Executives don’t want snackable content, they want long lunches
One of the newer buzz terms in the content marketing space is snackable content. It’s premised on the idea that short pieces of content are preferable to longer form articles. Who has time to read an in-depth discussion about an important topic, anyway?
Back of the napkin explanation of “snackable content”
Proponents of snackable content (for some reason, this phrase bothers me considerably) link research revealing shorter attention spans with the length and depth of your content. As Shanna Cook put it in her blog post titled “How to Create Snackable Content” on the Marketo blog:
See it, scan it, share it. Your audience is hungry for content and consuming it at a faster pace than ever before. In fact, a recent study by the National Center for Biotechnology Information found that the average attention span is getting remarkably shorter, down to just 8.25 seconds this year from 12 seconds in 2000.
Since your fans are consuming content faster than ever, you need to make sure that yours is short and snackable (read: easy to digest on-the-go). Can they absorb everything you want to convey in these short 8.25 seconds, or do they require a teaser to whet their appetite and take them to a larger piece of more easily digestible content? As a marketer in today’s “always on,” mobile, and social environment, you need to make your content available, easy to absorb, and totally shareable.
I’m not convinced that comparing the articles you read or the videos you watch to food is entirely appropriate but let’s run with that for the purposes of this discussion.
Junk food marketing
What this snackable content trend amounts to is shorter, more superficial content designed to give the mistaken impression of being informed.
Your reader scans through a short article and leaves it feeling s/he is up-to-date on its subject matter. You, the author of the material taps “Publish” and feel the satisfaction of knowing that you have shared something worthwhile that will generate leads.
What’s really happening here is that you are churning out the equivalent of junk food that your audience is “snacking” on. They feel as if their hunger for knowledge and insight is sated, not realizing that there is little nutritional value in this snack blizzard.
Worthwhile content takes longer to prepare
I had an appointment with my dietician earlier this week. I’m diabetic so my diet has a pretty big impact on my health. Some of her advice is relevant so bear with me.
As I described what I typically eat for lunches (usually something I can toss in the oven and prepare quickly), she pointed out that if food is quick and easy to make, it usually isn’t that healthy for you. Food that nourishes you tends to take longer to prepare but it gives your body what it needs.
When I think about “snackable content” now, it seems a lot like that quick and easy food I tend to eat when I lack the energy to prepare something healthier (probably not a coincidence).
Sure, you can pump out a higher volume of material but at what cost? Perhaps attention spans are shrinking but creating shorter pieces of content in an effort to fill those attention gaps isn’t the solution.
You’re aggravating the attention problem
When your audience finds itself facing with higher volumes of “easy to digest” content that, necessarily, lacks any meaningful depth or insights, they’re often overwhelmed. It’s a bit like walking through a food court and all the food vendors are throwing small, bite-sized chunks of food at you.
It’s probably not going to be a satisfying dining experience (unless you are about 8 years old). If that’s how you eat your meals, your audience is going to find themselves on their hands and knees a lot, picking up bits of food and stuffing their faces.
Using better food cannons may increase the volume you’re hurling at your audiences but is it really giving them what they need? If anything, you’re just fragmenting their attention even further (which means louder and bigger food cannons, right?).
To aggravate the situation, you’re also insulting your audience’s intelligence by force feeding them with this superficial stuff masquerading as “content”.
Maybe it isn’t about attention, not really.
What if the underlying assumption is wrong? Perhaps attention spans are shrinking because there is too much junk food content being thrust at audiences and they have become far more selective.
You can try break through to them with a bigger banners, clickbait titles and other shiny objects but it’s not a sustainable strategy.
In a recent episode of the “PNR: This Old Marketing” podcast, hosts Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose mentioned the “Quartz: Global Executive Study” conducted by Quartz Magazine.
One of the statistics they highlighted was that 84% of the study’s respondents said they are most likely to share long-form articles. Charts and data came in at second place with 47%. A related insight reinforces this:
88% of executives are likely to share good content, and its source almost always (85%) influences their decision to share it.
Long lunches and better conversation
Certainly, long-form articles take time to write and they take time to read. The same applies to longer videos, podcast episodes and so on.
It’s worth it.
When you think about the audiences who are most valuable to you, who are they? Are they the people who like your tweets and Facebook posts without reading them? Are they the people who click on your site links and almost immediately click away because you aren’t offering the equivalent of a free box of chicken nuggets?
Probably not.
In all likelihood, the audience that is most valuable to you are the people who take the time to read what you publish. They will read your longer articles, consider your arguments and insights and share it with like-minded colleagues and friends.
What is the point of creating all this “content” anyway? You certainly don’t need to add to the digital mountains humans create each day just for the sake of it.
Besides, like most junk food, this snackable content will only give your audience the mental equivalent of a quick sugar kick, followed by a nasty blood sugar crash. There’s nothing satisfying about that.
Nutritional content
No, you write all this stuff and produce these videos because you have valuable insights to share and our audiences want to be informed, stimulated and entertained. You take the time to write a 2,000 word analysis of an important industry development or edit a seven minute video because you believe that your perspective will give your audience something that was previously lacking.
This is a big part of what it means to add real value and your ideal audience appreciates that. Not only that, they crave it and they will share it and your audience will grow.
Oh, and if you said that a growing number of mobile consumers changes this dynamic, think again.
As the Quartz study also revealed, executives are much more selective with their time and younger executives tend to be more discerning. This means they are more particular about what they focus their attention on and that quality really matters.
If you can deliver good quality and relevant material, your audience will take the time to appreciate it and share it. Just like a long lunch at a great restaurant with stimulating conversation.
Save the junk food for the kiddies’ birthday parties. Well, perhaps and in moderation. You wouldn’t want to cultivate bad eating habits, would you?
Originally published at digitalstuntfactory.co on May 4, 2017.
