Everyone knows the feeling of sitting on the couch with drinks and snacks waiting for the next episode of your favorite show to come on. As the opening credits begin, an air of excitement builds up and keeps you coming back week after week. What if your content marketing strategy could elicit the same response?
Episodic content is a content strategy that turns your content into “episodes” that encourage people to come back for more. Each episode ends on a cliffhanger that captures the attention of viewers and encourages them to interact with the next coming piece of content that continues the story. In this blog, we’ll explain why episodic content works and how you can create it for your own marketing brand.
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Keeping Your Audience on the Hook
Episodic content was created to capture the attention of users. We as consumers are already built to want to hear the end of a story. We want to know what happens next. By taking that excitement to know more and applying it to content, you can captivate your audience and turn them into loyal subscribers.
Here are a few of the biggest reasons why you should consider episodic content for your content marketing plan.
Grows Your Audience
Episodic content is great for companies that want to increase their brand recognition and gain new followers. Because algorithms for seeing new content on social media platforms vary, people will need to subscribe to your channels in order to guarantee they will see the next part of your episodic content release. This helps you attract followers and gain more loyal subscribers to your brand.
Great for Social Media Visibility
Speaking of social media platforms, episodic content helps you increase visibility by playing into what the algorithms are looking for. Social media platforms like to see consistency by brands. It helps them know more about your brand and lets them know you are reliable and consistent. The more regular your episodic content is, the more social media platforms will promote it.
Optimizes Your Content Planning
Using episodic content can help you streamline and optimize your content planning process. Because you’re essentially taking one idea and turning it into many parts, you can create many pieces of content without much brainstorming or new topic creation. Instead, you can take a single idea, break it into multiple content outlines, and distribute it over time to increase your chances of content success.
Keeps Your Brand Front and Center
Let’s face it: audiences have short attention spans. There are hundreds of distractions and other sources that are competing for the attention of each individual consumer. By having episodic content built into your marketing plan, you can keep your brand at the front of your customers’ minds and keep them returning for more.
How to Create Episodic Content
Now that you know the benefits of episodic content, let’s dive into some tips on how you can create the best content possible to drive great results.
Determine Your Audience
To begin your episodic content journey, you’ll need to think of your audience. You want to have a specific audience in mind to cater to as you plan your content. Think about which persona you want to target or which new audience you want to bring in. This will help you pick the tone and direction of your episodic content.
Focus on Your Story
Episodic content is all about storytelling. You’ll want to come up with a great story that people will want to come back to hear. Not every idea is worthy of being episodic, so think carefully about how you want to focus on your audience. Think about what parts of the story could be turned into cliffhangers and where there are natural breaks for different episodes.
Select Your Style of Episodic Content
Next, you’ll need to select the style or type of episodic content you want to create. There is a wide range, from basic blogs that detail the story, to in-depth videos. Here are a few common types of episodic content to get you started:
- YouTube Videos
- Social Media Posts
- Podcast Episodes
- Infographic Series
- Blog or Article Posts
Plan Your Content Calendar
The final step is to plan your episodic content on your content calendar. This can be trickier than you might expect. You want to leave time between updates of your episodes; otherwise, there’s no point in having episodic content. But you also need to make sure you aren’t waiting too long, or people might forget or lose interest. Being consistent is key. That way, audiences know exactly when to tune in for new content.
How Humans of New York Increased Their Visibility with Episodic Content
A great example of episodic marketing at work comes from the Humans of New York brand. This organization began as a photography channel on social media but has turned into a large empire through the power of episodic media.
Humans of New York takes photos of ordinary people and conducts interviews about their lives. These stories and photos are released in parts on social media, which helps drive content to their channels and increases follower conversions. By turning these stories into episodes, Humans of New York was able to grow its brand and expand its network of storytelling to a global level.
Wrap Up: Get Creative With Episodic Content
Today’s content marketing world is increasingly competitive. Standing out requires new tactics you might not have considered before, like episodic content. By tapping into our desire to see things through and tune in for new information, you can increase your traffic and drive more conversions with episodic content.
Creating great episodic content is easier than you think. WriterAccess can help you create effective and out-of-the-box content to drive your results. Start a 14-day trial to boost your content marketing game!
