Utilizing Zero Click Content for Better Engagement

That Solo Life Episode 292: Utilizing Zero Click Content for Better Engagement
Michelle Kane [00:12]-[00:25]: Thank you for joining us for this episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves. People like me, Michelle Kane with Voice Matters, and my wonderful co-host, Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. How are you, Karen?


Karen Swim, APR [00:25]-[00:28]: Hi, Michelle. I'm doing great. How are you?


Michelle Kane [00:28]-[00:32]: Yeah, you know, can't complain. I mean, there's tons to complain about, but I'm not going to do it.


Karen Swim, APR [00:33]-[00:53]: Shout out to all of our solo PR pros out there who are juggling not only their work responsibilities, but are caregivers for children, parents, grandparents, fur babies, because we know that life can get super chaotic. We see you and we respect you.


Michelle Kane [00:54]-[02:09]: That is so true. We are often the go-to people for any tidbit of information, which can be nice sometimes and sometimes just downright exasperating, but that's not what we're going to talk about today. Today we're going to talk about zero click content, which I thought was really intriguing. It's, it's, I guess, fairly new on the horizon and you know, we've always up until now, generally the the rule of thumb has always been you always want to lead someone to your website and contrary to what zero click content sounds like you still do but in a different way just taking into account factoring in ai and the way search has changed so we're just going to riff on that a little bit i thought i thought it was really interesting how you know, when you're posting to social and other external channels, how just the idea of presenting quality information in digestible ways, whether that's just short text or video, can have the same effect as, you know, what we used to just do is just say, click here, click here.


Karen Swim, APR [02:11]-[02:30]: You know, and I feel that this advice has been what we've always said about the quality content. However, what I love about the focus on zero click content is that it shifts the focus from clicks to true engagement.


Michelle Kane [02:32]-[03:33]: Mm hmm. That's so true. Yeah, you're so right. Because the idea is that, you know, we present content and whatever we're saying or showing it's going to pull your potential client or customer to say, oh, OK, either let me look that up or let me visit their website on my own without just being told in that Pavlovian way, click here. And because at first, I'll confess, when I started to read about it, I thought, no, we can't ask for zero clicks. That's crazy. And then I thought, OK, I see what you're doing. It's more psychological. All right, I'm with you, because, and it also, you know, it achieves that know, like, and trust standard that we're all looking to achieve to establish your client as the go-to resource for information on any given topic or, you know, as the thing that people will trust first before anyone else out there.


Karen Swim, APR [03:34]-[04:36]: Yeah. You know, this also goes back to what we predicted would be a trend this year of unleashing creativity because zero click content forces you to tell a story and to tell it in plain language, to draw your audience in with a, you know, a captivating opening sentence or a headline to really focus on your captions and to be brief, but to present a whole package of information. And so that gives us so much room to do that. You could do that through a mixture of slides, of visual images, of short form videos. And I think this is wonderful for us who have been waiting to break out of the gate, because as communicators, clients have often blocked us in. And now we have data and information about how the algorithms work to really support our case of why we need to really shift the way that we communicate with our audiences.


Michelle Kane [04:37]-[05:54]: Yeah, yeah, and in a way, you know, I think that still can achieve that interactivity, whether it's, you know, by someone taking an action that's not demanded of them or just, you know, if you, like you say, if you serialize the information and then they're saying, oh, okay, I can't wait until the next tidbit comes out. And truly getting creative with video, it doesn't necessarily mean you have to coerce a talking head from your company. It can be as simple as thinking creatively and creating reels. because they can be shared on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, if that's your thing, you know, so there's, there's all different ways. So don't feel like you have to set up a shoot and be super formal about it. I mean, I know I've done it on a certain level just with logo images, still shots. I've started when we, when a client does external events, not just shooting stills, but, you know, shooting b-roll, shooting video. That can be used in a number of ways, you know, and it just helps. It helps move the story along. It's a fun, shareable way, and no clicks were involved.


