Getting enough eyes on content can be tough. After all, most businesses now have a content marketing strategy, which has increased the amount of content available to prospective customers.

With this increased competition, it’s important to develop new ways to get content seen. One way of doing this is by incorporating a sense of urgency into content, which enables it to gain a higher level of visibility.

Research has found young people spend up to nine hours a day on social media platforms, whether that’s on a computer or mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones. This time is usually broken up into smaller periods, often of only a few minutes while waiting for something or taking a quick break.

Because of this, content is often put into the ‘maybe later’ pile if it doesn’t seem important. This is where urgency comes – it provides a way to get prospective customers to immediately access and digest content.

Urgent content

There are various pieces of content that naturally falls into the ‘urgent’ category. News, for example, is tied to current events by its very nature, giving it immediate appeal.

Content that reveals common mistakes has a degree of urgency, as neither consumers or businesses like making mistakes and, if they don’t read the article, they may feel they are leaving themselves at risk of continuing to make errors they don’t realise they’re making.

Likewise, content based on revenue optimisation and cost-saving tap into this sense of urgency, as the audience wants to know how they can improve their financial situation sooner rather than later. Immediate-action content is also seen as urgent as it taps into the audience’s desire for immediate answers.

Make your content more urgent by following these three steps:

• Optimise headlines 

Almost 60 per cent of all content shared via social media is never accessed, making headlines a crucial element in encouraging engagement.

Most social media users read headlines and immediately make their mind up about the content without reading it. Therefore, while the quality of content is important, there must be a sense of urgency in headlines to encourage the target audience to engage with it.

• Utilise trigger phrases

An easy way to increase the sense of urgency around content is to use the right language. By incorporating words like ‘today’ or ‘now’, especially in headlines, will increase the likelihood of content being read and shared. The wording should convey that users will gain instant reward by consuming the content.

• Use compelling imagery

Content marketing strategists should put as much time and effort into optimising imagery as they do producing copy and video – not only within the publication, but for the headline thumbnail too. Strong colours make images stand out, drawing attention.

Boosting the urgency of content can have a dramatic effect on its visibility, and see engagement with published material increase. Ultimately, this will increase the audience, which can potentially be converted into customers.

As with all content marketing tactics, the results of urgent content campaigns should be carefully measured to ensure they are having the desired effect.