We all live in the knowledge that a tap of the phone can lead us to a constantly changing world of information to educate, amuse and engage us. 44’s Gemma Houltby asks the question: how can content atomisation help focus our minds?
I’ve noticed a trend over the course of various post-New Year conversations – the topic has turned to reduced attention span.
This particular lockdown seems to be sapping many of us of the ability to focus. That’s understandable even at the best of times, as we live in an age where we’re bombarded by information from all directions. The FOMO it creates makes it ever harder to focus on what’s in front of us when there’s something better, newer and shinier out there waiting for us.
A study by the Technical University of Denmark showed that our global attention span is narrowing as more information becomes available. Looking at many different forms of media, the study’s data found times where topics would quickly capture widespread attention and lose it just as quickly. For example, a Twitter global trend in 2013 would last for an average of 17.5 hours. That time had decreased to 11.9 hours in 2016.
The pandemic will disappear sooner or later but the trend for narrowed attention won’t, and it’s one that content creators need to take seriously. Enter content atomisation.
Put simply, content atomisation is the idea of breaking down one broad theme or weighty piece of content into smaller, focused and more strategic content elements.
How to achieve content atomisation
The starting point is to serialise your content. This means that rather than produce one enormous piece of content, you begin to deconstruct it, with the aim of creating and posting/publishing smaller, more meaningful pieces at regular intervals.
In doing so, you need to maximise every content idea and platform/channel at your disposal so that you’re using your resources really well and engaging your audience(s) as much as possible to get the best results.
You can do this in a wide variety of ways that will allow you to shape content and prolong your message. Why not try any (or all) of the following: Blog posts, third-party articles, FAQs, Q&As, top tips, worksheets, social media posts, newsletters/blasts, emails, toolkits, reviews, case studies, white papers, ebooks, graphics, podcasts, videos, webinars, galleries, presentations, memes, quizzes, polls, games, competitions, discussions, events and so on.
Why do it?
There are a number of benefits to adopting content atomisation:
Increased engagement: If we’re all contending with a narrowed attention span, it stands to reason that shorter content will be more desirable and more likely to be read/viewed and digested in its entirety. And with multi-channel content, it’s more probable that different audience segments will engage with the approach that best works for them. And, as a result, they’re more likely to share it on if they can.
Taking your content further: Atomising and serialising your content across different formats and at regular intervals will allow it to travel further, making it work as hard as possible without having to ‘reinvent the wheel’.
Creating a conversation: An increased amount of strategically focused, serialised content will give you more opportunities to highlight to your audience what you want them to think and do as a result of viewing your content. This can lead to more discussions and conversations with your audience.
Get in touch
We’ve been atomising content for many years at 44, honing it into ‘SMART’ content so that it travels further and reaches as many people as possible. So if you’d like to know more about content atomisation, or fancy a chat about any of your comms or content challenges, just contact the 44 team.
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