Snackable Content: Writing for Attention in The Age of Short Attention Spans

Intro

Snackable content creation is a classic shift in how people consume content. Imagine a situation where your readers' attention spans are fleeting or lasting for an extremely short time.

That's the challenge content creators and marketers face. Successful content marketing requires a strategic and targeted approach to capture and retain audience attention.

Snackable content plays a pivotal role in this context. So, understanding how to write bite-sized, easy-to-read articles becomes essential for audience engagement and retention.

It marks a notable change in how your audience engages with and absorbs content. The challenge now is to convey your marketing messages effectively in a short-lived moment.

This article will explore the following:

• What is Snackable Content?
• Examples of Snackable Content
• The Importance of Snackable Content for Effective Communication
• Understanding Short Attention Spans
• How to Create Snackable Content that Grabs Attention and Leaves a Lasting Impression
• Types of Snackable Content
• Effective Platforms for Snackable Content Distribution

Let's dive;

What is Snackable Content?

Snackable content definition: Snackable content is bite-sized information that's easy to understand and share quickly. Unlike longer articles or long-form content, readers rapidly consume and understand snackable content.

For example, how sometimes do you want a quick snack instead of a substantial regular meal? Well, Snackable content is like that, but for information.

Now that you understand the meaning of snackable content let's move on to examples of snackable content marketing.

Snackable Content Examples

While several platforms share short posts, Instagram stories, quotes, videos, and carousels are typical examples of snackable content.

For instance, an Instagram Story is a standard example of snackable content because they're bite-sized, temporary, and disappears after 24 hours.

This content scarcity creates a sense of urgency and encourages users to view the material quickly before it's gone.

Stories embody the characteristics of:

1. A bite-sized chunk of content
2. Visually engaging
3. Easily consumable
4. Designed for a mobile audience that values quick and authentic interactions.

However, hold your breath as we discuss the characteristics of snackable content later in this article.

Here are a few examples of bite-sized content:

Quote graphics

Quotes are the filet mignon of content—delicious in their own right. But like a star meal, a quote's captivating visuals, engaging backdrop, and distinctive font make it a perfectly snackable experience.

So, creating quote-centric content that aligns with your business will attract and hold the interest of your readers and potential clients.

Below is an illustration of a bite-sized quote graphic representing my fictional lifestyle brand.

What does this quote mean for marketers and creators? It emphasizes the fundamental and essential role of content in digital marketing.

In this analogy, Rebecca metaphorically used "atomic particle" to convey that content is the basic building block that constitutes and powers your entire digital marketing effort.

Just as atoms are the minor units of matter, content is the foundational element that drives various aspects of your marketing strategies.

These include:

• Engagement.
• Communication.
• Audience interaction.

The quote underscores the significance of well-crafted and relevant content in the success of your digital marketing efforts.

Instagram posts

My Instagram carousel-focused visual below relates to users rapidly, especially new and intermediate freelance writers struggling to find remote writing jobs.

Image by the author

It quickly reveals unpopular ways to find freelance writing jobs, making readers conscious of how to solve their problems in moments. So, snackable or bite-sized posts are mini-contents that help people with a common issue.

Infographics

Moreover, snackable content can be either independent or incorporated as a segment of a larger content piece, such as an infographic embedded within a blog post.

Source: SingleGrain

You can find an illustration of this in Eric Siu's (SingleGrain) blog post. It's like adding sprinkles to ice cream—it breaks enormous walls of text and makes your content more appealing and easier to understand.

What's the Importance of Snackable Content in Marketing?

Snackable content is valuable because it powers effective communication by providing concise, easily digestible information that readers can consume quickly.

It's an ideal content format for reaching busy audiences who still want to stay informed. Snackable content is also crucial because it gives you quick information to share with others.

