What Is Snackable Content? How to Create and Use Snackable Content?

Let’s imagine that you’re a startup that sells personal care. Now you might think that your products will fly off your shelves just by offering people a glimpse of their benefits. What you don’t know is that creating even a simple post requires you to get your marketing efforts off the ground.

If you don’t have enough staff to write great long-form articles, and your audience is looking for content, you need to tell more about yourself so that they can consume it quickly and share it. What will you do to grab their attention and give them well-informed content? In such a case, you may try to create content that is short, sweet, and easily consumable. That’s what’s called ‘snackable content’ amongst marketers. The concept is exactly what it sounds like – something more ‘convenient’, like a pizza slice or chips, to satisfy your cravings as opposed to legitimate meals.

Content marketing is changing, and so are the ways marketers are defining ‘the future of content marketing.’ The bite-sized or snackable content is what people are demanding to satisfy their desire for entertainment, knowledge, or news.

Below, we’ll give more context to the term “snackable content” and tell you how to create it.

What is snackable content?

Think of your favourite pizza! The snackable content is precisely the bite-sized pieces of your favourite pizza.

Snackable content is a short form of digestible, straightforward, and visually engaging content, which you most commonly see on social media channels. The basic idea behind designing it is to communicate messages quickly over mobile devices. There are different formats of snackable content through which you can reduce engagement time, and we’ll look at it in the later sections.

It’s easy to assume that such content is made to pass the information immediately, but here’s the catch – users don’t have enough time to read through passages while on their phones while on the go.

There are some statistics you need to glance at before we move further.

Why is Snackable Content Important?

Today’s digital age is overloaded with information. Even our busy work lives have affected our effective communication, and we are often in a hurry to deliver our message in the shortest and most effortless way possible. Even if you relate to this fact or not, here are some numbers that will leave you wondering how and why this snackable content ever came into existence.

• People tend to consume more than five times more information as compared to 1986.
• According to a recent study by Microsoft, the average attention span has eroded to about eight seconds. This number has shrunk nearly to 25%.
• Daily time spent on a smartphone device using the internet is about 155 minutes (approximately 2.5 hours).
• Vox says that on average, an internet user checks their phone 58 times daily.
• According to Outerboxdesign, almost 10 million mobile phone devices are currently in use.

Shocking right?

Many social media platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, and Buzzfeed are meant for snackable content. So, now, can you say that it is one of the most crucial elements of your content strategy? Also, these digestible content pieces are inherently more accessible than long-form content, but, even then, the creation of snackable content comes with a host of challenges and strategies. Its potential payoffs are quick and offer a prompt, wider reach compared to other long-form content formats.

In the abstract, the objective of snackable content is to offer snappy entertainment, precipitate immediate social sharing, and attract new leads. Some content formats facilitate it exceptionally well.

Here are some of the attention-grabbing ‘snackable’ content formats that might work for your business.

Snackable Content Formats

The top four formats of snackable content most commonly used are:

Infographics

Infographics are the best medium to relay information and other meaningful content without sacrificing the essence of stackability. The format is engaging, fun to read, and practical. As conveyed by Forbes, infographics can boost the credibility of your information by as much as 90 percent. The impact happens visually since the content is presented in a simple yet creative way.

It isn’t mandatory to design the infographics in a proper structure or sequence, and here’s an example you can refer to.

Source: Twitter

Infographics are accessible, dynamic, and still enriching because they present much technical and comprehensive information in a summarized way using pretty pictures and critical points.

GIFs

GIFs are compulsively shareable content that can go tremendously viral. In technical terms, GIFs are short videos or moving animations that inevitably possess anyone’s attention, and they can communicate a lot in merely a few seconds. These are versatile since they silently show captivating emotions and reactions for the sake of entertainment.

But, that’s not just it; GIFs are also a beneficial marketing tool.

Source: Behance.net

GIFs are compelling since the use of high-quality images makes them perfect snackable content. The format is worth sharing, as it not only offers what the company is producing but gives snippets of what’s inside those products. Leverage GIFs by using them in your blogs, social media creatives, or ad banners for more engagement.

Image graphics

Images with quotes or text can capture attention to themselves if used with captivating visuals. You can experiment well with pictures and texts. For example, if you don’t find a quote relevant to what you’re referring to, add snackable texts or one-liners that are still linked to your business. Let’s look at some examples:

Source: Flickr

You can use quotes or inspirational words that are worth sharing to deliver your message. Use them with images because it makes them really engaging. Don’t forget to provide attributions and cite your sources.

Memes

This probably is one of the favourite formats of many reading this – Memes. They are the perfect example of snackable content. From animals to politicians and cartoons, memes make up most of the conversations on social media, minus the words. The key to creating the best memes is to always be relevant to the audience and, of course, be funny. Memes are specifically tailored to entertain and, most importantly, express yourself.

Here are some examples that we found funny.

Source: Twitter

Source: 4kdownload

Needless to say, creating memes is an art, albeit a delicate one, because they need to be straightforward and blunt. That being said, it is essential to remember that if you’re using entertaining memes, make sure they don’t upset your audience.

These are the most popular snackable content formats that your readers or audience will engage with for sure. If you’re able to supplement and populate your business with unique snackable content, do it. Perhaps with some effort, you’ll be standing with good reach, efficacy, and position. Nevertheless, the biggest question to address now is – how to create snackable content.

Let’s look at a few tips that can help you easily create snackable content.

Tips to create snackable content easily!

Listed here are some tips that can help you create some solid and impactful snackable content:

• Repurpose your previous content, like blogs or articles that performed well online, by adapting it to another format. Start promoting your content again. You might as well get some new traffic to old content.
• Put social media to the best use. Pick up a takeaway and turn the piece into an infographic or a meme.
• Mix up some old or long content and make some ‘snacks’. Ensure that they are digestible and improve the value of your content.
• Use snippets from videos to make GIFs that are relatable to your audience base and promote them on social media channels.
• Share your snackable content across social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.

Keep your audience hungry for more

Bite-sized chunks are enough for them

Bullet points are your best friends, and so are subheadings, short paragraphs, and other skimmable statistics. Even these bite-sized chunks need to be made carefully through language and design. Try making the content a lot easier to read and more desirable to be consumed.

Keep it scannable

Your audience is busy, but that doesn’t mean you should stop sharing long and filling content. It’s understood that snackable content is all about length. So, keep your blogs lengthy, but for your reader’s convenience, slack them up into bite-size pieces.

Tell them what’s inside your ‘headline’

A headline is a trigger point, and reading just the headline sets expectations about what the content is about. Provide justice to the two jobs that a headline has – one, accurately describe what’s discussed in the content, and two, urge them to read what’s inside.

Don’t keep them waiting

People don’t like to wait, and busy ones especially don’t. Provide them with value consistently and immediately. Keeping them waiting for what’s the answer to the question in your headline will only discourage them from reading any further. Capture and retain them with your words and visuals.

Introduce them to something new often

Things may seem boring after a while, which is why you need to add some spice every now and then. The key is to bring something new and exciting to feed their interests.

Summing up

Digital channels are an ideal home for your snackable content to be shared and consumed by the audience. The only rule you have to follow is – to get right to the point, offer value to your audience, and deliver beyond their expectations. Don’t limit yourself to platforms like Instagram or Facebook. Instead, try and test how snackable content works with your email marketing, advertising, and other social media marketing activities. See what’s best for your business and continue to improvise. You want more people to reach out to you. Give them an easy way to get to you.