Written by: Alex Low
What has caused this.
Better technology which has enabled us toview what we want, when we want, on whichever device we want. Connectivity speeds of course. And social.Binge viewing on Box Sets. Breaking Bad and Sons of Anarchy was my go to after the birth of Olivia 3 years ago. Yes, I was late to the party on these, but it got me and my wife through the sleepless nights and the odd hour you had when you just wanted to switch off and there was nothing on the TV schedule.Better Call Saul and BBC Line of Duty did the same when Max made his appearance 7 months ago.We could engage with the content when we wanted to. Well, Better Call Saul made you wait for the weekly episode. More on this shortly.
We live in an on-demand economy. I want it when it suits me, delivered to me in a way that I want to consume on whichever device I am using. 24/7.
Your clients / buyers / influencers / targets live in this world too. Yet the majority of B2B content strategies do not reflect this Box Set culture.Related:
How Companies Will be Disrupted by the New World Order of SocialThe only content I will not watch OnDemand is Sport. I either watch it live, or the highlights. Will never record a sporting event to watch later. You would have to sit in a darkened room disconnected from the world, so the result doesn’t get seen.We are no different in our working lives, time poor, constants internal demands from the business – sound familiar to having children… – you will have moments to read a short blog, scan and infographic, watch a short video, listen to a podcast etc. Whichever is your medium of choice – chances it will be a blend.
Your content strategy should want your audience wanting more.
Will they go straight on the next piece or follow you in order to get next week’s episode.Organisations tend to just dump their content onto social and then wonder why it didn’t work.
You need to create intrigue. Then, if you give the box set, make sure that it is indexed into episodes which are consumable in their own right, or lead into the next one. There needs to be a beginning, middle and end for each episode; however the overall content has to work as a story with a beginning middle and end.How does this work in a B2B context – very easily.Thought Leadership / Industry Report / White Paper etc these are your Box Sets. You should be designing the content so it can be shared as one but then also as an episodes. This means you can create 4, 6, 12 weeks, months of content to you are getting much better ROI on your content. You should focus on infographics or statistics as the short posts that lead to the longer episode, which then then leads to the over all report.Video & Podcasts are great for the week by week episode – you can create a following, which is what I have done with my Friday #askalex videos on Linkedin.Creating content, that is emailed, shared, posted once is no longer good enough in this OnDemand world. You have to be thinking about
how your audience wants to consume content, on which devices on across which mediums.Your audience has changed its behaviours, has your content strategy changed accordingly?
