So…. you decided you would invest in some digital signage and you need some ideas for ways you can make it stand out. Better yet, you want to increase engagement, communicate your brand and your values and stand out from the competition.
Lucky for you, we compiled 120 digital signage content ideas into one place. All that’s left is for you to follow this and share it with anyone else who needs help!
This particularly makes sense for schools, where weather reports are relevant to everything from field sports to the availability of transportation. If everyone’s parents will be late to pick them up because the main routes across town are filled with snow, it’s best they know as soon as possible so they can make arrangements.
Additionally, severe or emergency weather conditions such as hurricanes can trigger schools’ crisis communications plans, and digital signage has a role to play in keeping staff and students safe and informed. We tend to focus on cold and wet weather, but in some states very hot weather comes with its own risks including dehydration, heatstroke and even air quality issues. Occasional reminders of safe behaviors, sent out alongside weather reports, can help students make the right choices.
Contests can be focused on certain subjects, like science or math. Have the contest open to everyone in a certain class or year group and winners announced schoolwide. Or they can be oriented towards behaviors. Recognizing positive behaviors like attendance can help instill those values across the school.
If you have digital signage in the school gym or on the athletics field, one option is warmup videos. This can be a good move in company gyms and workout areas too. Many people who play sports, whether as young people or adults, don’t learn to properly warm up and stretch. At 15 it’s suboptimal, but rapid recovery means young people who aren’t elite athletes can often get away with it. At 30, it’s a recipe for injury. And for non-athletic young people participating in compulsory physical education it can be a way to make the process easier and more pleasurable, encouraging the habit of physical exercise. Show basic warm-up moves interspersed with athletes explaining the benefits.
In classrooms, this is probably too distracting. But in corridors and public areas, school-subject specific headlines like the latest news from science and technology can add interest for some students, and help cement the links between the abstraction of some school subjects and the real world.
This can be part of a slideshow helping orient new visitors in public areas like lobbies, especially on occasions like open days, hiring days or training days when there will be a lot of people on site who don’t know their way around. If you’re packing folks into halls for meetings, town halls, assemblies or events, periodically showing routes to emergency exits can help make them feel safer as well as offer real safety benefits.
Show random trivia questions and offer the viewers the correct answer with a more detailed explanation. This is a fun way to get more eyes on your display. It's very simple to do. Here's a how-to post on it.
Show all menu options for today’s menu, including menus by day of the week, lunch calendar, and multiple meal options such as for vegetarians, people with celiac-related issues, or religious and cultural reasons.
Bring your menu to life by adding animated content such as a steaming cup of coffee. This is also a fantastic way to highlight nutritional information, ingredients, etc. Restaurants and cafes can automatically update their menus depending on the time of day, promotions, or new items. See the different menus available for your school.
These are particularly useful for schools in the early days of each new term. Schools are full of kids who aren’t sure of the way around the area because they just moved campus when they went up a grade, or they’re older now and are taking more responsibility for their commute. They’re often accompanied by parents who might be pleased to find out that they don’t have to drive their kids to school, too.
Wayfinding on large campuses can be an ongoing problem, and for events like PTA meetings, parents don’t know the campus the way their kids do. They’ll need directions to specific classrooms, main public areas and facilities like cafeterias and bathrooms. Go to this article to see how to add a map to your display, or click the image below.
Announce student (and staff) birthdays, together with invitations to class parties or other celebratory events.
This can include clothing items commonly left behind when students switch rooms, as well as lost keys, mobile phones and backpacks, school books and more. Placing these alerts where everyone can see them is often more effective than a traditional lost-and-found.
This can include knowledge base, training or instructional content. Refresher material that’s relevant to the current project, updates from seminars, lectures and classes, or even live updates and progress reports can all be displayed directly from your web resources by simply pointing to their URLs. For organizations with internal wikis this can be a valuable addition to your internal communication abilities. For schools, the same information can be displayed on the school website and on screens — including shortened links or QR codes leading to grades and homework assignments.
If you offer several classes simultaneously, help your audience out by displaying the rooms, times, and instructors of each class. This helps to minimize confusion and saves paper since you don’t have to make print copies.
Remember that these change to take account of restrictions, public holidays, special occasions and other events. Make sure to draw attention to your opening hours at Christmas, Thanksgiving and similar times: doing so can turn a disappointed customer into a competitive advantage.
