Pretty Content is NOT Effective Content
Creating content has never been easier. Today, you can create slick videos, music clips, and brochures with ease. However, just great looking stuff is not going to get you eyeballs. If you are looking at selling a product or promoting your business, you need to understand a few key content consumption trends to be able to position your content better and make it effective.
Trend #1 - Social networks
Trend #1 - Social networks
Social media has made it super easy for people to share not just information, but opinions and ideas as well. Social networks are a great way to publicize products and ideas. So in addition to creating fancy marketing colateral, create "socializable" media - content that can be easily shared on social networks and circulated virally. The objective should be to get the maven population to recommend your product/business/idea using YOUR content. Videos and blogs are great examples of "socializable" content. However, this doesn't meant that you convert your brochures and white papers into blogs or PowerPoint presentations into videos.
Trend #2 - The 140-character paradigm
Twitter's 140 character limit on messages has changed the way we communicate. With a few billion tweets flowing through it's network, Twitter has proven that more is less. Companies and individuals who have mastered the art of microblogging use it effectively to communicate with their target audience. Now this does not mean that brevity should be restricted to microblogging. Netizins are gradually getting used to brief messages and expect it. So, keep your content concise and precise.
Trend #3 - Mobile devices have become all pervasive
This blog has been written on an iPad. I wrote it in different places - couch, bed, and study. Mobile devices have changed the way we create and consume content. I personally believe that smartphones are the most handy content consumption devices and tablets are the most handy content development devices. People seem to use every available opportunity to consume and create content - while travelling, relaxing, working out, even in the loo. So, if you are developing content, make it mobile friendly - or at least create some that is. It's guaranteed to get you more eyeballs.
Trend #4 - The rise of rich media
Rich media is not considered CPU-intensive and memory-intensive anymore. Even phones today have dual-core processors and it's just the beginning. Rich media like audio, video, and graphics are great for communicating concepts and tasks. In fact, they are "faster" than text. One page of text represents a few minutes or even seconds of audio or video. Even a good infographic can replace reams of text. The best thing is that modern publishing tools allow you to embed rich media files into text thus allowing you to create rich and appealing content. So think about replacing/supplementing your text content with rich/multimedia content as well.
Trend #5 - The "push" syndrome
Its always a good idea to use some form of notification to alert users when content is published. In some contexts, people don't mind having content pushed to their devices. Take Kindle users. When they subscribe to newspapers and magazines they expect it to be delivered to their devices. Would e-mail attachments have worked for them -I doubt it. The pull mode of content delivery will slowly disappear.
Trend #6 - Customized content/aggregation
Aggregation has been around since the early days of the web, but some of the latest aggregation tools are mind-blowing. Tools like Flipboard create stunning magazines out of RSS and social media feeds. Instapaper and Evernote allow you to snip and reassemble text-based content. I've not come across anything similar for video, audio, and graphics, but I'm sure that's not far away. So it's important to ensure that your content is "aggregadable".
Trend #7 - App Stores
Mobile devices have made it super easy to install apps. This is largely due to app stores. Every major mobile vendor today has an app store. Users no longer have to go to a website to download and install apps. App stores provide ample space for product content and are often more effective than marketing collateral. So, if you are planning to see your product on an app store, make sure that you have enough "agregadable" and "socializable" content for it.
Trend #2 - The 140-character paradigm
Twitter's 140 character limit on messages has changed the way we communicate. With a few billion tweets flowing through it's network, Twitter has proven that more is less. Companies and individuals who have mastered the art of microblogging use it effectively to communicate with their target audience. Now this does not mean that brevity should be restricted to microblogging. Netizins are gradually getting used to brief messages and expect it. So, keep your content concise and precise.
Trend #3 - Mobile devices have become all pervasive
This blog has been written on an iPad. I wrote it in different places - couch, bed, and study. Mobile devices have changed the way we create and consume content. I personally believe that smartphones are the most handy content consumption devices and tablets are the most handy content development devices. People seem to use every available opportunity to consume and create content - while travelling, relaxing, working out, even in the loo. So, if you are developing content, make it mobile friendly - or at least create some that is. It's guaranteed to get you more eyeballs.
Trend #4 - The rise of rich media
Rich media is not considered CPU-intensive and memory-intensive anymore. Even phones today have dual-core processors and it's just the beginning. Rich media like audio, video, and graphics are great for communicating concepts and tasks. In fact, they are "faster" than text. One page of text represents a few minutes or even seconds of audio or video. Even a good infographic can replace reams of text. The best thing is that modern publishing tools allow you to embed rich media files into text thus allowing you to create rich and appealing content. So think about replacing/supplementing your text content with rich/multimedia content as well.
Trend #5 - The "push" syndrome
Its always a good idea to use some form of notification to alert users when content is published. In some contexts, people don't mind having content pushed to their devices. Take Kindle users. When they subscribe to newspapers and magazines they expect it to be delivered to their devices. Would e-mail attachments have worked for them -I doubt it. The pull mode of content delivery will slowly disappear.
Trend #6 - Customized content/aggregation
Aggregation has been around since the early days of the web, but some of the latest aggregation tools are mind-blowing. Tools like Flipboard create stunning magazines out of RSS and social media feeds. Instapaper and Evernote allow you to snip and reassemble text-based content. I've not come across anything similar for video, audio, and graphics, but I'm sure that's not far away. So it's important to ensure that your content is "aggregadable".
Trend #7 - App Stores
Mobile devices have made it super easy to install apps. This is largely due to app stores. Every major mobile vendor today has an app store. Users no longer have to go to a website to download and install apps. App stores provide ample space for product content and are often more effective than marketing collateral. So, if you are planning to see your product on an app store, make sure that you have enough "agregadable" and "socializable" content for it.
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