This is a fantastic new update and creates further impact with your digital signage – I’ll tell you why! Digital Signage is an art and is all about capturing your audience’s interest. Whether it’s a montage of bright and interesting images, an exciting video trailer or slight movement from an animated gif, you have to be thinking about turning heads. Twitter is a fantastic tool for digital signage but remember tweets can often be just text. This still works because Twitter limits each tweet to 280 characters so it won’t ever be over texty. Impact will be greater by adding richer content to accompany your text. While testing our new Twitter 2.0 update, before full release my TrilbyTV colleague Gavin added the @TheLightWalsall Twitter Feed. This is the Light Cinema in Walsall and I was hooked by their posts straight away. Lots of imagery, movement and video often make me look away from my computer screen to my test TrilbyTV screens.
Of course, we live in a busy world where our time is precious and a quick tweet with text is all we might have time for. Having a solid plan around adding rich content to your tweets could add real impact to your digital signage screens. Here are a few ideas to get you started…
Keep it simple
It’s all about impact so keep it simple. Keep text at a minimum so that while the tweet is on the screen your audience have time to read it. Four images scaled nicely are enough compared to a montage of many. Too much content can confuse your audience and it becomes cluttered – ‘What am I supposed to be looking at?’ Your video is just a taster, a trailer to the main event which leaves your audience wanting more. Remember that well-known phrase ‘less is more’ and your tweets will have far more impact.
Sizing Images
There are optimum sizes when adding images to Twitter that look fantastic when showcasing back on your digital signage screens. Square images are best and apps such as Adobe Spark Post have useful Resizing options including a Square export. If you are using images from your mobile phone, most devices will have the option to Crop which also has re-framing tools to make them square. If you are adding text to images keep it away from the edges to ensure it displays nicely on the many different screen sizes and resolutions out there.
Draw your audience’s attention with movement
Bright interesting imagery will no doubt add impact to your tweets and digital signage. You should also think about adding movement to create even more interest. Whether a lead in transition or gentle piece of movement to capture the eye, using some sort of animation is well worth thinking about. We recently launched new features to our TrilbyTV platform and to create prelaunch interest, we created an animation using Adobe After Effects. Applications such as Apple’s Keynote can also be used to great effect when creating simple animations as you can see below.
Use Video
Creating video content for signage screens doesn’t have to be a long process and you certainly don’t need to be a trained professional to create quality solid outcomes. Apps such as Adobe Spark, iMovie, Quik and TouchCast Studio allow for the creation of professional looking video for very little time or financial outlay. Pick one that you like using and then build a structure for creating video assets that you use over and over again to create a brand and consistency. As with other signage content keep it short and brief, and if you are using audio remember to add subtitles for screens with the sound off.
Be consistent
Standardising your content and tweets will gain an audience and get them noticing your posts over and over again. Keep an eye on your Tweet Analytics and I have no doubt you will see increased engagement and followers. The world of mobile means more than ever we are able to digest large amounts of content so naturally our attention spans are shorter. You need to stand out from the rest, gain your audience’s attention and adding rich engaging content to your Tweets showcased on your digital signage will certainly do this for you.
Twitter feeds are just one of the many great ways that you can bring your screens to life, create impact and switch on your signage. TrilbyTV offers a wide variety of features that can help you build whole school communication, boost community cohesion and enhance parental engagement.
If you’d like to explore more about what TrilbyTV has to offer, you can book a free demo session with TrilbyTV Director Neil Emery, just click here to book!