Karen Swim, APR [05:56]-[07:18]: This is going to become so important. I mean we're seeing search change right now. We're seeing SEO go through a major transformation driven by AI. So you even notice that when you do search AI results are at the top. And it's those snippets of information. that answers a question. And so I think as communicators, we always have to be thinking in terms of that. What's the question that we're trying to answer for our audience? And making sure that we're giving them a bite-size response that's meaningful, that's not filled with jargon, that talks to them like a real person, because that's going to drive the engagement on social platforms, which is where people look for information these days. And it's going to help your search results as well. When people do go into things like chat GPT and perplexity and the others to ask those questions. So, you know, a little tiny pivot in the way that we think, but it's not different from what has always been in our wheelhouse. It's just this is really becoming important for you to get seen and for you to capture the attention of your audiences.


Michelle Kane [07:18]-[08:01]: Yeah, I think it's so important what you, how you put it, how you presented it. It's a tiny pivot. This is not a giant earth-shattering activity that we're talking about. It's just really refocusing maybe your priorities of the types of content you're creating. I mean, that's not to say your client may still want the deep dive white papers, but this is more top line to get the attention and to really you know, reach a wider audience, which I realized may not always be the goal. But, you know, building awareness is a very important component of any solid marketing program. So I think all the more reason to do it.


Karen Swim, APR [08:03]-[09:48]: I agree. I, it's, again, I find this exciting. And, this year, when we're looking to, you know, to build new muscles or to improve what we're doing, and we talk about taking that deeper dive, because that's what is required this year to win and maintain business. I think this is one more thing that we can put in our toolbox in one way that we can stand out. You know, it's interesting, I did a press release recently. And, you know, I took one of Anne Wiley's webinars last year that really focused on storytelling, even in releases. And something that I have always loved to do, but it's always good to just, you know, refresh and to hear from other professionals. And someone came back and said, you know, I was really surprised with the, you know, the, the lead and the pair in the press release, and I'd never seen it like that. And I loved it. And I, Perfect. That's exactly, you know, that's how we're doing it now. It stood out. And so there's still ways for us to stand out as professionals and to serve our clients well. And this is the year, you know, seize the day. We can win new business. We can rise above the chaos that's going on around us. Just, you know, keep your heads. And I mean, to me, having these fun things to focus on and to get better at, you know, I'm not the greatest at videos, but having these things that I can really dig into sort of keeps me on stable ground too. It's, you know, it keeps me excited about my job and it keeps me focused on what's really important and not, you know, getting carried away with the distractions that go on in our life.


Michelle Kane [09:49]-[10:57]: Yeah, yeah. And that's a great point, actually. You know, if you want to familiarize yourself with the ways to do this, start by doing it with your own stuff, right? I mean, I know I use CapCut, and I was thrilled to discover CapCut has a desktop version, because not for nothing. Yeah, I can create on my phone, but where's all my stuff? It's on my laptop. And, you know, it's like, do I really have to send myself photos? So CapCut's got a desktop version now. Animoto is another great platform to use to create videos. They have a lot of great templates. Just did one for a save the date event to pop it up on YouTube and, and to get the word out. So there's, there's all different ways. And even think about you know, the evergreen content that your clients have. How can you reformat that and present it in digestible bits, either in video or infographics or different ways to just present the information that can benefit from these changes in search?


Karen Swim, APR [10:58]-[11:32]: Yeah. And if you've mastered this, we love to hear from you because we know we have a lot of experts in our audience. We'd love to hear what you're doing and what's working. Please follow us and follow Solo PR Pro as we put these tips into practice and learn right along with those who may be, you know, newer to this journey as well. So give us feedback, help us to improve, and don't forget to, you know, like our content, subscribe to the channels and, you know, talk to us. We love hearing from you guys and we love interacting with our audience.


Michelle Kane [11:32]-[11:38]: Absolutely. Tell us what's working for you. And until next time, thanks for listening to That Solo Life.