Potato Chips Have Super Powers 💥
It does not matter whether you call them chips or crisps, they are one of the most popular 🌟 snack foods in the world!
How popular is it? According to the Northern Plains Potato Growers Association, the average American eats around four pounds of them each and every year, and in 2011, that added up to 1.5 billion pounds of potato 🥔 chips. Time Money says around 11.2 million pounds of chips are eaten on Super Bowl Sunday alone. That is an almost unthinkable amount of chips!
It is not just America who loves their chips. There are a shocking variety of flavours found all over the world 🌎. Do some traveling, and you will find chilli and chocolate chips, baked bacon 🥓 and cheese with seaweed, blueberry, brie and cranberry, and even cajun squirrel flavoured chips. The entire world loves them!
Here are 7 lessons that content marketers can learn from the popularity of chips:
1️⃣ Keep your content crisp
Chips were invented on August 24, 1853 when an unhappy 😠 customer sent a plate of fried potato back to the kitchen at the Moon Lake Lodge in Saratoga, New York, because they were thick and sloggy. The cook, George Crum, fried another batch that was again rejected ❌. In retaliation, he deep fried yet another batch of wafer thin potato slices to teach the fussy customer a lesson. He thus inadvertently invented the crisp chips that instantly became popular. Soon, Crum launched his Saratoga Chips and other companies also sprang up.
People like both chips and content crisp. Content that is long-winded or needlessly wordy is like thick and soggy fried potato. Keep your message brief 🤏, but one that is loaded with meaning and message. Tweeting is a great way to practice producing crisp content. Condense elaborate ideas into a 140 character tweet. Try to sum up the whole article into your tweet. By the time you reach your 5th tweet, you have already learnt to produce crisp 👌 content.
2️⃣ Keep your content snackable
Chips are snacks, not meals - something people munch on between meals, because they are taking a break 😪 and have only so much time to quickly refresh themselves. People also eat chips when they are bored 🥱 or want a break from regular uninspiring meals. We like snacks because they are tasty.
Likewise, content should serve as tasty 🤤 snacks that people look forward to when they are taking breaks between work or when they are plain tired or bored of the monotony of a regular day. Choose interesting 🤔 subjects and produce snackable nuggets of captivating content that refreshes and rejuvenates people the way chips do.
3️⃣ Dispense your content in different packages
Chips were only available in bulk for nearly 75 years since their birth 👶. In 1926, a California based chip company came up with the idea 💡 of pre-packaged chips that could be delivered to retailers and readily bought by customers. This further evolved into the individual and family size packages that we now have.
Dispense your content via convenient packages for different audience needs - some want just the gist, some want the detail. When you promote 📣 your blog posts, articles, infographics, slides or videos via social media posts, make sure to capture the key 🔑 message. Your Facebook posts can be a bit longer than your tweets, since they do not have the 140 character limit. This way, those who do not have the time to click through your links still get the message, yet keep the curiosity 🤨 so that those who have the time do click and read more.
4️⃣ Cut down on the salt and fat
It is the salt 🧂, oil, and trans-fat that makes chips so tasty. However, it is also the same salt and oil that makes them unhealthy. Add introductions, summaries, connectors, anecdotes, and analogies to make your content organised, fascinating, and readable. Also, include images to substantiate the point and draw attention 👀!
While this helps, it may also sometimes hurt because it means more page-load time ⏰ or more reading tasks for the audience. Hence, optimise your images and sub down your content wherever possible. Repetition 🔄 is like trans-fat in content marketing. Edit your stuff carefully to remove all instances of repetition.
5️⃣ Cut down on the air
Do you realise that air costs 💰 when you buy a bag of chips? Consumers are upset that a lot of content in the modern chips packet is actually air 🌬. Readers will be upset if your content has a lot of “air” (blah blah blah) than real value.
6️⃣ Maintain freshness and variety
Who likes to eat stale chips from a half-used packet lying around exposed? Also, how long can you continue eating the same flavour? Get creative and come up with fresh 🌱 ideas rather than reuse old ones. Use a variety of ideas just as the variety of chip flavours 👅. Use your own imagination apart from automated idea generators. Innovate like the chip manufacturers have done to produce pringles, tortillas, banana chips and yam chips. Experiment 🧪 like the consumers do when they mix chips with salsa, salad, fish, cheese and other stuff.
7️⃣ Follow regulations
Your chips follow FDA regulations, and your content has to follow content regulations. Produce original content, cite, and acknowledge 👋 any sources you have drawn from. Use quotes if you are quoting others. Follow the AP guidelines 📑 where applicable. You can capitalise on your brand equity and diversify into other products just as top chip brands have done once you are a successful brand via your content marketing strategy.
Do you want everyone in the world loving you? Be a potato chip! Here at AK47™, our content is as crisp as potato chips. Want to learn more? Just open a bag of chips and message us 🤩😎!
References:
Mashed. 2018, June 4. The Strange History Of Potato Chips.
Rao, A. 2015, June 14. 7 Lessons Content Marketers can Learn from Potato Chips.
