The chase is ever more challenging. Capturing readers’ attention with your content is simply a tough game – content output has increased by 78 percent over the last two years but engagement has dropped by 60 percent, according to TrackMaven’s survey of 8,800 brands. What’s more, the same study reveals that over 40 percent of professionally-marketed blog posts receive fewer than 10 reader interactions. Organisations measure online engagement using a broad range of criteria depending on the type of content and the business goals for the content. For blog posts, the criteria might include dwell time, scrolling activity and comments; for emails, they might be opens and click-throughs; and for social media sites, shares and numbers of followers.
While organisations are pumping out ever more content, readers on average are noticing it and reacting to it less. But engaging users is not just a matter of quality over quantity, although for business schools well-crafted, on-brand content is certainly important. Higher education marketers also need to deliver their messages in the right way.
Here are five ways to accomplish both:
1. Visualise and write for a single person
You know your target audience well, where they come from and what kinds of questions or concerns they have when considering applying to business school. So, use this to your advantage when creating content. Come up with an ideal customer and write to that person. Thinking this way will help you generate topics for your content, regardless of whether it’s a blog article or an Instagram share. And it will help you write in a way that personalises the message so that users feel the information is intended directly for them.
2. Up the images
It’s well-known that online readers are drawn to content that includes strong visuals. Business schools can make their website content highly engaging to prospective students, for example, by displaying images of the campus, classrooms and students, as University of Richmond’s Robins School of Business does admirably.
Some blog articles, especially data-driven ones, will have better reach if they are turned into infographics, like this one from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas, since these visual posts are liked and shared on social media three-times more than any other kind of content.
Instagram has become the new darling of engagement – although its engagement numbers are declining, they are doing so at a lower rate than those of other channels according to the TrackMaven study. This may be why the Tuck School of Business lets alumni and students “take over” the institution’s Instagram account for a day or week each month to do their own storytelling, as in this example.
3. Integrate user feedback
Interactive content – or content that asks the reader to participate in an activity related to the topic – can be an effective way to engage them. Surveys and quizzes are one way to accomplish this and can provide you with useful feedback. Take a look at this example in a blog post on the Betterment investing site. You can create surveys inexpensively with online providers like SurveyMonkey or SmartSurvey.
While infographics are appealing, interactive infographics are magnetic. They prompt the user to click on certain areas to reveal more information, as in this one explaining why our brains like infographics.
A simple way to encourage interaction is to ask a question. Post a photo or article link on Facebook and pose a question to spark a discussion thread. Or ask for user’s thoughts on the topic at the end of a blog post.
4. Experiment with content and channels
Your content will have considerably more impact if it is shared in the right way. This means posting on the right days and times. For instance, since most LinkedIn users check the site during working hours, it’s best to post on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays in the morning, at noon, or in the late afternoon.
It also means posting the right amount of content in each channel. For instance, one study suggests that the ideal length of a Facebook post is less than 40 characters. And blog posts perform best when they are around 1,600 words.
You will need to test the engagement results of your posts and adjust the schedule, especially if your audience is international. Test posting content on weekends, too, as some media platforms (e.g., Twitter) draw a large share of users on Saturdays and Sundays.
5. Focus on great headlines
Good headlines and subject lines have always been important to getting users’ attention. But now in the very crowded social media space, they are all but required. Research shows that 80 percent of online readers will only read the headline. Your subject line’s goal is to get them to read to the first paragraph, and if you’ve done a good job of making that powerful, you’ll hook them until the end.
Overall, subject lines should be specific, so that the user immediately understands what is going to be delivered. The Capital Ideas blog from Chicago Booth does this well, for example, with headlines like: “How stores can minimize supply chain blunders” and “What economists think about a $15 minimum wage.”
Numbers in headlines are statistically shown to lead to higher open rates (odd numbers are better than even ones), as in “5 Data Insights into the Headlines Readers Click”, because digits enhance the readability of text.
Users are learning to deal with online information overload by becoming less tolerant of content that does not grab their eyes immediately. That is an online marketer’s biggest challenge nowadays – to deliver value that compels them to linger a few minutes longer.
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Kate Rodriguez is a former senior career search researcher and government analyst who covers career development and higher education marketing for The Economist Careers Network.