TV series "The Walking Dead" continues to succeed in the ratings and maintain its loyal fans. What tips can you and your business take from their success?

2. • The Walking Dead recently premiered to a
groundbreaking 12.3 million viewers on AMC,
according to Nielsen ratings.
• People tune into their favorite television
programs week after week.
• If we engage them with our content, we can
get readers to return again and again as well.

3. So what elements made “The Walking
Dead” so addicting?
1. The “Don’t Make Me Think” Syndrome
2. Interactive Content
3. The Reptilian Brain

4. 1. The “Don’t Make Me
Think” Syndrome
We know that the average attention span of an internet
user is 1-5 seconds.
• To put this into perspective, the attention span for
a gold fish is 9 seconds.
• This means we have to catch the reader’s
attention quickly.

5. 1. The “Don’t Make Me
Think” Syndrome
As content creators, we want to plan how our content
unfolds so that people have to think as little as possible.
Unlike novels and short stories, we don’t have time for
exposition. Jump straight to the action – or the point of
your piece.
• Filter out unnecessary content
• Make the content digestible

6. 2. Interactive Content
The producers of The Walking Dead incorporate social
media in every episode. You can vote in polls, view
interactive content, and participate in contests that are
related to each episode.
Interactive content will continue to dominate in 2013.
Use interaction through:
• Smart phones • Tablets • Laptops
• Trivia • Flash polls

7. 2. Interactive Content
Internet users love interaction and it enriches the user
experience.
• Statistics show us that 57% of Facebook users regularly
share posts from brands they “Like” with their friends.
• Are you making it possible for people to share your
content?

8. 3. The Reptilian Brain
The characters on “The Walking Dead” all embody the
“Reptilian Brain.” In other words, they always think in
terms of life or death.
Internet users work the exact same way. When they see
content, their reptilian brain asks two questions:
1. Is it dangerous?
2. Is it interesting?

9. 3. The Reptilian Brain
If neither of those answers is a yes, then we ignore it.
Thus, we want to ensure that our content is interesting
and targeted towards our ideal audience.
We can make content dangerous by revealing a
“problem” (that your brand/product can fix, of course).

10. 3 Tips from The Walking Dead
on Creating Engaging Content
Next week, millions of viewers will be tuning into “The
Walking Dead”.
Will you employ these strategies to have readers return
to your content as well?

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