There is a feeling that, as a culture, we are dumbing down. A feeling that a fixation with celebrities and pictures of cats, along with supposedly reduced attention spans, means the only way to reach an audience is to join in and churn out endless pointless memes that offer no real value to anybody, beyond fleeting entertainment.

That’s not the case, of course, but it does create a challenge for those businesses that want to use social media to engage with an audience (which, in 2016, should be virtually every business). It is incredibly difficult to find the right way to pitch information, to offer guidance and opinions and to demonstrate that your business has personality while also retaining and protecting a brand’s identity.

What’s the difference?

It’s vital to understand that there is a huge difference between dumbing down, and merely simplifying content. Dumbing down is exactly as described above: chasing huge engagement numbers by churning out mindless memes and other ‘shareable’ content, but failing to enhance the brand position or deliver key business messages by offering anything meaningful to your audience.

Simplifying content, on the other hand, is a legitimate marketing tool that shows you understand your audience, and that you are capable of delivering key business information in a way that is eye-catching, easy to understand and which can be easily consumed by an audience. Textbook social media marketing, in other words.

Let’s have a look at both in action.

Dumb and dumber

There’s no doubt that a lot of dumbing-down goes on. Depending on who’s on your friends list, you probably only need to spend a few minutes scrolling down on Facebook before you see a shared item that is, in all likelihood, utterly moronic.

Here’s a good example:

There are few words to describe how terrible that is: it’s humour at a four-year-old level, aimed at adults. (And it definitely is aimed at adults: the next meme on the page contains swearing.) If you want kids’ humour, why not go to to the source: the excellent twitter feed @kidswritejokes at least has the benefit of being written by children.

You can’t argue with the numbers: 1.4 million people ‘like’ the page from which that Minions monstrosity came. If a business wants to reach people on social media, you can understand why you might want to tap into that audience. They’d be your perfect demographic if you’re selling, for example, courses on breathing or lessons on how not to fall over.

When brands dumb down – and get it wrong

There are fewer better examples of brands dumbing down, and doing it badly, than the Telegraph. The Telegraph is a serious newspaper (editor’s note for the under-25s: that’s like an iPad made of paper that only has a news app): in 2010 it was named newspaper of the year for its outstanding coverage of the MPs’ expenses scandal.

It is associated with serious coverage of hard-hitting news, and some of the best investigative journalism in the world.

Yet it hosts a Twitter feed filled with banal clickbait about celebrities and fluffy animals.

Such as this:

And this:

And this:

This content is interesting, sure, and gets good engagement – and check out the 400 retweets on the kitten crossing the road. It’ll show up well on their end-of-month analytics, and might have persuaded a few more people to click through to the website, but it has done very little to develop the Telegraph’s brand or reputation in any meaningful way.

There are plenty of alternatives if you want to see content of that sort. If you follow the Telegraph on twitter, it’s not likely to be because you want to see a cure kitten almost being run over. Chasing social media engagement with idiotic content that bears no link to your brand identity is unlikely to bring in a new sustainable audience, and runs the risk of alienating your actual target demographic.

Simplifying content

On the other hand, there is simplifying content. This has nothing to do with dumbing down and should be seen as being totally distinct. It is about understanding your audiences, how they want to receive their news and information, and also having the knack of doing so in an entertaining way so that the messages you are trying to get across are remembered, and, importantly when it comes to social media, shared and engaged with.

Simplifying content is especially useful if your business or product is especially niche, or technical. It enables you to address and engage audiences in a creative, interesting and memorable way.

To take a different newspaper as an example, the Sun has, for years, been an expert in simplification. Note we’re not saying the Sun doesn’t dumb down – in many cases, it’s as dumb as it gets, but it does simplify news stories very well.

Simple: not as, erm, simple as it sounds

In fact, it’s said that writing for the Sun is one of the harder jobs in journalism, because you have to explain sometimes complicated stories in a simple way.

It is also said the Sun’s average reading age is eight years old (based on sentence length and structure, and length of words used.) The Guardian’s is 14. Yet the average reading age/ability of the UK population is just nine years old. So, far from over-simplifying, the Sun is actually pitched at exactly the right level to make its articles readable to as many people as possible. No wonder it sells so many copies.

Another example: here is Professor Brian Cox, explaining the power of waterfalls. If he was in a room with other professors, he would surely use more complicated language, but he is addressing the general public, so uses accessible language and an engaging tone to make sure the lesson is both memorable and entertaining.

Once again, this isn’t dumbing down: it’s just tailoring a message to suit the target audience.

Ways to simplify your social media…

If you run a business and are looking to deliver your messages to a wide audience, here are ways you can simplify your social media and blog content without dumbing down or diluting your message:

  • Don’t attempt to cram every single message into every single piece of content you have.
  • Plan your campaigns carefully to make sure your messaging is timely, relevant and not too repetitive.
  • Think about your sentence structure. Stick to short, simple sentences.
  • Use lots of relevant images to illustrate your stories.
  • Be creative! Is there a different way you can get your point across?
  • Think about what your audiences will want to read or see.
  • Use bullet-pointed lists, such as this one.
  • Use infographics, videos, examples and case studies.
  • People like people, so always try to include a human interest element.
  • Stick to single-sentence paragraphs.
  • If your blog is dealing with a complicated issue, then the first three paragraphs should sum up the entire issue. If they don’t, then you might struggle to get people to read on.

Struggling to make your messages stick? Or can’t make your voice heard at all? Why not get on the Podium? Contact us today to see how we can help you.

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