Here are more reasons why this content format is essential:

1. Quickly grabs attention: Snackable content captures users' attention faster because it's short and easy to understand. It helps keep consumers interested and wanting to learn more.
2. Easy to share across platforms: Snackable content is easily shared on social media and other platforms. It helps more people see the content and learn about your brand or topic.
3. Made for mobile devices: Since more people use smartphones, content must be easily seen on small screens. Snackable pieces of articles are designed for busy mobile users who only have a little time.
4. Drives more engagement: Snackable content encourages people to interact with it by sharing, commenting, or clicking on it. These activities can help a brand or topic get more attention and customers.
5. Minimize bounce rates: Scanability ensures your web pages are easy to read and understand. This approach helps users and visitors find the information they need faster. It encourages them to interact with your content so they stay longer, reducing bounce rates.
6. Ideal for busy individuals: Many people are busy and need more time to read long things. Snackable content is quick and easy to read, perfect for busy people who still want to learn.
7. Works on different platforms: Snackable content, like pictures or videos, can be changed to fit other platforms. As a result, your bite-sized articles can reach different audiences and be effective on various sites.
8. Improves user experience (UX): Different people like to consume content differently. Snackable content helps to meet individual preferences and makes it easier for them to enjoy the content.
9. Leads to longer content: Snackable articles can also guide readers toward long-form content to gain more information. It can get people interested and wanting to learn more about a topic.

Important Snackable and long-form content is essential for a successful content marketing strategy.

Understanding Short Attention Spans

Catching and holding readers' attention is an art form in content marketing. As attention spans shrink, content creators and marketers face a severe challenge.

Let us examine the impact of short attention spans on content consumption and the factors contributing to this dilemma.

Declining attention spans and their impact on content consumption

According to research, online users' attention spans are getting shorter. Studies reveal that the average attention span decreased from 12 seconds in 2000 to just over 8 seconds in 2015.

Source: Wyzowl

This change has vital consequences for marketers and creators; capturing and retaining audiences' attention has become challenging.

Given this, adapting your content writing strategies for effective outcomes is essential.

Psychological factors contributing to short attention spans

Several psychological factors contribute to shorter attention spans.

These include:

• Constant exposure to information.
• Rapid technological advancements.
• The desire for instant gratification, to name a few.

These elements play a role in the short attention span trend. As a result, the brain's ability to filter and prioritize information is challenged by the overwhelming amount of online content.

Therefore, by searching through or delving into these psychological components, you can tailor your marketing messages to capture and sustain your audience's attention.

How short attention spans affect content creators and marketers

As mentioned, writing for readers with short attention spans is challenging for creators and content marketers. So, grabbing the reader's attention within the first few seconds of accessing your page is vital.

Your inability or failure to engage readers within that time may result in users quickly moving on to the next piece of content.

Understanding these dynamics empowers you to develop and publish with the following traits:

• Compelling introductions
• Captivating visuals
• Concise messages that resonate with their target audience.

Acknowledging and addressing users' short attention spans is crucial for content marketing success.

It will enable you to create marketing content that attracts and retains the interest of your audience.

Characteristics of Snackable Content

As discussed earlier, we create snackable content as an influential format designed to capture and retain readers' attention in a dwindling era of short attention spans.

Here are 07 essential characteristics of snackable content:

1. Conciseness: Snackable content is typically short and contains only the most critical information. It avoids lengthy explanations and gets straight to the point to ensure readers can digest and understand the message quickly.
2. Visual appeal: Snackable content usually contains visually attractive elements such as images, videos, and graphics. Visuals capture attention and make the content more appealing and engaging. It enables viewers to quickly grasp the message even without reading extensive text.
3. Easy to understand: This type of content is simple and easy to understand. It avoids complex jargon or technical terms to guarantee it speaks to your audience demographics and levels of expertise.
4. Shareability: Bite-sized content is highly shareable across social media platforms, email, or messaging apps. Why? It often contains small quotes, tips, or statistics that connect with viewers and encourage them to share it further.
5. Mobile-friendly: Given the increasing use of mobile devices, snackable content is optimized for mobile consumption. It fits nicely on small screens, loads quickly, and is easily navigable using touch controls. It enables users to consume content on the go.
6. Entertaining & engaging: Snackable content is fun and promptly captures readers' or viewers' attention. It uses storytelling techniques, humor, or intriguing headlines to attract and interest readers.
7. Variety of formats: Successful snackable content adopts various forms and platforms. It includes quick how-to videos, listicles, memes, gifs, surveys, quizzes, or short blog posts. Diversifying the content format keeps your audience engaged and prevents monotony.

