The question for the social media agency is about what kind of content becomes shareable. The obvious pictures and videos are great, but when people want to know about an actual product there needs to be text. There are three types of internet readers and the agency needs to navigate their wants when reading content that is both informative enough and not too dense to dissuade reading. Stoney deGeyter, president of Pole Position Marketing, says there is a method to create content that can appeal to the reader, the skimmer and the picture gazer.
The lesson is to create content that can be skimmed. The picture gazer wants content to have pictures and links. There can be text as long as it is not intrusive on the pictures. Captions under a picture are a valuable way to have them read a small bit of text that is important.
The readers are also able to capture because no amount of text will turn them away. To avoid turning away the other types of readers, the web site needs to incorporate descending levels of knowledge and then link to them. This will attract the readers but not the less active readers.
Writing for the skimmer helps the other types of readers in case they are unusually interested in reading more or less than normal. Here is where an outline is important. Carefully labeled headers and sub-headers help all readers navigate and look for what interests them. Each paragraph should also begin with compelling language. It is also important to follow the elementary school taught method of beginning each paragraph with a topic sentence.
Creating better content will better help conversions once the social media agency has pulled potential customers away from the social networks. How to then handle the different needs of customers about the type of content they want is important.
