The Experience of Content Consumption

Content is the substance that’s consumed both subliminally and consciously, which for an unsuspecting sponge is a bad thing. We absorb content online, on the television, glancing at freeway billboards, reading a cereal box, and even on advertiser jackets of school textbooks. What is your content saying?

In-school Gatorage Campaign

Increasingly becoming the focus of all transactions, content is pushing media to new extremes. Google pushed Caffeine indexing recently, which constantly processes new data, allowing users to access content that is so new it’s practically living, and do so faster than before. Making 50% fresher results available to consumers at lightning-strike speeds is a great advancement for search engines, but how will it affect content producers long term, in an increasingly saturated, competitive market?

To keep an edge, and maintain authority in any niche, content production must be reconfigured for innovations in the diffusion of search engine information. Add to that educational and entertainment elements, consideration of social media trends, and only then will content make users feel engaged. Exceed the norm—seek to not just engage users, but to immerse them into a rich conversation with the piece, as well as other users.

Both abstracts and summaries assist the design to speak to an audience, by making points skim-able and apparent. By giving busy or distracted users a handle on the topic quickly, the content has an opportunity to fully engage those who care. And really, if content can’t pass the “Who cares?” test, then it needs to be re-designed or scrapped. If you waste your audience’s time, you’ll get a reputation for it.

Visualized Data

Infographics like this one do well, because they convey information in a clean, highly-stylized way, which nearly transfers information by osmosis. The reader has little need to think, but plenty of opportunity to feel involved. Taking it one step farther, this infographic draws a reader in using emotional hooks, and then calls for action.

Images alone don’t connect social media users to a deep, lasting brand experience. The question to ask before beginning an infographic is whether or not that format works best for this content. Sometimes, a simple article is more effective, especially if the topic doesn’t afford a designer robust data.

In this example, the information provided could have produced a compelling article, but it is an infographic imitation, merely presenting information with a dominant graphic. Though creating an infographic can be easy with tools like Tableau Public free software, or Many Eyes technology, writing an article may still be more sensible.

Typical Tableau Public graph from free software

Which format; infographic, video, interactive, or article, would most easily convey the intended message, with the least demand on the user?

First, the educational and entertainment elements must attract a user enough that he or she will consider the appeal. If the ‘appeal’ is merely brand recognition, then it needs to be crafted carefully enough to not feel commercial.

Next, use urbane, subliminal branding, coupled with emotional triggers which will cause predictable, supportive community conversation about the piece. One instance of fallacy or misinformation could misdirect a conversation until the buzz is dead, so make sure to fact check several times.

All of your effort should result in a dynamic, effective piece. If the effect is not a sense of urgency to act, change, share, or buy a product, then your content may need to be refined. Getting users to comment is an important element in buzz, because the commentator will return to comment several times, counter contrary perspectives, and see if backlinked friends have become involved in the conversation.

Unique design by good.is

Lastly, I would encourage you to be unique. There are no limitations to ingenuity in this competition for a greater online presence. Immerse yourself in data, enrich it with widgets, bathe it in trends, and spin it with a current style, and you will see results. Eventually.

Please join BlueGlass on Facebook, follow on Twitter and subscribe by RSS!