Every Wednesday, a post on Twitter reminds me that the week is halfway. Every Wednesday it is the exact same image, tweeted at the same time, for many years. It is the only image that the @whataweekhuh account has ever posted, without missing a single week, every week, with no accompanying text. The image says it all. The account has almost 300,000 followers. It is the ultimate example of consistency, and the ultimate example that consistency in digital marketing works.
This is probably one of the most extreme examples of consistency in digital marketing and outreach, but its continuing popularity is an indication that people don’t mind this extreme repetition. In fact, repetition is an important element of making your message stick.
The Power of Repetition
An article on Assemblo explains how this works: “The more people see or hear something, the more they remember it.”
The same article explains “The magic number seven: Studies have shown that people need to see a message at least seven times before it sinks in. It supports the notion that people learn, and therefore remember, by repetition.”
Tips for Space Outreach
So what does this mean for space outreach? Here are a few practical tips on how to use the power of repetition to strengthen your messaging, while saving you time in creating your content too:
1. Have a style guide
Use a consistent style in your messaging. A consistent style is often defined in a corporate style guide, describing tone of voice, fonts, colours, etc. Defining this ‘standard’ in your organisation will take some time in the beginning, but save you a lot of time later. You can make templates for visuals and standard leaders and trailers for your videos for example.
2. Promote your content more than once
Many organisations create a piece of content, for example a blog post, then promote this post on social media once after it’s published and move on to the next piece. However, why not re-promote the same post on social media several times over a number of weeks?
Have a look at @SpaceWatchGL on Twitter to see an example of re-promoting the same content several times during the week, increasing its reach and impressions, maximising the lifespan of each article.
How often should you re-promote a blog post or video? Of course that depends on the platform you use, but remember the magic number seven…
3. Repurpose your existing content.
Taking this idea a step further is to update your existing articles with new images or new information after a while, and re-promote. You can also turn a written article into a video or an infographic and re-promote it again. Blog posts have an average shelf life of about 14 days until they can be considered for a refresh and re-promotion.
4. Invite your audience to promote your message
You can of course re-promote your content yourself, but it is even better if you are able to convince others to do this for you. If your content is relevant to your audience, they will help you promote it by sharing it with their audiences. They will share on Facebook or LinkedIn, and retweet on Twitter. This brings your content to the attention of new audiences, expanding your reach significantly.
How you do this? Most important is to ensure that your article or video adds value to your audience. They learn something new, or it connects to their feelings of the day (like the Wednesday image). If they have this emotional connection, they will be likely to share it with their followers. It even helps to just ask them to share! As long as your content is good, a simple “Please Retweet” message on Twitter actually works! Try it out!
5. Have a recognisable Call To Action
To ensure that every piece of content helps you achieve your outreach or marketing objectives, make sure you include a Call To Action (often abbreviated as CTA) in your content. This can be a link to another article or video, or (better still) a form where people can sign up to your newsletter, a webinar or receive more information in the form of a downloadable e-book.
After all, the objective of your content is to engage people with your organisation. You want them to do something based on the information you provide with your messages. Awareness of your organisation is one thing, but inviting them to engage with your content is even better! So think about what you can offer your readers that will make them want to connect with you!
About Powering Space
Powering Space is building a community of space outreach, communications and marketing professionals. We feel that the combination of outreach and space knowledge is in great demand in the global space industry, but the professionals working on the crossroads of these two specialisations are not represented, and therefore under-recognised in the industry.
By creating a community of interest, and sharing knowledge about outreach in space, we aim to raise the level of professionalism in this important part of the sector. The better we tell the amazing stories of space, the more this sector will flourish and help build a better (and much bigger!) future for humanity on Earth and beyond!
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