How to Create Snackable Content That Grabs Attention

With the increase in short attention spans, understanding how to produce snackable content is essential for your content marketing success.

This section explores seven practical techniques for creating pint-sized marketing content to grab your audience with engaging, easily digestible content. These tips will enhance your content strategy and make your message unforgettable.

Let's get on it;

1. Make your content concise to the point

Snackable content is all about brevity, that is, succinctness or conciseness. It implies making your content easily scannable and digestible for users with short attention spans.

How to do it:

• Use bullet points
• Subheadings (h2, h3, & h4) for scannability
• Create short paragraphs
• Use applicable visual elements to enhance the appeal

These components break up texts and make your articles easy to scan. It helps readers find what they want. So, adopt a scannable writing style with the abovementioned elements to make your content concise.

2. Use attention-grabbing headlines

Your title should instantly pique readers' interest.

Why?

Because your headings are the first impression of your content and determine whether readers continue reading or not. In other words, if your title sucks, no one will click to read the article.

So, an attention-grabbing headline helps capture the reader's attention and encourages them to continue reading the article or content.

Therefore, create headlines that meet the following standards:

• Catchy
• Intriguing
• Ask questions
• Use numbers
• Create a sense of urgency
• Tell the reader why they should care about what you're saying (highlight the advantage or benefit of your product/service).

These headline types enable you to grab attention within the first few seconds. Please consider reading this checklist of headline formulas to help you write click-worthy titles.

3. Deliver valuable information quickly

Delivering helpful information upfront is essential because it helps improve user experience and satisfaction.

Fast delivery of info does the following:

• Keeps readers interested in your material
• Respect their time
• It enables them to remember what they learned.

Finding the appropriate information without stress helps your target audience understand and connect with your brand. Given this, snackable content provides immediate value to the reader.

Ensure the most essential information is upfront and easy to find. Use visuals like infographics or images where applicable to convey complex information succinctly.

4. Incorporate multimedia elements

Multimedia involves merging various forms of content, including writing, audio, images, animations, or video, to create interactive content. Multimedia in your writing is beneficial because it encourages user engagement and interaction.

So, adding multimedia elements to your content strategy is vital as it makes the content more exciting and engaging to the reader.

Studies show that including multimedia pieces like videos in your materials can increase users' time on the page by 2.6x.

A landing page with video content can boost conversions by 86%. Also, posts on Facebook with images attract 2.3x more engagement.

This approach:

• Enhances user engagement
• Improves information retention
• Adds variety to your articles/content
• Appeals to various learning styles

Incorporating these components will make your message more memorable and result in impactful and effective communication with your readers and prospective clients.

Hence, capture attention by diversifying your content with visuals, videos, GIFs, or audio snippets. Examine the infographic to see the primary forms of multimedia.

Infographic by the author.

These elements make your content more engaging and shareable, increasing its chances of grabbing attention on different platforms.

5. Apply storytelling techniques

Using storytelling tactics when writing content is essential as it helps capture and retain audiences' attention. Storytelling makes information more easily relatable and memorable, allowing for a more engaging and persuasive writing style.

It adds:

• An emotional dimension
• Promotes connection and understanding
• Ensures your message connects with readers and leaves a lasting impression.

As humans, we naturally love stories, and they significantly impact us. So, adding storytelling elements to your content will hook your audience and keep them on the page.

It helps improve content marketing results by increasing conversion rates by 30%. That's according to Search Engine Watch.

Telling stories in content entices, entertains, and converts casual readers into repeat readers and customers. You can convey narratives through anecdotes, real-life examples, or user testimonials.

