How To Keep Your Digital Signage Audience Looking

July 16, 2018 by guest author, Bryan Crotaz

Guest Post: Trey Hicks, Visix

If you’re going to have digital signage, you need a content strategy. If you don’t have something on screens at all times to draw attention and interest viewers, they’ll start tuning out.

That can seem like a daunting task – collecting, creating and designing digital signage messages every day. But there are tools to help you display fresh, exciting digital signage content with very little work and low overhead costs – curated content subscriptions.

Trey Hicks

These are live feeds that automatically update and refresh, so once you set them up, they run all on their own. It’s usually a simple as pointing to a URL and choosing your aspect ratio, and sometimes you can make small customizations like choosing a style, color or font. You can run these in playlists alongside your other messages, or rely solely on the curated content.

While the subscription content is live, it’s been specifically edited and designed for digital signs in public places, so there’s no chance of accidentally showing inappropriate images or information. And everything is fully licensed, so there are no copyright issues to deal with.

There’s a wide variety of curated content to choose from. Simply decide which ones would appeal to your audience, sign up, set up and you’re ready to go:

Weather
People always want to know the weather, so this is the number one attractor to get people looking at your digital signs. You can show current conditions and forecasts using simple text, or include beautiful animated imagery and icons for visual impact. Simply choose your zip code(s) and which elements you want to show (temperature, humidity, etc.).

Traffic
Along with weather, people want to know what kind of commute they’ll be facing when they leave your facility. You can show visualizations and maps of local traffic conditions, routes and estimated travel times localized to the zip code(s) of your choice.

Flights
If your employees or visitors are traveling further afield, you can give them current airline departures and arrivals for your local airport, as well as a map that shows any delays across North America. Simply choose the airport code, and your viewers can track their flights from the comfort of your lobby.

News-in-Pictures
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so why not deliver the day’s news in easy, digestible chunks? Show the latest stories for news, sports or entertainment using an HD photo chosen specifically for each item, along with a succinct headline. This is more visually appealing and easier to read than a whole article, and easier to see from a distance. You decide on the topics, length of dwell time, number of news items to show and more.

Sports
If you have a lot of sports fans to please, you can take your sports signage further than news stories by displaying scoreboards that show:

• teams and players;
• divisions, conferences and leagues;
• game dates, times and locations.

You can select feeds for not only local teams, but ones your audience wants to follow in more detail. This is a great option for colleges and universities, and these dynamic visuals keep viewers interested with colorful animations and effects.

Stock Market
If your audience is finance-minded, you can give them updates on changes in the NASDAQ, NYSE, S&P 500, TSX and Dow 30 every 15 minutes. Summarize top gainers and losers throughout the day, and keep track of individual stocks. You can also display currency exchange rates, and prices for metals and agricultural products. Choose from different graphical styles, dwell time and which companies to highlight.

Social Media
Bring your social strategy to big screens by showing your social media posts on digital signs. This will help you to attract followers, and increase interaction and participation. You can show posts for a single handle or hashtag on all of the most popular networks, customize the look to match your brand, and then make simple edits in a user-friendly web dashboard.

Community Calendar
For even more social content, consider a calendar of upcoming events in your community. These short, eye-catching videos highlight art exhibitions and openings, festivals, concerts, sporting events, tours, family-friendly events and more, all tailored to the zip code(s) you choose. You decide on the design style, categories and filters to use.

Health & Wellness
In addition to weather forecasts, you can show UV and pollen levels, air quality, cold and flu indices, sinus and arthritis forecasts, and other health conditions for your zip code(s). These are eye-catching ways to promote health and happiness in your audience, and show them that you care about their wellbeing. In addition to health forecasts, you can include short videos with wellness, fitness and healthy eating tips.

Safety Tips
To add to a sense of wellbeing and support for your employees, you can show attention-grabbing safety advice inspired by OSHA regulations. These are simple tips that promote and reinforce safety in the workplace using colorful imagery and easy-to-read text. By being proactive, you could prevent the next accident.

Inspirations
It’s always good to have something fun on your screens – sometimes inspiring, sometimes funny, sometimes informative – but always interesting. Inspire your audience with quotations from well-known figures, interesting statistics, and humorous observations to help flesh out your playlists, adding a human touch to your digital signage communications.

And more…
We’ve listed only the most popular subscriptions in this article, but you can engage each and every viewer with the variety and depth of curated content available – lists, quizzes, customer service tips, travel videos, animal spotlights, new innovations – the list goes on and on.

With digital signage content subscriptions, you’ll have high-quality content that’s always current and updates all on its own. Because all the content is curated by professionals and designed specifically for large screens, you know it’s beautiful, relevant and public-friendly. All you do is choose your subscriptions and designs, plug them into your playlists, then sit back and let the subscriptions do the work.