What is Micro-Content
If you’re part of the social media and content marketing world, chances are you’ve heard the term micro-content tossed around. And if you haven’t, oh well, allow us to introduce the legendary being that is…MICRO-CONTENT! What does it mean exactly? It’s a pretty ambiguous term and while micro-content wears many hats, the reality is, there’s not a single definition we can all agree on.
The CM team has different interpretations as to what exactly it means, yet with one clear similarity – it’s short, to the point, and visually appealing.
Here’s an inside look at some of the definitions the team came up with:
“A visual message created for the purpose of easy sharing and a viral following.”“Short, concise pieces of content (whether it is graphic, textual or a combination of both) that are used to share across multiple platforms to enforce a particular campaign.”
“It needs to be quick and easy to understand with a visual appeal that gives someone the ability to glance at it and get the main point of the content. Example: Turn statistics from a long form report into a visual or infographic style, so that the results are easily interpreted without a background in the subject area.”
“A single image or short video that is eye catching and creative with the intention to draw people in with a message. Micro-content supports and summarizes a bigger idea or campaign.”
Why Micro-Content
You may have a better understanding of what micro-content is, but why should you add it to your digital marketing mix? How can micro-content positively influence your brand and provide a positive ROI? First, let’s talk about where the typical human attention span is at today. The average attention span of a human being has dropped from 12 seconds in 2000, to 8 seconds in 2013 (according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, at the U.S. National Library of Medicine). To help put that into perspective, a gold fish has an attention span of 9 seconds!
Now more than ever, you have less time to grab the attention of your customers, so your messaging needs to be:
- Clear
- Concise
- Attractive
- Branded
- Strong
We know that sounds like a real challenge – how can you squeeze your entire marketing message into a small social square and accomplish all of the above? It takes time, practice, and a LOT of testing.
Below are a few examples of micro-content created by the CM team. (Keep reading, we help break down some steps to help you get started with your own micro-content campaign).
This piece was created for CM because we wanted to highlight our core competencies and how the industry is constantly changing. We are at the forefront of the digital world, and since duplicate content is not an acceptable form of content, then let’s put that where it belongs.
Our goal was to provide a quick glimpse of how we know what’s best for your brand and content. So we created this image and published it to our targeted social accounts including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Each post was driving viewers back to our blog (check it out here), and explained the pitfalls of duplicate content and how we can help.
This piece of micro-content was created for one of our Mommy brands! The goal was to showcase how life changes after having a baby, yet you can still enjoy a life full of bliss. We identified a few different opportunities where moms would have fun pre-baby and then what that opportunity looks like post-baby. Just as much fun, just in a different setting.
We wanted moms to see this, remember what it was like and agree with our messaging. Each post drove extreme engagement with comments from Facebook fans, shares, and likes. Our target audience was chatting about our brand and what life is like now with baby. Success!
For a moving company, it can be challenging to connect with customers all the time. Your customers look for you primarily when they need you. So, our goal was to help remind potential movers, and future customers how much easier it is to move with Estes SureMove.
This winter was exceptionally cold and snowy, we wanted to leverage the feeling of anger and annoyance with snow to help connect customers to Estes SureMove. Now, when you read this piece of content, you can rest assured that you won’t have to brave the snow alone, we will take care of it for you. Now, doesn’t that sound enticing?
Volvo Construction equipment is known for their safe and efficient machines. And to connect with their current fan-base and encourage new customers to trust in Volvo Construction Equipment, we created this piece of content to put our customers in the cab of the equipment.
What better selling point to understand the benefits of Volvo Construction Equipment than putting you in the driver seat (figuratively speaking). So, now you can see all of the benefits with ease and can connect to the product on a different level. Done deal.
Oh and did we mention, micro-content doesn’t HAVE to be a static image. Videos work too. Just watch and see… don’t you want to go? Wine. Fest. Done.
Think of yourself as an owner of a bakery and you’re trying to get people in your store to try your new recipe for chocolate chip cookies. Your customers are going to consume the new products one bite at a time and hopefully they’ll come back for more and become lifetime customers.
The same goes for micro content! The message needs to be immediately clear to the audience, yet still make sense when removed from its original context. According to Jakob Nielsen, micro-content is compelling to spark your curiosity, crisp to hold your attention, eloquent to make sense, and appealing to make you want more…just like that freshly baked cookie we talked about earlier.
Getting Your Micro-Content Campaign Started
We have already gone through a quick bullet list of what to consider when creating your micro-content campaign, but here are some quick steps to getting started.
- Determine Your Goals: Are you trying to increase you Facebook Engagement, are you trying to drive customers to a blog or a resource? Do you want more followers on Instagram? What is your overall message?
- Know Your Audience: What is it that they like? Who are you trying to connect with and how can you best reach them?
- What Form of Content: Can you create a short 10-second video? Do you have an awesome designer who can create SO much in a SO little space? What form of content does your audience resonate with the most?
- Choose Your Platforms: This depends on your goals and your content form? Video may make sense for Facebook and Instagram. But an awesome image may be perfect for Instagram, and not Twitter.
- Messaging: Are you trying to sell to your audience, engage them, inform them? Or straight up make them LOL!
- Brainstorm-Create-Test-Repeat: Now that you have your goals, your audience, content form, messaging, etc… brainstorm some quick-witted, short copy and ideas. Create it with a designer, test it on social and repeat. Remember, if it doesn’t work one time, analyze what didn’t work an fix it! (Einstein said, being stupid is doing the same thing over and over again…or something of that sort).
Want more tips? Check out this awesome blog on viral micro-content. Want even more help? Well, then let us help you – you’ve seen our track record and we kind of have this whole process nailed down.
Remember, micro-content is open to interpretation so don’t take this is the Holy Grail of micro-content. But, we are pretty good at winning customers over with our wit, design, strategy, and overall good looks.