How Big Brands Are Creating Brand Engagement Within Minutes With Micro Content

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Based on 2018 stats, there was an uptick in voice search via Google Home, Amazon Alexa, and Apple’s Siri. With the growth of voice search, the obvious deduction is that people are changing the way they consume content, and brands must optimize to follow suit.

The majority of big brands have practically mastered how to create engaging micro content pieces, while many small brands are still fiddling with long-form blog posts and long Facebook posts while ignoring their Twitter and Instagram accounts.

Brands like Vayner Media thrive because they distribute pieces of short, 1-min videos that offer tremendous value over Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter. But, they don’t just do that; Vayner Media also publishes long-form content on Youtube, podcasts, and blogs. This sort of sublime micro-macro content mixing is essential for brands that want to scale.

Unbounce had conversions on their landing page sessions shoot up to 87% by changing from a long webinar approach to an on-demand video content strategy (12 on-demand videos).

Here are some reasons why micro content is essential for creating brand awareness:

1. The world has grown more fast-paced. Micro content delivers a form of instant gratification.
2. Creating long-form content isn’t a sustainable strategy. There is much more time and cash investment needed. Micro content delivers content consistency effortlessly.
3. You can pack more punch with fewer words and hence express much-needed information in a way that’s easily digestible.
4. Currently, 52% of web traffic comes from mobile. This means that, to win in 2019 and beyond, marketers would need to optimize their content for mobile. This means they should produce more skimmer-friendly content.
5. Micro content wins on social media. Folks on social media tend to flock to content that is “less tasking to the brain”.

“There is a definite trend toward small,” commented author of The Content Code, Mark Schaefer. “If we can’t get big chunks of content through a limited ‘pipeline’ of brain cells, maybe we can get grains of sand through. This would explain ideas like Vine (six-second videos), infographics, and even Pinterest, which are simply easy on the eyes without a lot of processing.”

By the way, we should define micro content as a type of short-form content that depicts a snapshot of a much longer content or idea. Essentially, micro content would mean any type of content that is extremely easy to skim or scan, e.g Title headlines.

So, How Should You Use Micro Content to Create Engagement? Here Are Some Ideas:

100–Character Twitter Posts

Originally, Twitter wasn’t meant for the long-winded talker. And it still isn’t. Twitter’s founder, Jack Dorsey, had the idea of creating an SMS service that would allow businesses to communicate with small groups of their customers online. Now, it’s more of a 280-word SMS, so you see why that can be boring.

Memorable and engaging Twitter posts are short, valuable, and not packed with hashtags. Hence they get more retweets. Data from Buddy Media shows that tweets containing less than 100 characters receive, on average, 17 percent higher engagement than longer tweets.

30– to 60-Sec Videos for Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram

Videos have the best engagement rates yet the effectiveness of social media content still depends on message quality, timing, and content length.

Short 30-60 seconds videos have better completion or retention rates. Kinetic Social tracked 2 billion ad impressions in 2016 and they found that 44 percent of 30- to 60-second videos had been viewed to completion. Videos that ran less than 30 seconds saw a completion rate of 26%, while those over 2 minutes saw a 31% completion rate.

And this is also the case with LinkedIn. According to a LinkedIn study, videos at or under 30 seconds report a 200 percent completion rate.

50-character Titles

For long-form content platforms like Youtube, LinkedIn blogs, and personal or company blogs, titles play a major role in creating engagement. 59% of readers don’t read past the title before they hit share. That is if your title strikes a chord with them.

Ensure your titles are within the 50-character limit to avoid trimming by search engines or skewing on mobile. And don’t forget to make your titles punchy as they can directly influence content engagement rates.

Targeted, Short Calls to Action

If you’re not setting up targeted calls to action periodically, you’re leaving money on the table. So while you’re delivering value, don’t be afraid to make the ask once a while.

How Do You Come Up With Ideas for Micro Content?

Brainstorm Details for Relevant Content Ideas Using Themes

The fact that you don’t need to invest much time in coming up with micro content isn’t a leeway to go off into irrelevant rants. Micro content needs to be integrated into your content strategy. In content marketing strategy, themes are topical issues, relevant to your target market, which you’d love to touch on. That is, what does my target audience need right now? A lot of brainstorming would likely go into these. These brainstorms make great fodder for micro content.

Take note of Quotes, Tweets, and Facts

Give yourself a chance to dive away from the main discussion once in a while. Are there interesting quotes, tweets, or facts that personally appeal to you? Odds are your audience would love these, too.

Re–Purpose Old Content and Break It Into Bits

Most people wouldn’t read your long copy anyway. Why not re-purpose these into short bits that they’d love reading? The point of micro content is that it’s easy for the end-user and the content creator.

You really don’t need to break your neck over content creation. A blend of micro content and long-form content that offers good value will work wonders for your brand.