What is snackable content? Not sure? No worries. Let’s take an imaginary trip to Costco on an empty stomach. You’re pushing an enormous shopping cart down the long aisles, chaos all around, trying to find exactly what you need among countless products. Just when your blood sugar tanks and you’re on the brink of calling it a day, you see him — the guy with the hairnet and red apron, wielding a toaster oven. Snacks!
Consumers are in a rush. They’re looking for quick bites of information that’ll give them what they need, fast. Snackable content is like that Costco bite — it fills you up just right, gives you a quick taste, and then points you to the exact location in the store where you can go to get more information — or buy the product.
Snackable content is valuable to your customers, but what, exactly, is snackable content, and how do you make it?
What is snackable content?
Like good snackable food, good snackable content is easy and enjoyable to consume and digest. It doesn’t make your customers work too hard for the payoff — and the payoff is so satisfying because it answers their questions without forcing them to slog through a dense treatise or watch a 15-minute video with a rambling, 13-minute intro to get the information they want now.
According to Global digital consultants Perficient, who compared Google Analytics data from 2019 and 2020, mobile devices drove 61 percent of traffic to American websites in 2020 — up from 57 percent in 2019. Globally, mobile devices drove 68.1 percent of all website visits in 2020 — up from 63.3 percent in 2019.
People are in a hurry, man — they’re sitting in the dentist’s office, waiting for their date to show up, or killing time on the john at work — and they don’t want fluff-filled nonsense. People are also largely inured to web content in general, so they definitely don’t want a boring read. They want content that catches their attention, sparks a connection, entertains them, tells them something they don’t already know. That right there is a bona fide dopamine hit, and when it happens, ears perk up — and pocketbooks come out.
How do you make snackable content?
Once you understand what snackable content is, it’s easy to create it. Snackable content is:
- Short. Don’t expect the masses to take the time to read 2,500 words on the benefits of free-trade coffee or watch a 17-minute video about how to prune your fruit trees. Get to the point already!
- Tasty. Snacks are all about flavor. The more fat and sugar, the bigger the dopamine hit. Bite by delicious bite, snackable content leaves your consumers satisfied — and maybe even wanting more.
- Simple. Snackable content takes a lot of information and concentrates into as few words as possible that pack lotsa heat and clearly nail the target. It’s the difference between tax forms and the comics
- Branded. Consistency in voice and vibe across all of your snackable content is the glue that makes your message cohesive, cements your brand’s personality, and lets your customers get to know you.
- Share-worthy. Snackable content done right is sharable content, and shared content has enormous potential for increasing traffic, engagement, backlinks, and visibility — and maybe even going viral.
From punchy product descriptions and concise city pages to website copy and blog articles, every bite of snackable content your company puts on the interwebs should align with your long-term content strategy, your company’s values, and whatever other content you’re producing.
5 snackable content types for ultimate engagement
Just as some people like chips with their Netflix binge and others like M&Ms, different people prefer different types of snackable content — and different businesses may have more success with one type of snackable content than another. A geriatric vitamin brand probably wouldn’t have much use for TikTok videos, and a conservative corporate law firm probably isn’t going to splash dank memes across their website.
Here are a few snackable content types that can drive results — if you do it well.
Video Content
Snackable video content is short, compelling, and entertaining.
While you’re filming for a particular video, think ahead to other types of content you could create using the current setup — if you’re filming a video on how to use your company’s smart umbrella and you have a rain machine for the day, film some shots of someone splashing around in your popular yellow rubber rain boots, too. Edit it into a 10-second clip, and post it on social with musings about the weather.
Film extra footage for your current project that may come in handy as you edit or create other video assets. And once you have a final long-form or short-form video product, see where you can repurpose it — use a 15-second clip here or a 30-second excerpt there for social media campaigns, or embed relevant video content in related blog posts. Always be looking for opportunities to post short videos — including Tik Toks!
Finally, don’t forget all of your existing video content. See what your company currently has in the library and what you can repurpose into short, snackable videos for your blog, social, website, or email blasts.
Infographics
When they’re done well, infographics are some of the best snacks on the internet. Snackable infographics impart small bits of info in a single image that’s easy on the eyes and gentle on the brain. Everyone loves infographics, and unlike in the olden days, you can DIY them — usually for free — with the help of tools like Canva, Venngage, and Piktochart.
Snackable infographics are versatile, too — use them to create step-by-step instructions, a timeline, share stats, or highlight main points. Repurpose them for social media or email marketing campaigns, or use them in blog posts.
Memes
Memes are even more snackable than infographics, but they’re not for everyone. Memes use an image overlaid with text — usually funny or ironic — to elicit a strong emotional response. Do them right, and you can get a lot of mileage out of them. Do them wrong, and you’ll look like a geezer and get your fair share of eye-rolls.
Memes are particularly palatable to Millennials and Gen Z. According to the latest social media behaviors survey by YPulse, 75 percent of 13- to 36-year-olds share memes with others — 55 percent of them do it weekly, 30 percent do it daily, and 20 percent send multiple memes every single day.
That’s a whole lotta sharing goin’ on. If this age group is a key demographic for your company and you aren’t creating killer memes, you might be losing out!
As you make your memes, keep in mind that 74 percent of meme-sharers do it to make people laugh, and 53 percent do it to show how they’re feeling. If nobody on your team is meme-savvy, find someone to create them who has a good handle on meme culture so you don’t get trounced. Post your memes on social media, and if they’re share-worthy, they’ll be seen far and wide.
Gifs
Gifs are great for demos, before-and-afters, product highlights, expressing a thought or emotion, or adding special flavor to a blog post. A gif falls somewhere between a meme and a video — it’s a very short, silent, repeating video loop with or without text. Like memes, gifs are highly shareable — especially if they’re entertaining. And, like memes, you want to make sure you got game before you gif.
Hub-and-spoke pillar pages
For brands with a blog, a hub-and-spoke article content provides opportunities for short, snackable blog posts (500 to 750 words) that link off to longer, more in-depth articles (1000 to 1500 words or more) — and vice-versa.
Not only is this model great for SEO and keeping traffic on your site longer, but it also gives you the opportunity to get really granular with your content and rank for more niche search terms. For example, if you’re a home decor e-comm, a longer, more comprehensive hub page might be entitled, “How to Bring Your Living Room to Life.” Each section links off to shorter, more detailed sub-pages — the spokes — that provide more specific, snackable information about everything from different types of carpet fibers to choosing a color palette.
Hub-and-spoke content also helps you create a tighter content strategy that leads potential customers through the funnel, educating and inspiring every step of the way.
Look for outside support
Snackable content is all well and good, but it takes time to create. The sad reality is that many companies are downsizing their in-house creative teams and leaving marketing departments strapped for time as it is — forget spending the hours needed to produce even snackable content, especially on a tight deadline.
When it’s time to hire a creative agency, look no further than Stretch Creative. Our mid-market brands and Fortune 100 clients view us as an extension of their team, and that’s how we like to operate — collaboratively and aligned on your content goals, KPIs, and marketing and SEO strategies. Snackable content is storytelling at its finest, and that’s our jam — the delicious kind you slather over your PB on two fresh, fluffy pieces of bread.
Stretch Creative takes creating stories seriously — and in fact, “snackable” is one of our internal tenets for everything our writers and designers produce. And that’s because of snackable works. If you’re hungry for bite-sized content that’ll inspire your customers to spring for the whole meal, we’d love to hear from you and see how we can help you get snackable at any scale.