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Capture attention, spark curiosity and leave a
lasting impression
In today’s ever-changing landscape, the way people consume content has undergone a rapid transformation. What does this mean for meeting and event professionals? You’ve likely faced unique challenges in capturing (and keeping) your audience’s attention to deliver a memorable experience.
To address these hurdles, let’s consider some key audience facts:
- Shortened Attention Spans:
With the proliferation of smartphones, the average adult’s attention span has significantly decreased. Encouraging participants to disconnect from their devices has become more challenging than ever. - Higher Expectations for Content:
When it comes to the crowd-pleasing content people routinely engage with, such as popular streaming shows, even singular episodes have soaring production value. Episodes of The Crown cost an average of about $13 million, and high-end streaming dramas like Stranger Things now see price tags of $4 to $7 million per episode. - Higher Expectations for Digestible Content:
Thanks to platforms like TikTok, which deliver fast-paced, hyper-targeted content to each of its 1.67 billion users, the bar for engagement is set incredible high. Your tech-savvy participants are used to being able to find, filter and immediately interact with media specifically selected for them by the platform’s scarily effective algorithm. If you want to earn (and keep!) attendees’ attention in today’s digital landscape, your content needs to fulfill their higher expectations.
- Shortened Attention Spans:
Considering the impact of these trends, it has become more difficult to entertain and engage an audience and easier than ever to distract them.
So, what should you keep in mind to ensure your content is compelling and has a lasting influence on your participants?
Read on to learn insights that can help you revolutionize your storytelling.
Engagement is a metric that matters
A recent Encore survey revealed that planners prioritize attendee engagement and advanced content delivery. To revamp your content strategy and recapture the hearts and minds of your audience, here are three powerful approaches to consider:
1. Cultivate community through content
Remember the viral Ice Bucket Challenge, which united people around a common cause? It brought ALS, and the ALS Association’s mission, to the forefront of Americans’ minds (and phones).
The content developed around the social media challenge was not only attention-grabbing but also prompted immediately achievable action.
Taking part was cheap, easy (except withstanding the ice water part), enthralling and, most importantly, repeatable.
Meanwhile, the call to action rallied individuals into a community for a shared goal.
Photo credit: ALS Therapy Development Institute
2. Create a unifying thread with your storytelling
Your content should seamlessly weave a compelling narrative throughout the entire attendee journey, from initial contact to post-event communications. However, avoid generating content that merely starts and ends there.
While the content onstage might be the main focus during your sessions, to deliver truly resonant messaging, consider how your programming ties into the tentacles of broader, ongoing conversations within your audience’s communities.
By designing content that’s relevant to your participants and what’s going on in the world around you, you can leverage your meeting as a chapter in a much larger and powerful discourse.
3. Appeal to your guests’ emotions for lasting impact
Some of the most memorable event moments are emotionally charged rather than purely intellectual. Consider award shows in pop culture, where speeches, interactions and reactions generate buzz for days, weeks and even years.
Ultimately, you want your program to live on with a life of its own, and fueling similarly strong emotive responses is a great way to drive connections with your content.
Is yours designed with that intent?
Is it working hard enough to become unforgettable for your attendees?
If the answer is no or you’re unsure, think through how you can better speak to and influence attendees’ emotions through your storytelling.
We’d love to help you do just that!
Our Creative Services team dreams big when it comes to crafting inspiring content, amplifying it through strategic event branding and design, and influencing the purposeful connections that set programs apart.
Want a sneak peek into our capabilities? Explore some of the riveting content we created for Marriott International’s exclusive three-day conference for their general managers that created a customized experience just for them!
Let’s partner on incorporating these content strategies into your planning process for a program that captivates participants and extends the reach of your message well into the future.
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I really liked it. The idea of building a community through content is brilliant. I enjoyed how they seamlessly integrated an engaging narrative throughout the entire event program. And, of course, the emotional impact—those are the moments that stay in memory. Wonderful strategies that definitely work.