As social media platforms expand and attention spans shorten, so does the time you have to capture readers’ attention and get them to stop scrolling – two seconds to be exact. It’s called “thumb stopping content” and that is what Jim Mancari spends his days analyzing and creating. He’s Director, Digital Marketing and Social Media for NYC Health + Hospitals and says the challenge to create content that will stop readers in their path is a dynamic one, with a target that is constantly shifting and changing.
“The goal is to be relevant and engage our readers,” Jim said. “That means thinking about what we say, how we say it, and then posting it at the right time in the right place. Content has to matter to a reader to stop them as they scroll.”
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok and numerous other platforms have already splintered reader’s attention and there are always new platforms crashing into view. So how does one cut through the noise to command attention in a target audience’s content feed? By generating relevant content and knowing what you are doing every day. James has hardwired specific tools to generate purposeful content.
First you organize: By generation, topic, current events, community interests, hospital health services, and by calendar day, time, week, and month.
Then you integrate: Messaging, channels, and timing. This is the weaving of content into a tapestry that makes sense. It matches messaging to audiences and schedules publication at the right time in the right place, so it hits when it is relevant.
You make sure the lead is at the top: Your audience isn’t going to stop on their way by if the image, message, video or audio aren’t compelling. Put the point of the story at the very front, if it stops them there is a greater chance they will read or view the entire story. But if the front is boring, you’ve lost them.
You learn where your audience is: Where is each audience segment? What platforms are they on? Data informs you and is critical to molding the message to the audience in a way that makes sense on the platform.
Remember: Everyone is on their phones: All content is mobile. Create it that way.
“At the end of the day, we don’t want to compete with ourselves,” says Jim. “We need to make sure that we use data, knowledge of our audience, and the unique characteristics of each platform to expand our social reach. That’s what it’s all about – talking to the people we care about to keep them well and give them access to information that will make their lives better. We can do that through digital marketing and social media, but we must always have our ears to the ground and our eyes on the audience.”
Great advice – and we can help. We know there is always more content than you can get to. We can help. We triage content – mining it from inside your organization, organizing, and producing it. We offer content generation, written by healthcare insiders, that expands your bandwidth and gets work done.