| # | Company | Rating | At a Glance |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Media Shower |  |
Excellent value; More than just an article writing service |
| 2. | TapInfluence | |
Well-branded; excellent source of influencers |
| 3. | Contently | |
Lots of great writers; analytics can be confusing |
| 4. | Brafton | |
Great for organic ranking; talent can be improved |
| 5. | NewsCred | |
Awesome for scaling content; some system glitches reported |
| 6. | ColumnFive | |
Focused on visual media; Few sources for text |
| 7. | Influence & Co. | |
Specializes in influencer marketing; went from 2 employees to 70+ in 3 years |
| 8. | Taboola | |
Monetize your content; strong focus on sponsored content |
| 9. | iAquire | |
Small agency; Excellent market research |
| 10. | Skyword | |
Storytelling a focus; mostly positive online reviews |
Even if you’re not sure where the phrase “soup to nuts” came from, businesses looking for a complete, start-to-finish solution for their content needs are likely to echo the sentiments. By the way, the somewhat dated expression references how, traditionally, soup is often the first course of a meal and a dessert with nuts would be the last. (We’re starting a petition drive to change the phrase to “soup to molten lava cake.”
The best content marketing companies offer a full-service platform that allows organizations to create actionable content strategies, distribute content appropriately, and drive traffic to each piece of content based on its target audience.
We’ve rounded up the top 10 content companies operating in this space in 2017. Regardless of your content needs, you can rely on these organizations to boost your content’s visibility and establish agile content ideation, creation, distribution, and promotion strategies.
How do you choose from all these content companies? It’s simple. Check out our reviews below, then stay tuned for in-depth coverage on each content company on our list.
1. Media Shower
Media shower has its own unique definition of content marketing: “Creating valuable content to attract and keep customers.” It’s an eloquent explanation of a complex process, and that’s where Media Shower shines.
Putting aside all the buzzwords and jargon floating around about content marketing, your top priorities are very simple: 1. Attract new customers; and 2. Keep the customers who already patronize your business.
Media Shower offers a full range of content marketing services. The company only works with the best talent in the industry, and it doesn’t just want to churn out content for the sake of taking up digital real estate. Media Shower focuses on delivering results for every customer through engaging, thought-provoking, and relatable content.
2. TapInfluence
Influencer marketing has become one of the most sought-after content marketing solutions. Otherwise, why would we know phrases like “Instagram famous” and “YouTube stars”?
TapInfluence focuses on this specific area of content marketing by connecting influencers with marketing professionals and brands. The company has built an influencer marketplace and facilitates connections through a proprietary automated process.
We’re impressed with TapInfluence’s ability to generate significant ROI. When you spend money on content, you want dollars to flow back in your direction. While influencer marketing shouldn’t constitute your entire strategy, you might want to use TapInfluence as part of a more complex marketing scheme.
3. Contently
This company wields a freelancer network of more than 100,000 writers, editors, photographers, videographers, graphic artists, and other professionals. Contently brings together these creatives and their clients to create content, then distribute and optimize it.
It might have ranked higher if it weren’t for the negative feedback surrounding the company’s analytics. Many customers find the metrics difficult to decipher, which makes them useless for those brands.
Additionally, it’s an expensive choice because you’re paying for software as well as services, and you can’t choose a content creator based on his or her background or skill.
4. Brafton
We like that Brafton doesn’t just create content. It also optimizes the content and pursues multiple distribution channels. The company focuses on both organic and paid promotion efforts as well as content strategy.
While we’re impressed with Brafton’s overall approach as a content company, we couldn’t rank it higher because it has a negative reputation for hiring inexperienced writers — primarily college students and recent grads. In today’s world, you need writers who have been in the trenches and understand how content creation works.
5. NewsCred
NewsCred has developed a strong reputation around its ability to scale content production while still keeping content strategies manageable for clients. It has a robust platform and a wide variety of freelance talent, but it only ranks in the middle of this list because customers report frequent bugs in the system and poor customer service.
6. ColumnFive
Unlike some of the other content companies on this list, ColumnFive focuses more on visual media than written content. The CEO has written a book on infographics, and the content strategies this company employs often revolve around visual media. Since content marketing relies on more than just images and videos, we weren’t able to rank ColumnFive higher.
7. Influence & Co.
This content marketing agency, like TapInfluence, focuses on influencer marketing as a cornerstone of its content marketing strategy. The driving force behind its sales pitch lies in the idea that expertise generates great content and holds the reader’s attention. However, brands can create magnetic content without an influencer’s help.
8. Taboola
Although Taboola is one of the newer content companies, it has quickly risen in prominence because of its focus on monetized content. Brands want to generate traffic and conversions, while publishers want to earn money, and Taboola facilitates both. However, sponsored content has become something of a taboo subject in the internet marketing world, so you don’t want to put all your eggs into that particular basket.
9. iAquire
This content company focuses heavily on visual media as well as organic search rankings. It has a relatively small footprint in the content marketing world compared to some of the other organizations on this list, but it receives excellent reviews for its market research.
10. Skyword
Skyword puts an emphasis on telling stories that move people. The company uses an automation platform to handle everything from content creation to analytics and has been awarded a U.S. patent for identifying and ranking influencers. Most of the online reviews for Skyword are positive.
Now you’re familiar with our top 10 content companies for 2017. With this information, you can partner with a content marketing team that will increase brand awareness and bring more traffic to your website. To get started with Media Shower, you can begin a free trial.