Capsulized content increasingly commands attention as we demand and come to love concise messages.
There it is. This entire blog post in the now popular capsule format, which is taking over our world.
The cause: The power of search engines grants us instant access to what we want. That instant access causes us to raise expectations for what we pay attention to. We no longer have patience for flowery writing dancing around its core message. So the capsulized message is taking on a new popularity. Look at the evolution of the New York Times front page in the past decade.
Notice the increasing number of capsulized teasers at the bottom of each page.
2002
2005
2009
And I don’t know about you, but just about half of the Tweets I get include a link and a one-line phrase or headline attempting to draw clicks to it.
Even Facebook has conformed to the Twitter “quick fact” format.
This capsulizing trend is penetrating deep into our media culture—and with a common theme: Concise and complete, yet teasing catch phrases try to lure our attention to their content. Whether it’s clicking a link to a product homepage, turning to the Business section or dragging news-hungry tweeps to a blog, the Art of Tease is changing quickly. Advertisements or marketing schemes that try to reel in customers by showing them only a preview of their product or service no longer thrive. The new goal is to present the target audience with the main idea of the message simply and clearly. The Marketing Experiments Blog creed states “Clarity trumps persuasion.” It’s happening all over the web.
The majority of advertisements on Google and Facebook consist of one or two sentences and a picture. The most effective of these ads have an attractive picture and some concise writing is a necessity for delivering a simple and interesting message. Consumers, microbloggers and even the average Joe love this “get to the point” method. They eat it up. They won’t tolerate anything less (or should I say “more?”).
So what does this mean for all of us? I can spot two emerging trends.
First, our own writing will improve from this exposure to succinct material. With Twitter as the fastest-growing social media tool at 1382%, microblogging is taking off faster than ever before. Lindsey from Synthesis Communications writes in her blog article “Why Twitter Helps You Write Better”:
Twitter has a 140 word character limit in which you must express yourself as succinctly as possible. Several times I’ve found through my tweets that I’ve gone on too long and had to reword my sentences. This rewording has made my sentences clearer and easy to read.
If we want people to read our content, we have no choice but to write better. So many people are blogging nowadays that great writing will prevail by presenting interesting content in intelligent and direct ways.
This prevalence is the second trend. Blogging and microblogging will hinge on quotable material. Other sources will quote content they find worded in witty ways. Ann Wylie, president of Wylie Communications, presents some tips on writing sound bytes for press releases. The same or similar rules will apply to all content.
The Bottom Line: Anyone who wants attention directed at their content will need to keep up with the rising demand for simple, clear and direct language.
