Creating Engaging Media Content

"Can you make this blog more... engaging?" This feedback haunts most content writers. What clients think "engaging" means: → Add more emojis → Write like a social media influencer → Make everything "fun and casual" What engaging actually means: → Hook readers with their exact problem in the first line → Use specific examples they can relate to → Structure content so it's easy to scan → End with actionable next steps Example of boring vs engaging: Boring opening: "Customer retention is important for SaaS businesses. Here are some strategies..." Engaging opening: "Your trial users signed up 14 days ago. Today, 87% of them will never log in again." Same topic. Completely different impact. The real secret to engaging content: Write for ONE specific person, not "everyone who might be interested." That SaaS founder losing trial users? They stop scrolling. That random reader browsing LinkedIn? They keep moving. Your content should make the right people think: "This person gets exactly what I'm going through." Engaging isn't about writing style. It's about writing relevance. 📌 Need blogs that actually keep readers reading? Let's talk →

B2B tech companies are addicted to getting you to subscribe to their corporate echo chamber newsletter graveyard, where they dump their latest self-love notes. It's a cesspool of "Look at us!" and "We're pleased to announce..." drivel that suffocates originality and murders interest. Each link, each event recap and each funding announcement is another shovel of dirt on the grave of what could have been engaging content. UNSUBSCRIBE What if, instead of serving up the same old reheated corporate leftovers, your content could slap your audience awake? Ego-stroking company updates are out. 1. The pain point deep dive: Start by mining the deepest anxieties, challenges and questions your audience faces. Use forums, social media, customer feedback and even direct interviews to uncover the raw nerve you're going to press. 2. The unconventional wisdom: Challenge the status quo of your industry. If everyone's zigging, you zag. This could mean debunking widely held beliefs, proposing counterintuitive strategies or sharing insights that only insiders know but don't talk about. Be the mythbuster of your domain. 3. The narrative hook: Every piece of content should tell a story, and every story needs a hook that grabs from the first sentence. Use vivid imagery, compelling questions or startling statements to make it impossible to scroll past. Your opening should be a rabbit hole inviting Alice to jump in. 4. The value payload: This is the core of your content. Each piece should deliver actionable insights, deep dives or transformative information. Give your audience something so valuable that they can't help but use, save and share it. Think tutorials, step-by-step guides or even entertaining content that delivers laughs or awe alongside insight. 5. The personal touch: Inject your personality or brand's voice into every piece. Share personal anecdotes, failures and successes. 6. The engagement spark: End with a call to action that encourages interaction. Ask a provocative question, encourage them to share their own stories or challenge them to apply what they've learned and share the results. Engagement breeds community, and community amplifies your reach. 7. The multi-platform siege: Repurpose your anchor content across platforms. Turn blog posts into podcast episodes, summaries into tweets or LinkedIn posts and key insights into Instagram stories. Each piece of content should work as a squad, covering different fronts but pushing the same message. Without impressive anchor content, you won't have anything worth a lick in your newsletter. 8. The audience dialogue: Engage directly with your audience's feedback. Respond to comments, ask for their input on future topics and even involve them in content creation through surveys or co-creation opportunities. Make your content worth spreading, and watch as your audience does the heavy lifting for you. And please stop with the corporate navel-gazing. #newsletters #b2btech #ThatAshleyAmber

Boring content doesn’t build brands. So why are we still making it? Things are changing at a speed we never thought possible, and it's getting scary, especially if you're into marketing. A few years ago, simply providing valuable information was enough. There was less competition, audiences had more patience to consume detailed content, and social media wasn’t as saturated with endless options fighting for attention. But today? The way audiences consume content has evolved. They still seek information, but they also expect it to be engaging, easy to digest, and even fun. 🔴 The challenge? We’re competing not just with other brands but with everything else fighting for attention—trending reels, viral tweets, and endless scrolls of content. So what happens if we don’t adapt? 😕 Engagement drops → Purely educational content without an engaging hook gets overlooked. 😖 Brand recall weakens → People remember stories, humor, and emotions—not just facts. 😑 Reach shrinks → Algorithms prioritize engaging content, and if yours doesn’t hook people, it won’t be seen. The solution? Edutainment. Instead of choosing between educational and entertaining content, combine the two. Here’s how: ✅ Traditional educational content: Blog posts, case studies, reports, how-to guides. ✅ Entertainment-based content: Interactive quizzes, polls, short-form videos, memes, storytelling posts. ✅ Hybrid (Edutainment) content: Infotainment-style videos, gamified learning, storytelling-based lessons, social media threads with humor. Why does this work? Because people crave dopamine, not just data. → A well-told story makes an audience listen. → A fun quiz makes them engage. → A short, entertaining video makes them stay. If you make your audience enjoy learning, they’ll keep coming back. Remember, your audience doesn’t owe you their attention. You need to earn it. Thoughts?

