This article will help students understand the basics of content, content types, and its usage. Students must learn the fundamentals before exploring the world of content writing.
Defining Content
Content is the amalgamation of Information and Communication in any form that is comprehended by its intended audience. In other words, it is an art of sharing knowledge or information. Content should be presentable, relevant, fresh, and useful to its audience.
Yet to grasp the bottom line! Let’s re-simplify: Essentially, anything that you say, write, see or hear informative, meaningful and useful, is content.
Insightful Aspects of Content
- Content has always been more (diverse, dynamic, powerful, effective and unexplored) than we know or think of. Eventually, you will come across the reason through my next posts.
- Each piece of content has a purpose. When you write an exam paper you have a purpose to get marks. Similarly, when you hear breaking news on TV, you have the purpose of knowing about the event.
- Content can be online and off-line depending on the medium you use to learn it. The same news item appears in newspapers, TV news channels and online.
- The term “Content” has close relations with documentation, social media, presentation, article writing, blogging, videos, WhatsApp and Facebook messages, and so on.
- The information within content can be primary and secondary based on its origin and time of ideation. The same content can be reproduced in different ways, through different mediums – yet may appear original.
- Content can have shelf-life depending on the type of information it contains. It also depends on the freshness of information. A news item published a week before may not draw much attention from readers.
We will learn the various types of content that you may not know exist. The following is an indicative list, not an exhaustive one.
- Advertisements
- Articles
- Blog posts
- Books
- E-books
- Online courses
- Email marketing
- Newsletter
- Photos
- Videos
- Audio
- Podcasts
- Webinar
- Presentations
- Case Studies
- White Papers
- Newspaper
- E-paper
- Magazines
- Brochures
- Fliers
- Billboards
- Posters
- Mobile apps
- Social Media Messages
- Chats
- Website content
- Microsites
- Blog comments
- Interviews
- Q&A
- News
- Product Reviews
- Product Announcements
- Reports
- Demonstrations
- Forum
- Press Releases
- Wikis/Dictionaries
- Workshop
- Events
- Contests
- Conferences
- Meet ups
- Live Chats
- Polls
- Surveys
- Quiz
- Worksheets
- Guides
It is important that you are familiar with content categorization and its uses. We will elaborate on each content type in my next posts. Subscribe to our newsletter to know when there is a new article for you.
Should you have any questions or feedback to share? Feel free to leave your comments at the end of this post.
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