From NewsCred. From boosting your brand to fueling the social web, content is a powerful tool, critical to creating successful campaigns and building your business.

Here are some statistics which prove the value of content marketing.

72% of marketers think branded content is more effective than advertising in a magazine, 69% say it is superior to direct mail and PR.

86% of B2C and 91% of B2C marketers use content marketing.

64% of B2B content marketers say their biggest challenge is producing enough content.

Blogging creates more traffic. 37% of marketers say blogs are the most valuable content type for marketing.

73% of all industry-specific Twitter posts include content sharing. 87% of B2B marketers use social media to distribute content.

80% of users prefer to connect with brands on Facebook. Interesting content is a top 3 reason that people follow

brands on social media.

70% of consumers prefer getting to know a company via articles over ads. 60% of consumers feel more positive about a company after reading custom content on its site. 58% of consumers trust editorial content.

86% of people skip TV commercials, 44% of direct mail is never opened, 91% of emails users have unsubscribed from a company email they previously opted into. So people want to be in control of the content they receive.

Visual content captures consumers. 90% of the information that comes to the brain is visual. Posts with videos attract 3 times more inbound links than plain text posts.

Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing.