Sometimes it's difficult to hear anything else over the deafening holler that content is King. But here's the thing. It kind of is. In such a cluttered world where so many businesses are vying for the same customers, lifting yourself above your competition can often make a real difference. It's indisputable that one really powerful way to do this is by providing content that is simply interesting, and preferably fascinating. And if it has some degree of interactivity then so much the better.
On that note, you have to hand it to the BBC. Not that the BBC needs our adulation, being arguably one of the best websites in the entire world (there's some adulation in case they do need it). They have just published a piece of content that looks back over how society has changed in the last 60 years, coinciding with when their flagship radio 4 programme, The Today Programme, first aired in 1957.
They take a number of key metrics from society at large and ask us to guess how these have changed over the last 60 years. They do this by providing an interactive slider that you can move with your finger on your phone, or your mouse on your desktop, from today's figure back through time. It's simple, fun and utterly fascinating to see how life has changed. Of course, if you are looking to buy your first home now and you see what it cost 60 years ago it's also equally frustrating...
But what it does is leave you with the clear impression that nobody does it quite like the BBC. We can get our news from all manner of sources these days, from bite size chunks on twitter, to more in depth articles in any number of serious publications. But if you like your news to be both in depth, but also that little bit different, there aren't many better places to land than on www.bbc.co.uk.
Take a look at www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41685693 and see for yourself.
The point? No matter what size your business is or what it does, if you create content that fascinates, your brand will benefit and, in time, so will your wallet (or purse, or whatever you keep your cash in). Does content build businesses? Yep, we think it does.