We have been attending various media events worldwide, including WNMC, MDDC, and many more. So, we interacted with newsroom folks, editors, and reporters worldwide to understand their challenges and the trends in gathering and disseminating news. Visual stories emerged as an audience-preferred content format that brings higher engagement- Vineet was very enthusiastic while explaining his experience after interacting with media savvies globally.Vineet Punjabi- Head of Sales @ Quintype
Visual stories, also known as AMP stories, web stories, and short videos, convey bite-sized information to the audience. They are a form of immersive storytelling that includes videos and images to convey the subject matter and attract readers.
Gen Z and Gen Alpha have a shorter attention span than their predecessors. However, they cover a considerable part of the news audience. Revealing information through visual storytelling and short videos is one of the best tactics for attracting engagement in these categories.
This article covers expert insights from Vineet Punjabi- Head of Business at Quintype Technologies, on how newsrooms can implement visual storytelling and short videos in full swing to generate more engagement and reach.
Web stories combine images, video animation, and text with interactive elements like polls and quizzes. They are great for delivering bite-sized content like recipes, tutorials, travel diaries, or product showcases.
Popular publishers such as National Geographic, CNN, and BBC use web stories to deliver content in an engaging format. As the name indicates, video shorts are small videos ranging from seconds to a few minutes.
Visual storytelling with precise content and captivating visuals helps brands capture the audience's attention, especially Gen Z and Gen Alpha. These are highly mobile optimized, creating more engagements from the younger generation, who prefer interactive digital experiences.
Vineet Punjabi shared his learnings and research findings about visual storytelling with news folks. There are two main formats for visual storytelling: a web story and a short video. Vineet was explaining this with the help of real time examples of visual storytelling published by major brands.
Popular news media brands design visual stories with many interactive elements. Interesting calls to action and pop-ups appear on the screen. Here is one such example from The Quint. The overlays and designs make the stories more engaging than just placing an image and content as news.
https://www.thequint.com/quintlab/chennai-rain-floods-parched-climate-change/
Another example below demonstrates a visual story related to sports. It shows how well the story is created with images, career graphs, and achievements, one by one, that help the reader understand and link one event to another.
https://www.thequint.com/quintlab/unmasking-the-man-mahendra-singh-dhoni-edition/
Here is how a story is designed as you see it live. The title is ‘ How Hussain Bolt came from behind to win gold.’ Exactly like what the title says, the story provides an immersive experience with the visuals.
Instead of moving down, the reader can scroll sideways to see the images one by one that covers the entire moment of winning the gold. NT has made it excellent.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/15/sports/olympics/usain-bolt-mens-100-meters-final.html
Lifestyle, Fashion, and trends are other areas where web stories are a popular tool to create more engagement and reach more people. Below is another example of a web story created by mixing images, videos, and creative elements. The simple and crisp text is overlaid on top of the images.
The reader can slide it just like a presentation, and it provides a completely immersive experience on a mobile screen. Publishers can place a CTA or a link to another website. This is a great way to attract readers to your desired section through CTA or affiliate marketing.
Visual storytelling has numerous advantages over traditional text-heavy articles. Despite being more production-intensive, it offers the audience a more engaging and impactful experience.
It simplifies complex concepts, enhances information retention, and broadens the reach to diverse demographics. While it requires more resources, the significant gains in audience engagement and message effectiveness make visual storytelling valuable.
Audience engagement is higher because the audience is emotionally interacting with the story and spending more time on it by interacting and sharing. It enhances the time spent on the publisher platform- session time. This, in turn contributes to higher advertisement revenue and subscription growth.
In addition to the competitive advantages, the visual story allows publishers to convey their brand identity more memorably compared to other content formats.
Visual storytelling opens various revenue streams for publishers over traditional advertising. Publishers can monetize their visual content through sponsorship, brand ads, merchandise sales, content licensing events, and premium subscriptions. Hence, visual storytelling reduces the dependency on a single form of revenue and opens up various channels.
Access to New Market
Compared to other content formats, visual stories have the ability to reach wide and diverse audiences across different demographics, and regions. By creating relevant content that is culturally aligned with people across various geographic locations, publishers can reach out to new audiences that would otherwise be unattended.
When you have a broader audience base, the impact increases, additionally, it helps to create opportunities for collaboration with brands and advertisers seeking to connect with specific audience segments.
Storytelling provides a unique opportunity for publishers to differentiate themselves from the crowd and innovate with their offerings. It is a way to position the brand as an innovator. It invites readers and advertisers who seek a fresh and engaging experience to interact with and work with it.
What is connected content?
Connected content is the strategic arrangement and presentation of information within online news articles, blogs, or updated stories to keep readers engaged and informed by providing additional context. It includes relevant updates or supplementary visuals, such as charts, graphs, or videos.
Connected content is another aspect of storytelling that helps create an immersive and engaging content experience for readers and drives more traffic to the main website.
In connected content, authors are able to embed related stories, previously published stories, or related information on the topic within the story. These links provide readers with additional context about the topic. It is an opportunity to learn further about the subject or story if they wish to do so.
Moreover, authors can include updates, notifications at the bottom or top of the content to inform the readers that the story is still on. Additionally, including charts, interactive elements, or images connected to the story is a way of developing interest among readers.
The visuals can dynamically update to reflect the latest data and developments, providing readers with real-time information and analysis.
Events such as elections are one of the top chances to showcase how connected content really works. This is a live blog from the Quint. The live dot is a way to update the readers on what is happening in the results coming out and what the political scenario is aligned with.
The above example is one of the easy ways to represent complex data, including numerous metrics, in a simple and engaging way to the readers without losing any connected information.
Financial data is often dense and complex for people to interpret and understand, especially for readers who are not very familiar with finance. Another area where it can be utilized is representing financial information such as stock prices and budget-related facts, which can give the reader more clarity and accessibility to the data within the data in a connected way.
The trend information, trend predictions, and technical analysis data, which are complicated, can be depicted in a more engaging format. That helps readers understand and make more informed investment decisions.
Connected content allows readers to spend more time on your website, traveling from one piece of content to another by clicking the other links or related stories. This will increase session time, page views, returning visitors, and overall website traffic.
On the other hand, advertisers looking for a high-engagement website will advertise with you, which increases ad revenue. Audience retention, reading experience, and engagement will contribute to the long-term growth of the publisher.
Moreover, publishers will understand reader preferences, which will help them align their content strategy with reader preferences. These activities contribute to reader satisfaction and the likelihood of conversions in terms of signups, brand partnerships, sponsorships, and subscriptions.
AI tools are not here to write an article; they are here to eliminate mundane tasks and boost efficiency. In essence, AI helps you with repetitive tasks that are additional to writing, such as meta descriptions or meta titles, which eventually helps to boost the SEO ranking. Here are some of the other tasks that AI can assist you.
Headline suggestions
Meta title and Meta descriptions
Paraphrasing
Translation
Push notifications
You can use these AI tools to make your work much easier and faster. Every tool is evolving and getting better every day. However, utilize the possibilities to create better work.
Immersive storytelling is a new face of journalism or publishing efficiency. Including visual stories in your content strategy can create a lifetime impact on your audience. By utilizing AI tools for efficient storytelling, you can restart a new era for publishing engaging stories.