Content of the week #17: Is simple best?

Social media feels harder than it has to be.

In museums we stress about jumping on TikTok trends, being funny and not causing a comms crisis, when what we really want to do is put cool stuff from history in front of people and say ‘Look at this. Look how cool this is.’

And that’s exactly what Jacklynn does on Instagram and TikTok.

The formula is almost always the same:

• Start with a selfie video of yourself looking at something with some text saying how you’re feeling – a lot like this video by history_mae I’ve previously written about
• Photos of objects of places or objects with text explaining what they are

And that’s it. No overwrought interpretation, no massive amounts of B-roll, no trying too hard. Just: here is a cool thing, and here’s why it’s cool.

It works because it doesn’t ask a lot from the viewer. For the carousel posts you can swipe through in your own time. You’re in control of how long you linger over each object.

The text itself is emotive, informative and doesn’t overstay its welcome. But it’s also personal, explaining why a visit to an historic site or witnessing an historic object is special. Almost always these reflect the emotions a lot of us feel – the awe of being in a place that has witnessed centuries of people, or being transported to a time in history by an object.

And she doesn’t just post and leave – she replies to as many coments as possible, answering questions, engaging in discussion and thanking people for replying. The people in her comments are contributing their own opinions, adding to the history or just appreciating the music choices.

What is essential for almost all of these posts is that they’re shot in person. They’re not scanned images or object photos – they’re the real-life thing which other people can also visit. That adds a bit of authenticity to make the object/place more real, and allows others who have stood in that same place to relate. It also requires an insane amount of travelling, but I’m kicking myself that I haven’t taken more photos on all of my daytrips.

So, maybe try stripping back some of your content. Just tell people how an object or place makes you feel, and then tell people why it’s interesting. Just a quick video, a few photos, and a bit of overlaid text.

What else I’m thinking about

The more strategy work I do the more I think half of it can be cut. It’s essential to make sure what you do is focused, but it often feels like social media is where carefully considered audience segmentation plans goes to die. Instead, we always end up with playing with the same formats and channels, and the more important question is what we don’t engage with rather than what we do.

Instead the challenge remains just how much time you have, what skills you have and just how brave you want do be with your content. And it’s hard to figure that out until you’ve workshopped the kind of ideas you could be playing around with, and testing that against what is important to you and what’s possible. It still needs strategy, but often what you think you should be doing based on your overall strategy goes out the window when it hits the reality of social media.