Struggling With Complex Content? Turn Dry Material into Narratives Audiences Will Remember.

How can nonprofit organizations that dive deeply into serious issues make sure online audiences don’t tune out their long-form content so that they can effectively engage and activate their audience?

Digital communications and social media have had a tremendous impact on our ability to maintain focus and attention — not just online, but in the real world. Online and offline, we’re awash in content that’s fragmented and that comes at us fast. And when distractions are everywhere, social change organizations that need to increase awareness, understanding, and engagement on complex issues, it’s an uphill battle.

Even as social media and short-form platforms like Twitter (and even Medium!) increasingly shape how issues are framed by the media, recent studies show that when it comes to audience engagement, long-form content performs better than shorter content. So, while we may live in a world dominated by short bursts of commentary, opinion, and insights, long-form content remains a critical (and effective) format.

While every organization with a message to communicate has to learn how to navigate this dynamic, social change organizations face a bigger challenge. Because when your mission revolves around a complicated issue, is connected to a problem in a far-away place or the distant future, or is just removed from the concerns of everyday life, maintaining audience engagement is inherently more difficult.

Still, it usually boils down to the same question: How can we elevate our issue or cause and engage our target audiences? The time-tested principles used by storytellers since, well, forever are an excellent place to start.

Those organizations whose ideas are remembered and returned to are the ones who shape how we understand our world.

Storytelling & Narrative Structure

Whether presented as narrative or as academic research, all long-form content can benefit from the classic narrative structure of exposition, confrontation, and resolution. For those who aren’t professional storytellers, in general it works like this:

Invite your audience in. Whenever you are asking an audience to engage with a longer narrative, it’s important to invite them in to the narrative by stating up front the things you have in common. Establishing a shared understanding and creating common ground with your audience — and appealing to their “better angels” when appropriate — makes it that much easier to pivot to the more complex ideas you need them to engage with and to share new perspectives they are likely to value.

Establish your “characters.” Establishing common ground with audience members is one of the best ways to earn their attention and interest — equity you can then use to deepen their engagement with your issue or cause. In storytelling, effective writers use this equity to establish their characters—and deepen the underlying relationships that connect them to an audience. Remember, characters don’t need to be actual people. They can just as well be common misperceptions, a way of doing things, or systems that have profoundly positive or negative impacts on your mission. The key is to establish a relationship to them early—and to provide enough detail to deepen your audience’s understanding of, and commitment to, the issues.

Introduce a catalyst. By this point, your audience should both be familiar with your issue and inclined to commit themselves to learning more about it. It’s time to elevate their interest by revealing the catalyst! For social change organizations, a catalyst could be a new way of addressing systemic inequity or research that offers insights into how to think about social change in a new way. Whatever the case, your goal is to provide a compelling reason for your readers to step up their investment in your work. And the more complex the issue, the more important it is to clearly lay out the related activities and/or outcomes that are part of the catalyst. Done well, you’ll create a connection with your audience that boosts their willingness to engage with and support your mission.

Create a resolution. For many social change organizations, impact is something that happens in the future, possibly in a far away place. This delay in being able to demonstrate results when working on systemic, deep-rooted problems such as poverty, structural racism, or climate change is a major challenge. It’s critical to offer audiences a resolution—or at least demonstrated progress in steps along a path. This may mean a satisfying conclusion, a roundup of resources they can use to advance their own efforts, or actions they can take to deepen engagement with your brand.

In a world awash in static and choices, sustaining engagement requires that social change brands create meaningful and memorable experiences with their content.

Tips for Content Creators

Now that you have a better understanding of the principles of effective narrative, here are some recommendations for crafting compelling long-form content that will deepen audience engagement and spur potential supporters to action:

Be consistently thoughtful. The bar for high-quality long-form content is, well, high. And with so much content so readily available, ensuring that your content is respected, remembered, and returned to means making sure it always speaks to and reinforces your organization’s credibility, delivers meaningful value, and provides a great reading experience.

Embrace editorial creativity. To spark and sustain engagement, long-form content needs to be focused and well structured. To keep your audience’s attention, try alternating between simplicity and complexity. Even when the subject matter may be dry and wonky. Punctuate deeper dives into an issue with simple summaries, key insights, pull-quites and other tried-and-true editorial design techniques. Not only will this underscore and amplify what’s at stake, it will also make it easier to build on your ideas by cementing your big-picture ideas in the minds of your readers.

Empathy is important, but… We all love a story that tugs at our emotional heartstrings. But successful communications is about more than just making sure your ideas are clear, concise, and well-stated. It’s about meeting your audience wherever they are. And when it comes to policy or research, for example, this may mean minimizing emotional appeals to gain the buy-in of experts. This said, conveying empathy isn’t just about purple prose or being gratuitously emotional. It just requires authentically connecting with audiences in ways that resonates with meaning.

Don’t lose your audience. Consistency and clear expectations are critical to building trust — especially in long-form content that requires a greater commitment from your audience (and even more so online). Both in the language you use and the actual vehicles you create for your content, cues designed to orient audience members within the reading experience can reduce cognitive load, improve content accessibility, and create a sense of anticipation that keeps audience members reading.

Give people a place to rest. Giving your audience members conceptual places to take a break is a great way to reduce the fatigue often associated with reading long-form content. Analogy, metaphor, and digression are tried-true techniques that, when executed well, can reinforce context, add needed perspective, and reinforce reader understanding. From a design perspective, creating visually (and conceptually) separate material such as sidebars is also an excellent way to introduce a change of pace into complex material.

Don’t be afraid to pick a fight! As our name suggests, Constructive is all about positive dialogue. But that doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate the importance of taking clear positions and standing up for what we believe is right. If the issue your organization is working to address requires you to take a stand, you can strengthen your case by contrasting your position with the position of those who see the issue differently and explaining in clear terms what’s at stake.

Leave audiences wanting to do more. Especially when it comes to exploring complex issues, every piece of content should of course leave audiences feeling informed and energized. But the next steps are crucial! Give them reasons to engage and to help advance your mission. Whether it’s a small ask (like a social share), a medium ask (like signing up for a newsletter), or a big ask (like volunteering or donating), offer opportunities to engage. And be sure to connect how their participation makes a difference—especially when combined with the actions of like-minded people (as always, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts!).

So, Let’s Make it Matter!

In a world awash in static and choices, sustaining engagement requires that social change brands create meaningful and memorable experiences with their content. Storytelling has long been one of humanity’s most powerful ways of translating ideas into action. And, while using digital communications to share your ideas may be different than telling stories around a campfire, the principles are the same.

To effectively engage audiences, digital content must be meaningful and valuable — wherever and however your audience chooses to consume it. Because those organizations whose ideas are remembered and returned to are the ones who shape how we see our world. And when ideas are designed and delivered in ways that audiences finds both accessible and useful—these are the ideas that are also shared with others to create change at scale.

And when it comes to driving social change, that’s a win-win!

__________________________

Learn more about Constructive at www.constructive.co, or get brand strategy, content, design, and technology insights from our entire team by following us on Medium at www.medium.com/@constructive.