Whether we’re talking about our daily routine, the functions of our phones, or the way we view content, everything seems to be getting faster. Because effective inbound marketing requires a large amount of content, it’s easy to get into the habit of producing content that’s both quick to create and view, sometimes at the expense of quality. But does it really generate more leads? In this article, we’ll look at:
- What snackable content is
- Different types of snackable content
- Examples of snackable content
- When to use snackable content and slow content
1. What is snackable content?
Snackable content is a short piece of content designed to be quickly read or viewed by a visitor to your website. It often makes use of visual elements that enable it to be both read quickly and widely shared on social media.
Most content online is fighting to grab the attention of users, and snackable content isn’t any different. What it does do, however, is try to optimize the limited amount of time that a user is likely to spend viewing content: e.g. with a catchy title, content that’s easily browsed, and visuals.
Made popular by websites like Buzzfeed, snackable content has become part of B2B content marketing strategies by making use of the very same drivers: our emotions and social media.
2. Different types of snackable content
B2B marketers can use a number of different types of snackable content in their online communications strategy:
- Short videos: how-to videos, event teasers, or videos explaining different features of your product or service.
- Social media posts: great for use during events, they enable you to capture the day’s highlights and identify the people who are present.
- Infographics: extremely popular in recent years, they’ve been used so often that they’ve perhaps lost some of their original impact. If they’re quite short and done well, you might be surprised by the return on investment from this type of content.
- Definitions: the aim here is to improve your ranking in search engines.
- Memes and GIFs: These are probably THE most used form of snackable content. They’re often designed to trigger a positive emotion. But they should be used sparingly if you want to be seen as a credible source of information.
- Quotes: often combined with a visual element so they can be easily shared.
3. Examples of B2B snackable content
A. Videos
Since 2015, videos have probably been the content format with the greatest potential. But they can also be difficult to get right and often require a certain amount of resources to do so. Need some ideas to get started? Let your customers do the talking!
B. Social media posts
Social media posts are an easy way to interact with influencers: follow their tweets during an event and create a dedicated web page for the event where you can tag them and retweet their posts. Let social media work its magic and you might become an influencer for the event yourself!
All you need to do is click on a tweet, for example, to get the HTML code and embed it into your blog or website:
C. Infographics
Some people will tell you they’ve seen enough infographics to last them a lifetime. They’re certainly used over and over again, and the sheer number of them has resulted in many people becoming tired of this form of snackable content. And yet, we’ve received some great feedback as a result of our infographic on the marketing funnel.
At Plezi, we have given it out at different trade shows. And people loved it! A number of them even sent us pictures of this infographic on display in their offices!
4. When to use snackable content and slow content
Marketing has made a veritable cult out of hype and the ability to create content that triggers a strong emotional response. The underlying idea is that the more you publish, the more you attract people’s attention.
But another trend has now emerged in content marketing, called slow content. This involves reducing the amount of content you create and instead, reusing existing content in different ways, and creating better content that delivers more value for prospects.
Or you may want to be looking at content clusters, which will help you group together different subjects, increase your SEO on search engines and mean that you have a focussed way of dealing with one theme and interlocking themes.
According to a study by Moz and BuzzSumo, snackable content can be widely shared without resulting in many inbound links. In other words, the aim of snackable content is not to improve SEO, but rather to be shared and to improve visibility. The study shows that list articles and videos are the most shared pieces of content online.
And even if you’re more inclined to produce slow content, it’s also important to vary the content formats you use and to make snackable content part of your inbound marketing strategy. Designed to be shared and to potentially go viral on social media, snackable content improves your visibility online and should be a part of your editorial calendar. The key is to use a variety of different content formats. Snackable content should be used as part of a content strategy
