Microcontent – Use Short-Form Content to Amplify Your Message

Is your audience (clients, customers, readers) feeling overwhelmed by the the amount of content and information being delivered to them day in and day out? I hear this cry of frustration daily, yet as an online entrepreneur and author, you know content is the backbone of your business.

Without a steady stream of blog posts, articles, free reports, etc., your prospective clients will have trouble finding you. The content you create is essential for getting found by your ideal clients so they can get to know you and how you can serve them. So, what do you do?

While your long-form content is critical to your success, don’t over look the microcontent (tweets, for example) that grabs your readers’ attention and compels them to follow your links back to the in-depth articles revealing your expertise and how you serve.

What Have You Got To Lose? Audio http://t.co/oq3kp9Ftsw [my adventure in #Peru]

— Denise Wakeman (@DeniseWakeman) June 16, 2013

Microcontent isn’t a new concept. Blogger Anil Dash wrote about it in 2002:

Today, microcontent is being used as a more general term indicating content that conveys one primary idea or concept, is accessible through a single definitive URL or permalink, and is appropriately written and formatted for presentation in email clients, web browsers, or on handheld devices as needed. A day’s weather forcast, the arrival and departure times for an airplane flight, an abstract from a long publication, or a single instant message can all be examples of microcontent.

Things have changed dramatically since Anil Dash defined “microcontent” in 2002. That was before Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram … all platforms specializing in easy microcontent creation today.

Here’s my take on microcontent:

The opposite of long-form content like blog posts, white papers and reports, micro content is the status updates, quote images, Vine videos, Instagram photos that grab attention and act as effective lead generators, driving traffic back to your site (when done with a strategic plan in mind). Micro content is easy to create and takes less time than writing an article.

For example, authors, speakers and entrepreneurs who promote products and services, why not create a 6 second Vine video  short videos to promote your offer or announce new content?

Microcontent Drives Traffic

Your blog posts, articles, and ebooks take time and care to create.  The next step after publication is to promote your content and that’s when you turn to microcontent to spark curiosity and drive traffic. Knowing that social networks are great for sending traffic back to your home base (your blog of course), here are some ways you can use microcontent to invite your fans and followers back “home”:

• Post an image and link from your blog post as a Facebook status update (yes, this is very common, don’t forget to do it)
• Create an image with a pithy quote from your article; post the image on Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram
• Use the PushQuote plugin on your WordPress blog to create a shareable quote embedded in the post
• Use Vine to create a 6-second video about the main theme of your article
• Use the subheads in your blog post as tweets with a call to action and link to learn more
• Include pre-written tweets for your readers to easily share with Click to Tweet

NOTE: Vine is no longer active. You can create short-form videos, both live and recorded, on Instagram and Twitter.

Create a Microcontent Plan

Your content deserves to be found and read. Create a checklist you can use to promote your articles with microcontent. Then it becomes second nature for you or a virtual assistant to distribute the bread crumbs that leads fans, followers and prospects back to your door.

Create a checklist you can use to promote your articles with microcontent. Click to Tweet

1.  Determine the fastest, easiest type of microcontent for you to create.
2. Make sure the sites you choose to share your microcontent on is where your audience spends time.
3. As soon as you hit publish on your blog post, create and share your microcontent. If you wait, it may not get done. 🙂

Now it’s your turn… what kinds of microcontent do you create to promote your blog? Post it in the comments below and we’ll create a master list together!

This article was updated on April 18, 2017