6. Optimize for mobile devices

Prioritizing mobile optimization improves user experience (UX). Visitors to your blog or website should be able to access your pages and easily read the content on all devices, including mobile.

If you fail to optimize for mobile, users will find accessing and navigating your site to read your content challenging. This unpleasant experience will lead to higher bounce rates.

According to Statista, in Q2 of 2023, 95.8% of global online users accessed the internet from mobile phones and 93% via smartphones.

Source: Statista

These figures suggest that snackable content is often consumed on mobile devices. So, optimizing your bite-sized pieces of content for mobile viewing is crucial. Ensure the content is responsive, loads quickly, and is easily read and navigated on smaller screens.

7. Experiment with different snackable content formats

Experiment with various formats, like snackable video content, to find what resonates best with your audience. It allows you to engage your audience creatively in new, innovative ways.

Did you know?

Testing various snackable content formats helps:

• Keep your content fresh
• Maintains users' interests
• Increase brand visibility
• Captures audience attention where other forms of content failed
• It lets you discover practical ways to communicate your messages
• Meet the preferences and habits of consumers.
• Guarantee optimal engagement, impact, and ROIs.

Consequently, make your snackable content exciting by exploring different formats such as lists, how-tos, tips, quotes, or quizzes. Mix things up to accommodate other audience preferences and capture attention through variety.

Types of Snackable Content That Get Traction

Here are six popular types of bite-sized content and their ideal uses:

1. Visual infographics

Infographics improve credibility. They are a simple way to repurpose existing content in a new, engaging format. This content format drives website traffic, attracts inbound links, and boosts conversions.

Why so?

Consider the following statistics in this infographic:

Source: Demandsage

• Readers retain 65% of the information when paired with a relevant infographic.
• Readers are 55% more likely to accept a message when presented in color rather than black and white.
• If an infographic is included, 45% of internet users will click on a link.
• Colored infographics have a high motivation rate of 80%.
• 50% of users are more engaged with content that includes images.
• 67% of users consider concise, detailed information more valuable than text material.

2. Interactive content

Interactive content is considered snackable because it follows the essential characteristics of snackable (bite-sized) content. Snackable content is typically brief, engaging, and easily digestible, designed to capture attention and encourage them to interact.

Interactive content fits these criteria for several reasons. The interactive nature of this content format makes it snackable by being brief, engaging, and easily consumable. It matches the preferences of audiences in the ever-evolving digital marketing space.

Some types of interactive content include:

• Polls and Quizzes.
• Webinars
• Image sliders
• Surveys and polls
• Interactive infographics
• Interactive calculators

These types of content help you gather valuable information about your audience, allowing you to customize or tailor forthcoming digestible content to their liking.

3. Animated GIFs

GIFs are like living photographs that have become a widespread phenomenon on the internet. This visual content can capture the audience's attention and convey messages quickly.

Here's a GIF example to inspire your creativity:

Source: GIF Abyss.

The best part is you can convert any video into a GIF using various tools, such as:

Important: Always check each GIFS converter's terms of use and features to ensure they meet your needs.

4. Memes

Memes are among the prevalent forms of social media content marketing. This content type demonstrates that your brand is in tune with current trends.

So, generating and circulating memes that align with your brand can establish or reinforce content relevance and improve audience engagement.

Given its popularity, memes have become a pop culture sensation in content marketing as they allow you to communicate without using lengthy words or texts.

The best meme marketing approach is to find and present an existing relatable meme. However, keep your memes light-hearted, funny, and relevant to your target audience.

Here are some of the best meme app generators:

• Canva
• Mematic
• Imgur
• Video & GIF meme
• Adobe Spark

5. In-app stories

Why should you consider in-app stories content creation? Because they provide a quick and engaging way for users to consume information or entertainment within an app.

Their short and visually captivating format makes in-app stories ideal for users with limited time or attention spans. Also, it offers interactive elements like quizzes or polls to enhance user engagement and participation.

You can easily access and share them across platforms, increasing brand awareness and user retention. Additionally, in-app stories use a vertical format optimized for mobile devices.

