How To Create Emotional Content With Meaning

One of the biggest problems brands and companies face is attempting to create an emotional connection with their audience.

It can be difficult to create content that resonates and stirs up emotions; you don’t want your content to fall flat.

And, even when you do create an emotional response, you don’t want it to be a wrong or negative emotion either!

But firstly, what is emotional content? And why do you even want to create it?

Emotional content is advertising, blog posts, and any other form of marketing that inspires us to buy, watch or click a link because it’s evoked a strong feeling in us.

This could be watching a video that angers us and sharing it or seeing an ad that makes us cry and feel compelled to buy the products advertised.

But how successful is emotional content?

Well, according to Small Biz Daily, brands that have built up an emotional connection with their consumers are twice as likely to have customers who are willing to pay 20% more for their products.

Meaning, that emotional connections have a direct tie to revenue.

You only need to look to advertisements like The Man on The Moon (John Lewis, 2015) and the ever heart-warming Dog Advert (Amazon Prime, 2016) to see that emotional content works.

So, how do they do it?

Read on to find out.

Firstly, you need to find out what sort of content resonates with your audience.

There’s absolutely no point in trying to create emotional content if you don’t know what emotions will work, and what emotions won’t.

The first step is to create a user profile for your target consumer.

This is a pretty standard marketing trick, which allows you to really hone in on what it is your consumer likes, dislikes, and – most importantly – what will drive them to your website.

An example of this could be: you’re a skincare and toiletries brand marketed to women. You want to target women of all ages and races, but probably of a lower socio-economic class considering how affordable your products are.

You want to inspire a feeling of acceptance, sensitivity, and optimism, and body positivity.

So, you create an ad where you have women describe themselves to a portrait artist to be drawn. The women describe themselves in mostly negative ways, resulting in a drawing that doesn’t look much like them.

But, you also get other women to describe them. These other women describe them in much happier, attractive, and flattering ways – resulting in a drawing that looks a lot more like them.

The ad preaches acceptance, self-love, self-worth, and kindness.

Sound familiar?

This is because it’s exactly what Dove did in 2013. It was a huge success.

Creating content that inspired such positive emotional responses in their target audience led to a massive increase in revenue. They knew specifically how to target their desired consumer.

Finding out what sort of emotions resonate with your audience is the best way to figure out how to create emotional content.

Anger, sadness, or melancholy wouldn’t attract consumers to use a brand like Dove. So, the marketing team steered clear of it.

When it comes to creating emotional content, there is a fine line.

You want to create content that stirs up strong reactions, but you also don’t want to create anything cringe or inauthentic.

It’ll just fall flat. People will be able to see right through it.

So, how do you make sure your content is sincere?

Firstly, you need to be real.

If your content is based upon an entirely made up scenario that isn’t relatable or realistic, then people aren’t going to identify with it.

The reason why Dove’s ad was so successful was that many women had felt unattractive, and were able to relate to the women in the ad.

Following this, sincere emotional content usually focuses on the human.

It’s almost impossible to create an emotional ad about how great a speaker is. But, it is possible to create an emotional ad about how this speaker was able to bring friends together through their mutual love of music.

Notice the difference?

But most importantly, do your research.

Find out what’s hot and what’s trending. What people care about. And see if you can create emotional content around this.

However, when it comes to avoiding insincere ads, you must be careful.

Pepsi’s infamous ad featuring Kendall Jenner, which saw her crossing the riot line to give a police officer a Pepsi (and thus unify the two fighting sides) was a massive failure.

Pepsi ended up having to pull the ad and issue an apology, stating that they realised the ad came across as insensitive and false.

Know your limitations when it comes to creating emotional content.

It’s entirely plausible for your product or brand to bring together friends, reunite families, or create joy (sincere content). It’s unlikely that it’s going to solve world peace (insincere content.)

You may not know this, but certain types of social media platforms evoke certain types of feelings and emotions.

According to a study carried out by Apposphere, we have different feelings towards different platforms.

For example, Snapchat makes people feel happy and funny. On the other hand, apps like Facebook and Twitter make people feel anxious and overwhelmed.

One reason could be because Twitter and Facebook are used to share the news. And, often, people feel nervous and upset when consuming mostly negative news.

So, how do you make sure you’re using the right platforms for your emotional content?

Firstly, you have to know the emotional connotations behind each app.

Facebook:
Informed, entertained, nervous, guilty.

Instagram:
Inspired, adventurous, flirtatious, creative.

YouTube:
Captivated, excited, curious, entertained.

Twitter:
Anxious, overwhelmed, informed, self-conscious.

Snapchat:
Silly, creative, adventurous, playful.

It’s not to say that it’s impossible to create inspiring or positive content on Facebook. It just means that you have to be aware of the typical content people are used to seeing.

Also, when it comes to creating emotional content that is designed for virality, the form of content is important to consider when choosing a platform.

If you’re creating a video advertisement, posting it on YouTube is the best way to rack up some views. But, posting it on a platform like Facebook or Twitter may also be a good idea considering you can share it.

Whilst Instagram may be a visual platform, it isn’t the most user friendly for sharing.

On the other hand, a graphic or image with an emotional connection probably would respond well on Instagram.

Finding out what type of content you want to create, and what platform best suits this, is a great way to ensure that your emotional content sticks.

As stated earlier, as consumers, we connect with emotional content with which we can identify.

We have to be able to see ourselves and relate to what we’re consuming for us to truly feel something.

So, what’s the best way to do this?

Invite your audience into your content.

Otherwise known as calls to action.

By doing this, we’re making sure that our target consumers aren’t just passive participants in the content they consume but are actively engaging with it.

There are many ways to do this and make sure that your consumers are actively connecting with your emotional content. Check below for just a few ways.

Hashtags are a great way to get your audience to actively connect with your content given how simple they are, and how they’re prone to virality.

Attaching a hashtag to your content and then asking your audience to use said hashtag when discussing and sharing their thoughts is a great way to create a cohesive brand identity, keep track of what people are saying about our ad, and get them involved.

Everyone knows how to use a hashtag, even your nan!

Gillette’s ‘The Best Men Can Be’ ad about toxic masculinity was massively viral. It discussed an uncomfortable topic and addressed something very current in the news and society right now.

But, the ad was also a success because of its call to action.

‘The Best Men Can Be’ slogan inspired a lot of feelings and resulted in many men sharing stories of their own experiences of toxic masculinity.

The ad created a dialogue and invited men to get talking. As such, the ad spread in popularity, and more and more people became aware of it.

All because of a catchy slogan.

Image Copyright Property of John Lewis.

Creating emotional content is no easy task.

It can be difficult to find the balance between being authentic and inspiring, without becoming cheesy or cringe.

But, when you do find that balance, you can create really powerful content.

Emotional content is a great way to get consumers to connect with your brand, share your ads and marketing, and gain traffic to your sites.

So, will you be using emotional content in the future?