Today we’re talking about ways to rethink or atomize your content. What is atomization? Let’s go to one of our favorite resources for asking questions, where Franz Riedl says,
“Atomized content basically implies sharing your content in small bits, i.e. breaking it into 'atoms'. In the modern concept, atomized content means breaking big data into small pieces and distributing it separately. The perks of doing it are, content become more 'findable' and content gets consumed more.
Think of it as “scattering the bait”. Here are 5 tips you can use to rethink or atomize your content.
#1: Take Stock
See what you already have and see if you can edit that content into smaller pieces that can stand alone. An example of this is Frequently Asked Questions. If you have an FAQ section on your website, share those individually in unique ways with a link pointing back to site with “more FAQs” or more related content. If you don’t have an FAQs section, create one! And then share those individually in unique ways.
Another way to do this is to adapt existing content to be reused. Our CEO Chris Bennett shared ways to do this in an SMX Advanced talk.
#2: Plan from the Start
Don’t just assume you’ll be able to reuse content. When planning, plan with atomization in mind. Plan how you can pull mini pieces out of a larger piece of content. Buzzfeed is a great example of doing this over and over again.
Another example is when storyboarding a video or presentation, consider how it can be parsed out so that each segment can be part of a mini-series and shared with or without context of the larger video or presentation. This is a great way to develop content that serves as a commercial for the entire piece.
#3: Atomize by Audience
Recognize what content outlets your audience will be using and cater to that. If you’re not sure what outlets your audience will be using that’s okay. This is where competitive research can provide you all the information you need. Here’s a basic guide on how to do competitive research.
#4: Atomize for Your Sales Funnel
Next step in knowing your audience is to know their motivations, which helps you understand where they’re at in the buyer’s journey. So it’s important to atomize your content based on your users behaviors...and understanding how your user behaves it’s a lot different than what most professional marketers think and will tell you.
Enterprise Campaign Manager PJ Howland says,
“The user is going to do what they are going to do. Sure, single CTAs on a blog post can work—I’ve seen them work—but the majority of your perceived buyer’s journey is created by the buyer, not the marketer.”
He goes onto to share how to execute a flawless content funnel audit, where you will walk away with content ideation for four major buckets of content within your sales funnel. Those four buckets are:
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Conversion
- Adoption/Expansion
Check out the Demystify Content Funnels article with walk through and free template.
#5: Syndication
Publish once and populate all the platforms. There is a plethora of ways to serve up content and a plethora of places to serve up said content. In the case of a podcast you can set it up so when it publishes to your website it also populates:
Related assets can then be published on:
Possibilities are endless so use your imagination and consider how each piece can live elsewhere.
That’s it, 5 tips to rethink or atomize your content. Until next time!