This format ensures a seamless and enjoyable viewing experience for users—making them a valuable and convenient form of snackable content.

Example of in-app story by 'Stable Money:'

Stable Money has recently incorporated stories into its app to convey its benefits and effectively establish trust among its users.

Source: Plotline

The Stories content is carefully customized to align with the app's objectives and gratify the specific needs of its user community. This step ensures a prompt and appealing response from its users.

6. Short videos

Why are short videos on the list of snackable content? Because they are easy to consume quickly, just like a snack. People can watch pint-sized videos during short breaks or while waiting for something without dedicating much time.

These videos are:

• Brief
• Concise
• Mobile-friendly
• Easily digestible
• They last only a few seconds or a few minutes.

They provide quick entertainment, valuable information, or a burst of emotion. Also, they satisfy viewers' immediate need for a fast and convenient content experience.

Here's why you should prioritize them as part of your content strategy:

Source: HubSpot

According to a Hubspot survey, Short-form video maintains its successful run as the most profitable content format at 54%. Closely followed are long-form videos and live streaming at 36%, respectively.

• In 2023, short-form videos experienced significant growth, with 33% of social media marketers investing in this format over others.
• 58% of short-form video marketers increase their investment in video marketing in 2023
• 32% maintain their current investment levels.

Videos prove the preferred and most successful format for a higher return on investments (ROIs) for social media marketing.

These insights make it crucial for marketers to embrace and capitalize on bite-sized video marketing growth in the upcoming year.

Effective Marketing Platforms for Snackable Content Distribution

The following platforms are ideal for promoting and distributing snackable content to maximize reach.

Social media platforms

Choosing the right platform is critical when sharing short and fun content. Various marketing platforms work best for different people and brands and how they behave online.

For example, Instagram and TikTok are great for photos and videos. But Twitter is a fantastic platform for informative short text messages. You can read about practical marketing strategies for social media success.

Consequently, based on your audiences' preferences (where they like to consume content), social media sites are ideal platforms for pint-sized content distribution.

Consider using the following social media platforms:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• TikTok
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• YouTube, and
• Threads

These are perfect for distributing snackable content due to their large user bases and highly engaging nature. These platforms help you reach a broad audience and encourage them to share your content with their networks.

Email marketing

Why is email marketing an ideal channel for snackable content distribution? According to Constant Contact's 'Small Business Now Report, almost 80% (79%) of marketers place email marketing as one of the top three most effective marketing channels.

That's not all…

Most consumers (55%) prefer email as their most effective communication channel. This figure surpasses alternative marketing channels like texting and social media platforms.

Source: Constant Contact.

So, email marketing remains an effective platform for distributing snackable content, particularly to your existing customer base.

Moreover, email campaigns deliver small, easy-to-read content directly to recipients' email inboxes. This technique lets subscribers quickly get information and updates from businesses and marketers.

For instance, segmenting your email list based on subscribers' preferences lets you send targeted snackable content that appeals to each group.

This email marketing strategy can increase the following:

• Email open rates by 30%
• 50% click-through rates (CTRs)
• Conversions by over 10%

Content discovery platforms

I’m guessing you’re not using these websites. Content discovery platforms recommend personalized content to users based on their interests and preferences. So, besides social media and emails, content discovery platforms are fantastic snackable content distribution sites.

Why so?

Research shows Outbrain attracts over 560 million global visitors monthly and recommends 190 billion articles. Similarly, Taboola reaches 550 million monthly visitors and serves about 200 billion content/articles daily.

These discovery platforms recommend content that educates and entertains their readers. And since 70% of individuals prefer to learn about a brand through text materials, your snackable articles can trigger prospects' actions.

In other words, content discovery platforms have positively transformed the information exchange between brands, consumers, and publishers. This content tactic benefits everyone involved. It gives you an excellent opportunity to find and engage new readers.

But you must pick the right platforms to guarantee success. These websites make it fun and convenient for users to discover new topics they enjoy, such as videos, articles/blogs, and photos.

