How to Break Through Digital Noise With These 4 Creative Content Formats | Entrepreneur

Fresh ideas capture attention, and that’s especially true today. With more and more content from friends, family, businesses and influencers competing for your audience, it can be challenging to gain traction. How can brands succeed in an increasingly crowded landscape?

One answer is to strategically stand out with your content by expanding it to a wider variety of content forms. While traditional tactics like blogs, ebooks and articles are invaluable, they’re only the tip of the marketing iceberg. Diversifying your content helps you connect with different audience preferences and consumption habits, increasing your chances of leaving a lasting impression in a fast-scrolling world.

Read on to discover four unique content forms your brand can leverage to better engage audiences.

1. Interactive experiences

Digital experiences that immerse their audiences in sights, sounds and interactivity can go a long way toward increasing engagement and building loyalty. In a culture where humans value interaction, imbuing your content with interactivity is a fresh way to surprise and delight customers.

Empower users to make choices on your web pages or social media and make them feel as if they’re on a journey, with your brand as their guide. For instance, build an interactive game that illustrates a problem your product or service solves, and encourage users to share screenshots and videos documenting their time with these experiences. It’s not only interactive in the moment, but also allows that experience to live on as user-generated content.

Here are some other examples: a financial services company might build an interactive budgeting calculator, helping customers visualize their savings goals. A fitness brand could also develop a quiz that recommends personalized workout plans based on user input. These kinds of interactive experiences help differentiate your brand so your business is more likely to be top-of-mind to your customer.

2. Mobile-friendly videos

A staggering 98% of millennials and Gen Zers watch mobile videos every day. While videos might already be part of your content marketing strategy, it’s important to make sure they’re mobile-friendly. Old-school horizontal videos on Vimeo and YouTube may work on a laptop, but not in the phone-friendly vertical format that has made TikTok, Reels and Shorts so popular. As you’re making video content, plan for different versions that follow the aspect ratios and guidelines set forth by each channel.

You should also consider accessibility concerns, whether it’s a viewer who’s hearing impaired or simply in an environment that isn’t conducive to watching with the sound on. In either case, subtitles allow users to follow the video’s content. They’re a best practice that can help your video’s search rankings.

Related: How To Create Engaging Video Content for Your Brand

3. Descriptive domains

Have you ever thought of a great name for something, only to find out someone else had the same idea? These days, chances are your winning business or product name has already been claimed. For a while, the same was true when registering a website domain name, but fortunately, descriptive domains with keywords before and after the dot — software.company or boutique.hotel, for example — are now helping brands embrace creativity and individuality.

Domain extensions like .florist and .restaurant describe what your business offers, simplifying a customer’s search for anniversary flowers or a good meal. By threading keywords into your domain name, you can not only boost memorability but also potentially increase your site’s SEO ranking. Whether you’re creating a landing page for a new marketing campaign or building a mini portfolio website to add to your social media bio, a descriptive domain is perfect for showcasing innovative content forms and separating your brand from the crowd.

4. Time-limited content

Nothing inspires immediate customer engagement like a deadline. Polls, sweepstakes and limited-time offers communicate a sense of urgency to your customers. If they know they have only a few days, hours or even minutes to complete a task, they’re more likely to prioritize it instead of saving it for later, and potentially forgetting it.

Transparency is key here: Explicitly communicate up-front how long customers have to engage with the content so you don’t risk surprising or frustrating them later on. You may also want to deploy time-limited content sparingly so you don’t risk exhausting users or making something that should feel special seem more like an everyday occurrence.

Attract audiences to your brand with engaging content

With knowledge of a variety of content forms, you can start crafting a wider spectrum of tailored content to help build brand recognition, broadcast your organization’s strengths, and keep consumers engaged longer. By leveraging interactive experiences, descriptive domains and other memorable forms in your marketing strategy, you can position your brand for success.

Don’t be afraid to test new approaches and track what resonates with your audience. Engaging, original and creative content can spark meaningful connections, encourage shares, inspire action and foster long-term brand loyalty across every channel and touchpoint. That’s the power of unique content.