Have you ever considered who is consuming your short-form content versus your long-form content?
Are they the same people? Do they have the same motivations?
And most importantly…how do you convert those casual fans of your short-form content into devoted superfans of your long-form content?
In this episode and blog post, we reveal some top tips on doing just that. We explain how short- and long-form content serve different purposes for different audiences and uncover 3 ways you can get those casual fans to immerse themselves in your long-form content.
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What do we mean by short-form and long-form content?
Before we get into the meat of this topic, let’s differentiate these two forms of content.
Prime examples of short-form content are tweets, short LinkedIn posts, short social media videos, for example, TikToks, Instagram Reels and Instagram Stories. You could throw memes, graphics, polls and GIFs into the mix as well.
Bitesize, easy-to-consume yet probably low impact – those are the hallmarks of short-form content.
Long-form content is more along the lines of podcast episodes, blog posts, other written content such as cornerstone articles or thought leadership pieces as well as livestreams and other longer video content.
Since the birth of Vine and TikTok’s uber-short-form video content, I would argue that anything over 5 minutes is considered long-form these days!
This type of content has a much deeper, higher impact but usually a lower overall reach. After all, not everyone has the time or will to watch an hour-long video or read a 5,000-word blog post. So, it’s no surprise that bite-sized content is more popular for some, and it’s more of an ask to get people to spend more time with you.
We covered the customer’s journey from consuming short-form content to making a purchasing decision in a previous episode: The Content Repurposing Customer Journey: from Mobile to Long-Form to Buying. Check out this blog post and podcast episode for more on that.
So, now we have cleared up the trademarks of both forms of content…
What is their purpose?
As nice as it would be to have people stumbling upon your long-form content and consuming it in its entirety, in reality, that doesn’t happen as often as we’d hope!
The analogy often used here is “it’s like expecting someone to marry you before you even go on a date!”
This is why we need short-form content.
It’s crucial to carefully craft your short-form content to attract a new audience. And if you can make it impactful enough, you might just convert them to your long-form content too.
We see this happen in the real world all the time. For example, have you ever been in a food court in a shopping mall where vendors are not giving out sample pots? I haven’t. There’s always the chance to try before you buy. They want you to keep on walking past, trying those tasty little bites of orange chicken... and before you know it, you’ve ordered the whole meal!
The hope is that by trying before buying, you will be confident enough to make a purchasing decision.
It’s exactly the same with content! People who enjoy your short-form content are much more likely to get onboard with watching your longer videos or diving into your detailed blog posts or eBooks.
You short-form content gives them the trust that you are worth spending more time with.
Who do they serve?
Short-form content is perfect for attracting new audiences. It gives your audience the chance to decide whether you’re worth their time! It continues to be perfect for staying front-of-mind with these people.
This means the longer form content you’re creating should be geared towards more established fans who have moved past the “attract” stage of your content strategy and are invested in you. This content is used to nurture those fans and should elaborate on the topics you cover briefly in your short-form content.
We create longer-form content to satisfy those who want to spend more time with us, and trust what we have to say.
But what are the most effective ways to convert the casual fans? How do we get those people we’ve drawn in to become established and loyal superfans?
Converting short-form new fans to long-form superfans: our 3 tips
1. Focus on quality
It may sound pretty obvious but putting in the hard yards and ensuring your short-form content does its job is vital. It needs to catch the eye and be tailored to the channel it’s posted on.
Kraus Marketing Group ran a report in 2022 saying data scientists and media analysts believe the average consumer attention span is just…
…wait for it…
…8 seconds!
With a mere 8 seconds to work with, your content needs to be eye-catching, clear, and straight to the point for maximum impact.
Whether it’s a snappy piece of text, a graphic, a TikTok or an audiogram, make sure it gets the message across in a powerful way.
2. Use clear calls-to-action
Want people to check out your long-form content? Sometimes, all you need to do is ask…
People who enjoy your short-form content might not know who you are, what you do, or that you create other valuable content.
That’s why a call-to-action (CTA) is so crucial. Rather than consuming your content and moving on, a CTA encourages your audience to stop and check out something else they might like.
Often, people won’t make that step themselves, so a CTA can be a gentle nudge.
Your call-to-action doesn’t even need to invite them to find more of your content. It could be a call for engagement, like asking them to like and reply to a tweet or comment on a short video on LinkedIn.
But, by all means, let your audience know where they can find more great content.
Follow us on Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn to see some examples of how we use calls-to-action.
(Psst…that was a call-to-action!)
3. Repurposing your content
If you have a huge cornerstone article or an hour-long masterclass video, you can’t expect all your fans to just stumble across them one day.
Instead, you’ve got to entice them in. Remember how people like to get little samples of food before buying a main meal? That’s how you bring in your audience.
Don’t just create a huge blog post or video, post a couple of tweets and forget it. Repurpose your long-form content into lots of little bite-sized pieces that give your audience a taster of what they can get in the full version.
And if you create long-form content with repurposing in mind, you’ll find it much easier to split it up into shorter pieces of content such as teaser videos, quote graphics, or Reels.
You can also reverse that and repurpose your short-form content into long-form content too.
For example, if you create an infographic or thought-provoking tweet that people love, you could expand on it with a longer blog post or a podcast episode.
We covered this idea in a previous episode: The Best Way to Repurpose Content: Long-Form to Short-Form or Vice Versa?, so have a read or a listen for more details.
In Conclusion
Generally speaking, short-form content attracts new fans and long-form content satisfies existing fans. And to get the best of both worlds, you should create both types of content.
Will you be trying these 3 ideas to earn yourself some new superfans? Let us know how you do!
If you need help with content repurposing, let us know! Our content repurposing services match your marketing strategy to help you maximize your content. To find out more about our services, click here.
For more tips, browse our library of podcast episodes and blog posts. Plus, you can get your hands on our book Content 10x: More Content, Less Time, Maximum Results for further content repurposing assistance.