Schools can advertise relevant scholarships by subject in classrooms or in corridors outside them, as well as reminding students of sports scholarships and extracurriculars that may carry credits, recognition or prizes.
Whether you choose to feature every person in the building, or rotate and feature someone new each week, this is the perfect way to increase recognition and create a closer community environment.
These don’t have to be literally 10, but lists and lineups can help keep important information or key ideas top of mind for students. They can be famous scientists, math formulae, books by women, Covid tips, or ways to be supportive to peers and friends; there’s a reason the internet is full of lists (cough, cough). They work.
Provide solutions to common problems. In the classroom that can be reminders of how to do the math, or mnemonics for physics or music scales. In corridors, you can use this approach to reinforce SEL (Social and Emotional Learning) efforts, reminding students of healthy ways to manage their feelings or cope with interpersonal conflict.
Give encouragement to students and staff by highlighting achievements and other accomplishments.
Some contests don’t even have to be contests, as such. They can reward the kinds of small, easily-overlooked actions that add up to make organizations a better place to show up every day, like the Wings of Praise program at Cornwall-Lebanon Schools: ‘a way to recognize students that don’t necessarily stand out in the crowd,’ explains systems coordinator Scott Boyer. ‘They might be good academically, they might be good athletically, but they just do good things generally.’
Use digital signage to show assignment instructions in classrooms, including due dates, required references and reading, and other elements of the perfect paper. Use it in corridors to remind students of when term papers are due and where and how to submit them.
Use corridor and classroom digital signage to remind students of elements of academic writing, like essay structure, sentence and paragraph construction, and the basics of formal English grammar.
In libraries digital signage can be used to remind students how to construct a citation correctly and how to build and order a bibliography.
Also in libraries, as well as in the corridors of subject-specific school areas, digital signage can be used to tell or remind students about required reading. Simple slides can show the books, perhaps matched with quotes from the text. You can also embed web pages that show up-to-date availability information for set texts.
The year is filled with days, weeks and months dedicated to disabilities, black history, and many other important and underrepresented causes and communities. Digital signage is an ideal way to draw students’ attention to these, and to explain their importance and relevance.
Digital signage can be used in corridors, classrooms and public areas of schools to announce teacher substitutions.
School students have a lot on their plates, at an age where organizational skills might not be at their sharpest. Help them out by displaying the school week number and day on digital signage, making it easier for them to plan tomorrow and be in the right place at the right time today. Show class schedules in public areas - academic schedules, tutorial schedules and class project plans in classrooms. Don’t forget to show athletic schedules too, to help students keep up and avoid conflicts.
Use digital signage to show game trees as sports competitions progress, so everyone knows who’s playing whom next. Update the school with scores as they happen, or embed social feeds for live updates and game commentary or reviews.
Student absences probably don’t need to be displayed in public spaces. In classrooms, though, they can help students who are present manage their time and workloads better, including group projects.
Remind people of major upcoming events—galas and fundraisers, big games, competitions and performances. It’s a chance for everyone to get together behind the home team, and helps students plan for events like prom.
Show events schedules, helping to remind students, parents and staff of upcoming college visits, student tours and field trips. This information can be posted to the school website or social feeds, then embedded in Rise Vision templates.
Field trips are a major part of many school subjects, and students do tend to forget them. It’s not just a question of being in the right place at the right time to leave school, something which often happens outside regular school hours and sometimes starts off-campus. Students also need to bring appropriate clothing, bag lunches, permission slips and more. Use signage to remind them!
However many times teachers tell students, reminders are always helpful. Of course students need to know where their own exams are, but it also helps to know which rooms are in use for exams so they know their normal activities have been moved.
Announcements and messages from principals, coaches, teachers, business leaders and community figures can be shown at intervals on screens in public areas. Rise Vision users can easily embed videos into templates, including a blank video template:
Show the status of support tickets across the office, pointing your Rise Vision screen to the URL of a public-facing web page set to refresh at intervals.
Embed the Google Workplace support widget to show the current and past status of your organization’s core Workplace assets such as calendar and Gmail.
Showing testimonials from past and current clients is the BEST way to build trust, show social proof and strengthen your brand. Testimonials aren’t only about promoting your product or service; they help build credibility and contribute to a stronger business presence. For bonus points, add photos of individuals (if possible) to show these are sincere and verified quotes.