This isn’t a post about whether dopamine culture is good or bad. (I have plenty to say on that…) However, it is about marketing because, fundamentally, marketing is about meeting your audience where they are. And, today's audience is in their dopamine-culture era. For too long, B2B companies have relied on the same old content marketing playbook: churn out whitepapers (often gated behind forms!) and blog posts, rinse and repeat. But in the world of dopamine culture, plus the rise of AI, that alone is not enough. To win at content marketing today, B2B brands need to step up their game in several key ways: ↳ Develop a Strong, Authentic POV. In a sea of generic content, having a unique, authentic perspective is more critical than ever. What does your brand stand for? What insights and opinions can you bring that no one else is? Your POV is your secret weapon. ↳ Cultivate a Consistent Brand Voice. Is your content instantly recognizable as coming from your brand? Do you have a cohesive voice, personality, and style that shines in everything you publish? If not, it's time for a refresh. A distinct brand identity fosters trust and memorability. ↳ Get Creative With Formats. Blogs and whitepapers are great, but don't stop there. Diversify with engaging formats like video, interactive tools, data visualizations, podcasts, and more. Give your audience exciting ways to learn. ↳ Optimize for Recommendation Engines. It's no longer just about ranking in search (though that's still important). You must also optimize for recommendation engines on social media, audio/video platforms, and more. How "shareable" and algorithms-friendly is your content? ↳ Leverage AI-Powered Tools. Use AI strategically to streamline your content operations, personalize content experiences, extract deeper audience insights, and experiment with new AI-generated formats. Be proactive. When I started Zen Media almost 16 years ago, content marketing was 90% content and 10% marketing. Today, it's the reverse. Before we create an article for a client, we develop their POV, have a brand voice document at the ready, and have a distribution plan in place because we know the truth: for every one person who reads the article, ten other people will read the summary on social platforms. Image Credit: Ted Gioia, The Honest Broker,

i spent 15 minutes this weekend glued to an Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) article about australia's power grid. not because i'm suddenly into energy infrastructure. but because it was brilliant storytelling. they had: 1/ interactive website elements for an immersive reading experience 2/ dedicated graphics explaining complex systems 3/ cute characters guiding me through each section and here's the thing: i wasn't checking my messages. wasn't skimming. i was fully engaged (nice one Daniel Mercer, Alex Lim, and Tim Leslie). and i felt like i learnt a lot about our power grid. while we're all pumping out micro-content (shorts! reels! tweets!), ABC proved something critical: people still crave depth. they'll give you 20 minutes, 40 minutes, even hours - if you make it worth their time. netflix knows this (ppl binge watching series). podcast creators know this (3-hour long podcasts). instead of defaulting to short, think about how you can make your content more relevant and engaging for your audience: 1/ do you have unique POVs or datasets? 2/ talk to your web dev: can this be interactive? 3/ talk to your designer: would custom graphics help? your complex b2b topics deserve better than 280 characters and your audience deserves better too. what's the longest piece of content you've consumed recently? use that as inspo for the content you create for work.

Embarking on the content creation journey can feel like navigating a maze. Over the years, I’ve discovered that the secret to making meaningful connections through content isn’t just about what you say, but how you say it and ensuring it genuinely resonates with your audience. 1. Embrace Simplicity: When I first started posting, I thought using big words and complex sentences would impress my readers. It didn’t. Feedback showed they preferred straightforward, easy-to-understand content. It was a lightbulb moment—simplicity wins. Now, I always ask, “Would my grandma get this?” before I publish anything. 2. Deep Dive into Your Audience’s World: After sending out a simple poll to my followers asking what topics they were interested in, the engagement on my subsequent posts soared. Knowing your audience is like having a roadmap for your content journey. 3. Storytelling is Your Best Friend: Sharing a personal experience while sharing my journey, complete with all the missteps and eventual triumphs, garnered more responses and shares than any how-to guide I’d ever written. Stories not only make it relatable but also create emotional connections, making your message more impactful and memorable. 4. Consistency is More Than Just Timing: I once experimented by posting daily for a month and then sporadically the next. The drop in engagement during the sporadic month was stark. Regular, predictable content keeps people coming back. But consistency isn’t just about schedule—it’s about maintaining a consistent voice and quality that your audience can rely on. 5. Break the Monotony with Visuals: Visuals can turn complex information into an engaging, digestible format, making your content more accessible and enjoyable. 6. Feedback: Early on, I viewed feedback as a personal critique, but I’ve learned to see it as a gift. Positive comments highlight what’s working, while constructive criticism offers a blueprint for improvement. Engaging with feedback has turned my audience into co-creators of my content.

