Scrolling through the Statue of Liberty

According to a recent study by Hearst Digital Media, on average, users scroll through 300 social posts a day and that is about the height of the Statue of Liberty, arm and torch included. That is definitely a lot of real estate that we cover every day. How we are not getting cramps in our fingertips is beyond us. That said, the real problem here is another one: how do we stand out from this massive content overload? And most importantly, how do we make our brands jump off the screen? The standard answer that we hear is “Well, we’ve got to create good content”. But is that enough? And what does “good” mean here?

We can apply all the best practices in the world, change the scripts, show the pay-off in the first 6 seconds, convey the message in 3 seconds, etc. but it’s turning to be really difficult to become memorable. And it’s not just the quality of the content at this point, but also quantity matters a great deal. So, what’s the secret ingredient?

What does it mean for us marketers?

Standing out from the mass is becoming harder and harder every day because the mass is becoming smarter and more skilled. Content creators (and means professionals and not professionals) have access to better tools and they are constantly refining their tactics. So, if we want to be the one piece of content to jump off the screen out of those 300, we need to raise the bar higher than ever before. So, the terminology “good content” nowadays embodies attributes that go beyond the more canonic “quality content” that we all refer to. It doesn’t have to be just good, but we need to have great timing, good targeting, and amazing relevance. And we as marketers should think of all those factors together while creating an integrated campaign. If this is complicated now, try to imagine how hard it will get when instead of the Statue of Liberty, we’ll scroll through the Empire State Building.