How To Use Infotainment to Get More Digital Signage Viewers

You already know you can use your digital signage to engage, assist, inform and motivate your audience, but there’s another thing you can do with your displays – entertain.

Too often, corporate communications are dull, drab and quickly become part of the background noise. But who doesn’t like fun? Adding entertaining and fun messages to your digital signage playlists helps keep people interested, so they will continue to look at your messages in the hopes of getting a little nugget that has no ulterior motive.

We’re talking about pure entertainment here – not an amusing way to get across an important company-oriented message, but things unrelated to your business that are interesting to your audience. It lets them know that you understand that they’re more than just employees, or clients or potential customers – they’re human beings with interests and hobbies and lives outside the company.

Think of it as adding an infotainment feature to your digital signage. Target your entertainment messages to particular interests – think about what sorts of things people in your facility like to do. Are they big social media users? Display today’s top and trending tweets from around the country. Do they love music? Throw up the current Billboard charts. Maybe they follow the financial markets, so you can show stock tickers and top performing companies. And you almost certainly have some sports fans walking around – show standings and stats for their favorite teams.

Of course, you can always loosely tie the outside interests to your company or culture, but make sure it isn’t a direct plug for your services or products. We’re talking about value-add – topics that will engage your viewers so they are more likely to look at your screens and see your other corporate messages alongside these entertaining themes.

How do you know what your audience is interested in? The most direct way is to simply ask them. This could be as simple as managers chatting with people and taking note of what they like, or you could make it more formal and send out a poll or survey. Tell them what you’re planning – whatever the top ten things people say appeal to them will get displayed on your digital signage system.

Obviously, the main purpose of your digital signage is to display targeted messages about things that are relevant to your organization. So, don’t overload your playlist with too much fun stuff – one message in every six or seven should be enough.

Here are some ideas for fun, entertaining messages you could display:

• Film – top grossing movies, coming soon features and future release dates
• TV – television ratings, critics top choices
• Sports – Local and favorite team standings, upcoming game dates and times, photos from recent games
• Music – top of the charts, upcoming local concerts, album release dates and critic reviews
• Finance- Market trends, stock movements, top performing companies and industry leader profiles
• Current Events – news tickers, top stories from a neutral source (like the BBC, AP or Reuters)
• Food – recipes, food trends, spotlights on local restaurants
• World – Photo of the day
• Travel – destination spotlights, travel deals
• Trivia – questions on various topics with answers to follow in a subsequent message, local trivia nights
• Health – exercise tips, pollen count and other local health conditions, allergy awareness raising, local marathons and health events
• And More – a community calendar of local events, traffic and weather, inspirational quotes, amusing memes, customer service tips, safety advice, various top five lists, short videos on various topics, animal and nature images and facts, etc.

Remember that these messages are supposed to be fun, so make them visually exciting. High-quality photos always grab attention, as does video, and everyone loves easy-to-read bullet lists. The more visually appealing the message is, the more attention it will attract.

If you don’t have a lot of time on your hands, you can use a subscription service for automated feeds in whatever categories you choose. There are several services set up specifically for digital signage.

By including value-added messages that are targeted to your audience’s interests, you create a more well-rounded digital signage strategy, and can attract and engage more viewers. This lets your audience know that you’re considering more than just your company goals, but see them, and your organization, as part of a much bigger world. A world that is fun to engage with.