Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

How people consume content has shifted massively in recent years, and businesses creating content in the hopes of spreading the word need to adapt or risk becoming invisible and irrelevant. Content consumption has changed, and gone are the days when you could just pump out a blog post or video and expect people to flock to it. Nope, that’s no longer going to work. Audiences today have higher expectations as well as many more distractions competing for their limited attention, so you need to take a different approach to creating and sharing content for your business.

I realised this the hard way a few years ago when I was blogging for a side hustle brand I was running. Back then, I’d spend hours meticulously crafting these long-winded, information-packed posts without much thought given to formatting or how people would find them and actually read them. The posts were essentially miniature ebooks dropped onto the blog.

Traffic was flat despite my energetic publishing schedule. It took digging into analytics to see that the majority of my audience was viewing on mobile devices. Oh, I see…. My 2,000-word essay blogs were incredibly difficult to consume on a small smartphone screen, and besides alllllll those words looked terribly dull. The content, though valuable information, just wasn’t hitting the mark.

Lesson learned – optimise for the way your audience actually consumes content or you’re wasting everyone’s time.

That experience was an early wake-up call to some of the biggest content consumption trends we’re seeing today

(1) Mobile-first/Responsive design

Mobile-friendly is totally non-negotiable at this point. If your content isn’t optimised to be easily consumed on smartphones and tablets, you’re shooting yourself in the foot from the start. People are constantly bouncing between devices throughout the day, from their phones during commutes and tea breaks, to laptops at work and tablets at home. For it to be read, your content needs to look great and function flawlessly on every screen size and platform.

(2) Short, scannable, vertical Content

On mobile especially, people aren’t reading information line-by-line like they would a book or desktop website. They’re quickly scanning vertically as they scroll with their thumbs. This means your content needs to be very clear, concise, and easy to skim through with clear section titles. Massive walls of text are the kiss of death. Leverage formatting techniques like brief paragraph intros, bulleted lists, clear sub headers, and visuals to break up content into easily digestible chunks.

(3) Video & multimedia

While compelling writing is still hugely important, you can’t rely on text alone anymore. Humans are innately visual creatures. Adding video, photography, motion graphics, animated GIFs and more helps catch people’s attention and improve information retention. That said, video shouldn’t just be slapped on as an afterthought. Put real thought into creatively visualising your concepts and messages in ways that enhance and complement the text.

(4) Audience-first, not Hollywood productions

But with video, and all the new multimedia production apps out there, it’s easy to get distracted chasing whatever’s shiny and new. Fancy video editing suites, 3D animation tools, audio mixing software – they’re all incredible resources, but they shouldn’t dictate your content strategy. Always start by understanding how your specific audience wants to consume information first. Their preferences and behaviour should shape the scope and format of your content, not just what fancy output you’re able to produce.

(5) Be omnipresent

People are consuming content across more channels and platforms than ever before – social media, messaging apps, email newsletters, podcasts, voice assistants, and more. You can’t just leave it up to your website or blog alone to share the message. You need an omnipresent content distribution strategy to show up wherever your audience is paying attention. The important takeaway here is to maintain a presence and customise your content efforts across all the relevant channels.

(6) Constantly experiment

What works for audience engagement is continuously growing and evolving alongside new technologies and cultural trends. As a creator of content for your business, you need to regularly experiment with new content formats, distribution channels, storytelling techniques, and more. Always be developing your content strategy based on real data and feedback about what’s actually resonating with your audience. The moment you get complacent is the moment you get passed by other businesses doing the work.

(7) Leverage user-generated content

Don’t just create all your own content from scratch. Tap into your audience as a source of content as well. Encourage them to share their stories, photos, videos, reviews, and more. User-generated content (UGC) adds authenticity, saves on costs, and helps build a tighter-knit community around your brand. Develop campaigns, contests and incentives to motivate this affordable stream of user-created material.

(8) Prioritise content discoverability

It’s not enough to just create great content. You need to make sure your target audience can actually find it. Pay close attention to SEO best practices like keyword optimisation, topical authority, linking, and more. On social media, leverage hashtags, join niche communities, and team up with influencers to expand your potential reach.

At the end of the day, successfully creating content for your business today is as much about psychology as it is about your writing ability or production skills. You need to deeply understand your audience’s mindset, habits, and content consumption preferences. The end goal should be for you to offer them an optimised experience, in the way they want to engage rather than forcing them to adapt to you. It starts with a strategy that’s then updated based on real insights about what’s working (or not). Businesses that can master the audience-first content mentality will be the ones that thrive, so make sure that’s the camp you’re in!

FAQs

If video and multimedia are huge and writing is still key, how do you strike a balance without sacrificing quality in either area?

Look, writing has to come first – it’s the core of any content strategy. But you can’t just rely on dry text alone nowadays. People are visual creatures, so you need to enhance and bring your key messages to life through video, graphics, animations and more. The trick is being thoughtful and strategic about it. Don’t just tack on some multimedia bling for bling’s sake. Step back and figure out the most impactful way to visualise your messaging. Maybe that’s an explainer video series, infographic pages, or animated chapters woven throughout a long-form article. Let your message and audience’s preferences dictate the format.

Mobile devices have us all obsessed with short, vertical, snackable content. But how do you maintain a cohesive brand voice and personality with that fragmented approach?

You’re right, there’s a real risk of your business’s identity getting diluted or inconsistent when you start chopping up content into all these different bite-sized chunks for various platforms.

The solution is taking a modular content approach. You create some solid core brand messaging and a personality that’s consistent across everywhere. But then, you’re able to selectively pluck out elements and repackage them into segments as needed. Doing this means your brand’s overall voice, visual identity and high-level narratives remain steady guideposts, but you’ve given yourself the flexibility to shape how your content is shaped and distributed for different consumption experiences.

Having a presence across so many platforms seems overwhelming for small businesses. How can they keep up with it all?

Feeling overwhelmed is totally understandable. The number of potential distribution channels has exploded – websites, blogs, social media, video platforms, podcasting, email newsletters, and more.

But here’s the thing – you don’t have to be everywhere. That’s a quick path to spreading yourself way too thin.

Start by focusing just on the 2-3 places where your specific audience is most engaged. Maybe it’s Instagram, YouTube and your website. Or Facebook, LinkedIn and your blog. Begin and concentrate on wherever your analytics indicate people are.

From there, you can later find ways to smartly repurpose your pillar or “hero” master content into tailored snippets or episodes for other platforms. That’ll generate way more mileage and efficiency versus trying to produce net-new bespoke pieces for every channel.

Want to talk about this for your business? Click here to reach out for a chat!