The best content marketers think like scientists. Think about it: what does a scientist do? ↳ A question pops up ↳ Conduct thorough research ↳ Create a hypothesis ↳ Test out that hypothesis ↳ Analyze data and draw conclusions ↳ Ask new questions, form new hypothesis, experiment again. The best content marketers never stop experimenting. It’s not just posting stuff and hoping it sticks. It’s a process. Now, what if we thought about content like that? What if creating content was like running a series of thoughtful, well-designed experiments? Think about it like this: 1. Ask a Question Start with curiosity. What are you trying to achieve with your content? 💬 What if I try this angle? Will this type of post resonate? Asking questions is the starting point. 2. Do Background Research Dive deep into understanding your audience. Research is crucial here. Who is your audience, really? 💬 What are they talking about, asking, and dealing with? What would they actually find useful, interesting, or surprising? You can’t create relevant content without this foundational knowledge. 3. Construct a Hypothesis Based on your research, make an educated guess about what will work. 💬 This could be something like, “Will this approach drive engagement?” or “Will this style of content connect better with my audience?” Treat it as a theory of what might resonate. 4. Test with an Experiment Now it’s time to put your hypothesis into action. Publish the content—test different formats, tones, visuals, storytelling techniques, etc. You won’t know what truly works unless you test it out in the real world. 5. Procedure Working? Analyze whether the content is performing as expected. Is it engaging your audience? Are you seeing the interactions you hypothesized? If NO: Troubleshoot. Revisit your research or hypothesis. Did you miss something about your audience? Was the content format misaligned? If YES: Move forward with analyzing in more detail. 6. Analyze Data and Draw Conclusions Look at the engagement metrics and feedback. Which parts of the content are getting attention? What’s being ignored? This is where you can see if the hypothesis aligns with the results. Results align with hypothesis: If the content achieved what you expected, that’s a strong signal that this approach may work for future content. Results don’t align (or only partially align): If the results were mixed or didn’t meet expectations, refine your approach. This leads to new questions. 7. Iterate and Communicate Results Use your findings to guide your next steps. Based on the data, adjust and refine the content approach. Communicate insights gained—what worked, what didn’t—and use those lessons in future content experiments. Because here’s the thing—content that *works*, the kind that connects and converts, isn’t a magic formula. It’s crafted, tested, and refined, over and over again. No shortcuts. Your content deserves the same approach.

For content creators and strategists, there's a crucial truth about engagement: we value outcomes more when we've worked for them. Tiny effort from your audience builds a bigger commitment to the result. Without this 'skin in the game,' your most valuable content often gets consumed passively, or worse, ignored. On LinkedIn, this looks like swapping passive PDF downloads for a 1-page worksheet where readers complete step one, then DM you for step two. Or turning carousels into interactive checklists: 'Finish one task? Tell me which, I'll send the follow-up.' Even adding a 5-step progress bar in a pinned post makes a difference. People who start tend to finish and value what they built. Make your content a little earned, not just given.

Your B2B brand doesn’t have to use humour to be memorable 🙅🏻♀️ I talk a lot about how important it is for brands to stand out in B2B and create engaging content, and I think some people misunderstand what I mean by that. Engaging doesn’t have to mean loud or funny or unhinged. (In fact, for most B2B brands that’s definitely the wrong move) Instead, I see “engaging” as a spectrum - there are brands that are playful (and sometimes unhinged), and there are brands that are more “serious”. And no matter where you land on that spectrum, you can still create content that demands attention. Here’s how you can stand out without having to use humour 👇 — 1️⃣ 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝘄𝗲𝗮𝗸𝘀 Before you do another webinar on the same topic that you and everyone else has already done multiple times, look for a different angle. Instead of your typical “We are excited to announce...” post, try focusing on the impact the news will have on your audience. A simple shift from “this is how it’s done” to “this is what will speak to our audience” can make a huge difference. 𝗘𝘅𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲: Blink - Employee Experience Platform do a great job of this 2️⃣ 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘃𝗶𝘀𝘂𝗮𝗹𝘀 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗿 Standing out in more traditional B2B industries can sometimes be as simple as choosing different visuals. Look at brands in the finance, legal or healthcare space and you’ll find a sea of blue, navy and slate gray. Want to stand out? Do literally anything else. 𝗘𝘅𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲: I loved this recent campaign from Rippling 𝗣𝗦𝗔: Sarah Hart ✤ shares excellent content about this very topic, so make sure to go and follow if you’re not already! 3️⃣ 𝗧𝗮𝗹𝗸 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝗮 𝗵𝘂𝗺𝗮𝗻 Being “professional” doesn’t mean having to talk in circles or hide behind buzzwords. Be clear and direct, and speak to real challenges. And, most importantly, stop treating content like a soapbox. Audiences don’t want to be talked at, they want to be spoken to. Answer their questions, respond to feedback, bring your internal team’s voices into the mix. 𝗘𝘅𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲: Deel’s recent video series does this very well — Marketers in “serious” industries, how are you trying to stand out? Let us know in the comments 💬