templates, and for good reason: they kill it with content marketing. It’s obvious that the Movoto team is constantly repeating new strategies so that it makes them into a great source for inspiration.
It also helps that their posts actually cover the range of a few of potential topics, as long as they relate to real estate one will definitely find many ideas for gamers, hipsters, foodies, and so much more and that is all on a real estate blog, and in a way that makes sense because every single type of people needs a place to rest their heads at the end of the day.
Reddit.com/Infographics
The sixth example is “Reddit.com/Infographics”. Well, there are a lot of bad infographics. However, On the Reddit’s /r/infographics/, the community makes absolutely sure that the bad infographics don’t surface and definitely not on the /r/infographics/top/ section, which is what the article would suggest one to bookmark.
Although, it is not a traditional “content creator”, but it has plenty of good content flows into this section that one can learn from and potentially cross-reference into one’s business. Because it’s a general subreddit about visualizations, the infographics cover a variety of industries, so there’s a lot to pull from.
BuzzFeed
The seventh example is “BuzzFeed”. These guys are very notorious, especially when it comes to their personality tests and their YouTube channels. With that everyone knows that they’re dominating the web with content already, but despite that, they should be included in this list. BuzzFeed makes content that is incredibly well, so to be a content creator and not stay attune to their recent strategies means someone who wants to be a content creator, probably a few steps behind what’s working today.
In the past few months, years even, BuzzFeed’s quizzes have really emerged as a new content type that is really worth thinking about, merging the basic design, the research, and the code to create some extremely viral content. On the other hand, they’ve also debuted the browser-width blog post, so taking their image posts to a whole new level of visual impressiveness. Both of the content types that were mentioned definitely have a potential for it can be easily used anywhere.
Buffer
The eight example is “Buffer.” Buffer is the social sharing app which is pretty ironic because of the name. It has one of the most popular blogs in marketing. They are constantly putting out the kind of content that everyone will probably see all over their feed, and for that reason, they’re actually well worth paying attention to.
They were one of the first blogs to move on the image in the timeline trend, and their content hits on all checkmarks. A quick look at their most popular posts makes it a bit obvious as to how much time and attention they really put towards making great headlines. And unlike some others, they aren’t overly dramatic, they’re just that good.
When someone is building content, they should take a minute to look at the Buffer headlines versus their own, would that get past their editorial team? If not, maybe they should try a little harder. Their content also really appeals to an extremely large market, so for some of the concepts can be re-applied to one’s industry of choice. For example, they’ve somewhat quietly done a “The Science of” post series that has been extremely successful for them that might work for the other people, too.
Wine Folly
The ninth example is “Wine Folly.” It’s hard to express how impressed some people are with Wine Folly. Their content is really good, it is truly something else. Their infographics are gorgeous, their site is eye-catching, and their content consistently delivers. It’s so good apparently because of the increasingly good quality level that they manage to maintain with what a monetization engine that is not that aggressive and it features posters and wine accessories, for the most part.
Either way, some people declare everyone lucky to have Wine Folly as both an actual wine resource and a place to go to for content inspiration. Their diversity when it comes to wine visualizations supply unique ideas for usage in the other industries, and even when they’re not doing those visualizations, they’re still building beautiful content that some people might be able to pull concepts from.
Apartment Therapy
The tenth example is “Apartment Therapy” The have made quite an entrance in Facebook as the impressions on Facebook vanishes for many other sites, the publishers have gotten more creative in finding ways in order to keep up the engagement on their pages as a method of driving traffic.
Apartment Therapy is one site actually doing it well, using an understated but effective “you should probably click this” for it calls to action in their “Before and After” features that sync brilliantly between Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
The subtle but powerful marketing connotations on the Apartment Therapy’s content swirls all-around their blog. They are currently running an awards poll called “The Homies“, which is a series that is dedicated to recognizing the best blogs in the home projects and DIY space. Due to the fact that it uses a poll format, the blog writers are motivated to push a ton of traffic and links towards the post as a method of helping them win the award.
People look into Apartment Therapy for content ideas that might work well on the Pinterest, as most of their content caters to that audience. Apartment Therapy has an astonishing two million-plus pages of content that is indexed in Google, which means that they have a long history of putting out great content that makes them a leading voice to follow.
