The term micro content may not be familiar to you, but the concept of sharing short form text, visuals, and audio posts is becoming more and more prominent these days. With social media becoming one of the top ways marketers gain visibility and share their brand, micro content is essential to business success.
Increase Brand Visibility with Micro Content
Recently, several studies suggested people generally lose concentration more quickly now than ever before, highlighting the effects of an increasingly digital lifestyle on the brain. A post on Statistic Brain shared that the average human attention span in 2015 decreased from 12 (in 2013) to 8.25 seconds. That’s less than that of a goldfish, at 9 seconds.
People want to fill up that 8 seconds with quick-hitting, targeted messages about topics they care about. They generally won’t waste time learning about your business in a 50-page white paper or 2-hour seminar without first knowing you are worthy of more attention, and this is where micro content wins big.
Micro content helps captivate attention, direct traffic to your chosen links, and showcase your brand as a valuable information asset on social media – but it can be challenging to master delivery of quality content in snack size bites.
These 5 steps will point you in the right direction to a winning micro content strategy.
1. Define Your Ideal Buyer
It’s one thing to attract a large following on social media, but it’s quite another to draw a highly targeted audience whose makeup includes people that are most likely to engage with your content and be led to buy from you or use your services. But before you can create effective micro content that will catch the eye of your ideal client, it’s important to understand who you will share your content with.
Understanding audience identity will also help you narrow down the social networking platforms that will serve you best – instead of stretching your limited time and dollars trying to be everywhere at once.
2. Identify Core Content Themes
As you begin to formulate your micro content strategy, consider the topics you are best at delivering, then break these down into sub-topics. Mind mapping, with tools like XMind or FreeMind, is an excellent way to accomplish this.
For example, if your main topic of expertise is healthy living, a few sub-topics might include exercise, diet, meditation and related subjects. These will become content themes, or “pillars” for the content you create.
3. Repurpose or “Snack Size” Your Best Long Form Content
This step is often overlooked, but it is highly valuable when you are deciding what type of micro content to develop. Look at current content you have already developed such as books, speeches, courses, or even live workshops. Consider ways you can chunk down the material into snack size audio posts, 5-minute videos, or thought-provoking images with text excerpts or quotes.
You don’t always have to start from scratch. Repurpose what you have and you will save hours and hours of time!
4. Schedule Your Micro Content
Create an editorial calendar for your micro content using online services such as CoSchedule, or a simple Excel spreadsheet. This ensures you will consistently have micro content available for readers to consume.
The more constant your presence on social media, the more reliable you appear. Constancy improves trust in your brand, and ultimately in your credibility as a professional.
5. Distribute and Repeat
Once you have determined what to post and when to post your micro content, distribute it on your social networking profiles. Keep in mind you don’t have to post your micro content once and be done. You can utilize tools like Meet Edgar or Tweet Jukebox to refresh your social feeds with evergreen (always current) micro content you shared months ago.
There is no rule that says you can only post great content one time. Keep in mind, you may capture the attention of someone who has never seen your amazing tips before.
Attention is a currency. You now know the top 5 ways to earn more of that currency using a great micro content strategy. Now is the time to leverage the power of snack sizing your content with social media for optimum visibility online!
Have you tried micro content marketing yet?
