CONTENT AGGREGATION
Content Aggregation & Consumption In A Digital World
By Nancy Matimu
Traditional media , daily and weekly news magazines and newspapers have all evolved from the way we knew them . Looking back at the history of content consumption and storytelling , it begun as far back as the time our grandparents told stories besides the fireplace before we had TV ’ s and now digital platforms . The method of delivery and platforms have also changed and today the online space is the largest of them all , and continues to expand .
We are all publishers now and a lot is happening in the online space . Social norms are shaping storytelling , content offering is changing as we can see from the different social networks , content diversification is taking place to suit the changing norms and is now aligned to sexual orientations , cultural changes , social classes even geographical setting . However , the greatest shift has been brought about by the rise in the segment of one - Single consumer - who wants everything in a single channel , while paradoxically offering more choice .
The world of segment of one has a bias for digital for obvious reasons . Digital is multimedia and is available on phones , laptops and even on TV ’ s compounded with the hunger for simplicity and convenience . Super aggregators prevail and lead on this notion which has birthed the rise and growth of YouTube , TikTok and long format aggregators such as MultiChoice . The segment of one also thrives in that it is suitable for both live and recorded events which are presented to the consumer on platforms like Zoom . The critical factor that we need to explore however is what is driving the rapid and significant change in online media .
The answer is simple - content aggregation . Aggregation is currently a trend that is driving digital and even business growth . Content aggregation in its simplest form is the process of accumulating content from diverse digital platforms on a common topic into an exclusive place . There are millions of posts being uploaded every day on digital platforms and those that are being aggregated into a single feed makes it easy and simple for users to access a topic of interest into one place saving them time and effort . Similarly , for brands , content aggregation serves the purpose of accumulating content for marketing , information-sharing , driving engagement and interaction with audiences .
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Digital marketing is an extremely dynamic and unforgiving field for brands and content marketing is a trend that brands need to harness to win over customers who are time-strapped and still value convenience .
Two types of content aggregation exist : social media and regular aggregation . Regular content aggregation is based on aggregating information from different sites , blog pages , articles , visual content and podcasts into one place for allowing users to easy and simple access to value-adding information . Facebook , Instagram , Twitter , Pinterest , for example consist Social media content aggregation . This has been further developed into integrated apps such as META , this concept which allow seamless integration between different networks including Facebook , Instagram and WhatsApp which make it even easier for users to navigate and use one platform with interlinked accounts as a perfect example to meaning of the segment of one .
It is evident that aggregation as a business model will continue to thrive and must be digital oriented . Aggregation is driven by automation - amalgamating all relevant content into a single feed automatically , time and cost - making the content costeffective and real-time ; originality - excellence in the content strategy delivered to drive engagement and value creation - where the content has a certain degree of value addition characteristics for the audience and drives interest .
Leveraging content aggregation means one thing , that ‘ Content is King .’ Quite often in the marketing world , we have used this statement but how far have we explored the depths of it ?! For aggregation to be fruitful , we must explore the kind of content , where to promote it , who should create the content and how it will be beneficial for the audiences that we target .
Marketers create content endlessly and
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