Short-form content & its impact on brand awareness

In a world where pictures and hashtags have become the norm, the age-old adage “brevity is the soul of wit” stands the test of time. With ever-decreasing attention spans and growing content volume on the internet, keeping content short and relevant brings home the point. #KISS #Keepitshortsilly

Know your audience

There is no one mantra for creating short-form content. Content-based brand-building exercise is open to multiple interpretations. Who is your audience? What is your brand trying to convey at the moment? From one-word trends to pictures and/or short movies/montages or a song, what form of short-form content can capture and convey your brand message effectively?

Short movies – videos drive home a message for your target audience

The video formats are already a preferred form of content. However, with an increasing number of marketing houses resorting to this form, video formats have been revolutionized even further. Youtubers are steadily looking to draw viewers with short-form content, making their videos more relatable and germane.

Video content is an integral part of marketing strategy, aiming for the younger generation to achieve results. It provides the brand with an opportunity to tell a story. With the help of this type of storytelling, brands can combine their messages with informative and engaging content and increase the visibility amongst potential customers.

Short-form content: a more aggressive content strategy by brands

Short movies form a part of an aggressive brand-building process. Content per second through the movie format is more easily absorbed by the audience than eloquently strung words in a written feature format.

Many brands have found success in leveraging the current events into their branded content. Tanishq’s interfaith marriage ad, though, generated massive opprobrium on social media, has achieved its purpose; making the brand visible to a wider audience.

The India Dairy Giant, Amul has been transforming the product campaigns with socially relevant angles attached to them. The Amul butter girl is in each of the content, conveying the story from her perspective, thus making the brand more human. The same way Zomato’s tweet” Guys, kabhi kabhi ghar ka khana bhi kha lena chahiye” earned so many likes, that even other brands retweeted the same taglines.

Not on social media, never happened

Social networking sites have ushered in the era of micro-blogging. Micro-blogging focuses on short-form content, which can be produced easily and shared. The power of social media can promote or negate the validity of any event. Short-form content well-suited for social media has become a two-way communication for the brands and the consumers. When building your presence online, every link counts. Since the goal is to enhance the brand experience, branded content needs to be optimized.

Short-form content is an obvious fit for social media as they are easily understandable content with better reach. In social media, short content helps tap into the happenings of society. It helps connect the branded content to something familiar and helps reach the content to more eyes.

Content strategy revisited: SEO draws traffic not attention to a brand

In the past, brands primarily relied on search engine optimization to drive traffic and increase the awareness of the brands. Although these tactics are crucial, they aren’t catching the customers’ eyeballs. It is the short-form content that helps increase brand awareness and create a lasting connection with the brand.

Any content aims to generate engagement and social shares. Even though long-form content is high ranking, short-form content tends to connect with more customers.

However, short-form content is faced with the potential danger of becoming shallow. For example, short-form content may create brand awareness on social media, but your customer will eventually need a more in-depth understanding of the brand and everything it has to offer. Fail to deliver on that front and you can end up losing valuable potential customers.

In conclusion

Short-form content may not be the only route to creating brand awareness. A content plan must be devised to increase the relatability quotient with your target audience. So, while planning brand awareness strategies, brands may require to blend both, long-form and short-form content to optimize and create brand awareness among customers.

In short, understanding the intent of the audience is key. Let us not get caught up in frameworks and standardizations but deliver value to the audience.

About the author:

Neena Biswal, Head of South, CommsCredible