Here are the top content discovery platforms to consider:

• Outbrain
• Taboola
• BuzzSumo
• Feedly
• Revcontent

These content discovery tools serve relevant content to users as recommendations, often found at the bottom or side of web pages. They can distribute your snackable content to a broader audience, expand your reach, and increase brand exposure.

Podcasting platforms

Podcasting is an ideal platform for snackable content distribution as it allows listeners to consume short and informative episodes on the go. They are convenient audio formats that fit into listeners' lives.

This content distribution method makes podcasts perfect for quick and easy consumption by busy individuals. You can listen to podcasts directly or passively with the ability to download and consume later.

Here are some research figures to inspire you:

• Podcast listeners spend an average of 4 hours and 10 minutes listening to podcasts
• Over 70% of listeners consume podcasts via mobile devices
• 67% of podcast listeners say sponsored messages are helpful to them
• 63% of podcast listeners bought a product or service through podcast ads

Here are some of the best podcast hosting platforms to consider:

1. Buzzsprout
2. Podbean
3. Hello audio
4. Libsyn
5. Apple Podcasts
6. Google Podcasts
7. Spotify for Podcasters

Influencer collaborations

Influencer marketing allows you to partner with individuals with a substantial following to boost your brand visibility.

You may approach individuals with a significant social media presence and request them to collaborate with you on snackable content creation.

This collaboration helps promote your content to their followers, increase visibility, and build awareness for your articles. In other words, partnering with influencers in your industry will amplify the distribution of your snackable content.

They will expose your content to their audiences through blogs, social media posts, emails, etc. This approach ensures targeted distribution to the influencer's highly engaged audience.

Here are a few influencer marketing statistics to inspire you:

• 82% of brands dedicated a budget for influencer marketing in 2023, a 45% increase from 37% in 2017.
• 67% of companies plan to increase their influencer marketing budget over the next 12 months.
• 15% of marketers indicate that they expect to keep their budgets the same as in 2023.
• Over 80% of respondents plan to incorporate influencer marketing in their marketing strategy.
• 23% of businesses spend over 40% of their marketing budget on influencer campaigns. That's a 14% increase from 9% in 2020.

Source: Influencer Marketing Hub.

Why do these numbers matter to you? Many brands and marketers increase their influencer marketing spend because influencers drive results for them.

However, you must use the best influence marketing platforms to seamlessly connect, plan, and execute a successful influencer collaboration campaign. A robust influencer platform lets you connect and collaborate with the right influencers.

Consider using influencer platforms or tools like:

• Tagger
• Brandwatch
• Mavrck
• Aspire
• Influence
• Upfluence

These influencer collaboration apps will help you find suitable Influencers to work with within less time. You can monitor your progress and measure the ROIs on these platforms.

Here's how to merge influencer marketing into your content marketing strategy.

Content aggregator websites

A content aggregator platform collects or gathers web content and applications from various online sources for reuse. This marketing strategy makes content aggregator websites ideal for your snackable content.

Your bite-sized posts will fit nicely into their system since they gather diverse content on relevant topics from various sources.

This content marketing technique makes it easier for users to consume and share easily digestible pieces of information quickly.

The following websites are excellent content aggregator platforms:

• Flipboard
• Pocket
• Feedly
• Panda
• AllTop

These platforms aggregate content and present it to users based on their preferences. Submitting your snackable content to these platforms can help increase your visibility, attract new audiences, and drive traffic to your blog/website.

Important Note when distributing snack-sized content, you must tailor your materials to each platform's specific requirements and user behavior.

Then, analyze each platform's performance and engagement metrics to refine your distribution strategy and maximize the impact of your content.

Are You Ready to Add Snackable Content to Your Content Strategy?

The essence of creating snackable content is to provide value quickly, engage your audience, and keep them coming for more.

Adapting snackable content to your content strategy will:

• Improve user satisfaction
• Connect better with your audience
• Increase engagement
• Boost return on your investments (ROIs)

Applying these tips will help you grab your readers' attention and maximize the impact of your content marketing efforts.