What Is Micro-Content And How To Use It

What is micro-content? Micro-content is written, visual, or video content that can be consumed in ten to thirty seconds.Â

If the above sentence had ended with â€œThe Endâ€ that would have been an example of micro-content, but it would be nearly impossible to explain micro-content using micro-content. When you are implementing a content marketing strategy you might not be aware you are already using it.Â

Confused? Look at your social media content calendar â€“ those short form posts are a form of micro-content.Â This content conveys information in bite-sized pieces which answers specific questions or leaves a specific impression on consumers. It is highly useful and popular today due to the fact that people have much shorter attention spans in these digital times.

Below we will dive a little deeper into micro-content and how you can use it.Â

What Counts As Micro-Content?

Above we gave a short introduction and definition of what micro-content is, but you probably are wondering what counts as micro-content. One major place where we see a lot of micro-content would be on social media, especially on platforms such as Twitter and Instagram. However, there are other formats which you could see as micro-content, as listed below.

Infographics: Infographics provide information in a visual format, allowing the reader to consume it quickly, easily, and in a memorable manner. They can be long and in-depth, but many are short and to-the-point.Â

Video Clips: Video clips can be thought of as the ultimate form of micro-content, especially if they are 30 seconds and under in length. These video clips usually explore relevant and useful content that consumers are interested in.Â

Illustrations: Illustrations are popular forms of micro-content. You can use them in articles, blog posts, infographics, videos, and even as stand alone content. Usually, the illustration will tell a short story or provide a solution to a problem in a few simple steps.Â

Graphs And Tables: Graphs and tables are often used in case studies and infographics in order to convey data across to consumers. They are highly accessible and can easily help users to discover more about a topic or see how results of a study or campaign turned out.Â

Social Media Content: More often than not, social media posts will be short and to the point, which makes them an ideal format for micro-content marketing. An Instagram post with a short caption can sometimes make more of an impact than a paragraph long post on Facebook.Â

How To Use Micro-Content

Understanding what counts as micro-content and what it is can help you immensely in using it for your own campaigns. Below we give some helpful hints on how to use it effectively and efficiently.Â

Keep It Targeted: Micro-content is all about answering a specific question for a specific audience. You will need to keep your content targeted to your audience and to the platform it is on, such as fun images on Instagram telling consumers about new products and short messages on Twitter highlighting a new blog post or article.Â

Consider Conciseness: Micro-content should be exactly that: micro, or rather, short and concise. Think of using one-sentence-long tips for products, inspirational quotes for social media content, and important statistics for infographics. The shorter, the better!

Make It Mobile-Friendly: The best vehicle for micro-content is a mobile device, which means that you need to be sure your content is mobile friendly. This involves sizing the images you use for the platforms to meet mobile guidelines, keeping the wording to the character limit, and limiting your use of gifs or large images.Â

Always Be Helpful: Micro-content might be short and to the point, but it should always have a purpose and should always be helpful. You can provide help to your audience by educating them, entertaining them, inspiring them, or directly answering questions or queries they might have. Creating content with a purpose is a priority no matter the length.Â

Creative Curation: An effective way to implement micro-content marketing is to simply share or curate content that resonates with and reflects your brand. You could share a tweet that you find funny, repost an Instagram photo (with creator credit, of course) or simply post a link with an explanatory caption on Facebook and LinkedIn. Curating content can be short, easy, and effective.Â

Make Micro Moment Meaningful

While long-form content is an ideal format for improving your search engine optimisation efforts, there is definitely value to be found in shorter content. Micro-content can help you to engage on a more personal level with your audience and can help to boost your online presence. It can also help you to spread your message effectively to a wider audience.Â

If you would like help with improving your content marketing strategy, or need to boost your social media presence, speak to the NetMechanic team today to find out how we can help you.Â