If you’re a restaurant, cafe, or event venue, you may consider showing recipes with captivating photos and instructions. There’s no better way to open up a viewer’s appetite so they may stay longer to sample your offerings.
Showcase your property, new and exciting developments, events, staff, etc. with a picture gallery or slideshow. Update them often, and you will always have a new way to catch your audience’s attention.
This is perfect if you offer free WiFi. Minimize visitors’ questions and frustrations by explaining how to connect to the internet on a prominent display. Your audience will quickly catch on and appreciate the info.
If you specialize in a service (hair styling, cosmetic surgery, personal training, etc.), show photos of your past client successes with an emphasis on before and after to inspire your viewers. Everyone loves to see progress photos, and they may be just what someone needs to commit to working with you or signing up for your services.
Running a special online or in-store promotion? You can easily change and update promo codes or coupon codes as needed to offer savings and drive sales. If it’s a promotion unique to your digital displays, you will easily be able to measure the effectiveness and numbers of people engaging with your signage.
If your organization has benefited from donors, it’s always nice to show your appreciation by listing their names and recognizing their contribution. You may also add photos, videos, audio, and text that gives more background and describes your current and future projects and highlights your success.
Answer your most common questions in an easy to read format and showcase it for all to see. This could address topics such as payment terms, security concerns, or where your products are produced.
Encourage your audience to connect with you online by highlighting your usernames on different platforms so they can quickly reach you.
If you’re growing your team and want to attract more qualified applicants, consider adding a job post to your digital signage. It can catch the eye of the perfect candidate, or a viewer who is not a good fit may be able to recommend someone once they know there’s a vacancy.
Once you’ve hired someone new, you can feature this individual with a picture, short bio, and some fun facts about what they bring to the team. This helps increase visibility since this person may not have a chance to personally introduce themselves to everyone.
Recognize top performers in a format that everyone can see. This is the perfect way to increase morale and ensure openness within your organization.
Promote your growing business with photos, hours of operation, and the address of your newest location to drive more traffic and increase brand recognition.
Everyone loves a good inspirational quote. This can be changed daily or weekly and is an easy way to bring positivity into your space.
Whether you believe in the power of astrology or not, this is an excellent way to entertain your audience and get them talking.
Show a snapshot of the country’s most important economic indicators and engage an audience that’s looking for valuable data and real-time updates. Perfect for banks, universities, and finance labs.
Grab your audience’s attention with detailed maps that deliver real-time data traffic conditions in the area. Schedule it during lunch hours or before the evening commute, so viewers know what to expect as they hit the road.
Recognize significant employee milestones by displaying annual anniversaries of all employees. This helps to strengthen company culture and encourages others to share the love!
Share your excitement by counting down to a special event or holiday. Customize it to meet your needs and use it over and over again as there are always exciting things to look forward to!
Highlight important dates, events, meetings, downtime, etc. for every viewer to know what to expect and to look forward to in the near future.
Increase workplace safety and maximize your message reach by showcasing safety procedures and instructions for all to see. Update it to reflect changes as procedures evolve.
Give your audience a real-time look at a live event that you’re hosting or is related to your industry. Excellent for increasing engagement and getting more eyeballs on your digital signage. See how easy it is to do.
Smart signage can offer interactive games and trivia to create unique social experiences for any user. The uses are endless - from working to instill a stronger company culture or interacting with visitors on a more personal level.
Give a warm welcome to special guests and visitors by featuring a picture, short message and their contact details for everyone to see.
Inform customers of parking-related information, and display safety information. Update your messages in real time to reflect changes in weather, availability, directions, and special events.
Let viewers see a glimpse of your online personality and how they can connect with you online. There’s no better way to improve engagement and make your digital signage more social than showing real time stories from your feed. Are you being social with your digital signage?
Showcase your Instagram feed to show off your pictures of your product or service, customers, and your products in use while giving viewers more insight into your social media personality.
From breaking news to funny quotes, connect your Twitter presence to your digital displays. This can be used to promote your brand, engage your audience or to simply entertain! Find some activities to go along with your Twitter digital signage.
Show viewers how to use your products, or do other interesting related things. The possibilities are endless here so get creative and don’t limit yourself!
Let visitors know where the pool, fitness studio, and parking are located all with a quick glance at your screen. This is an excellent way to let your audience know what is available to them and make them feel welcome during their stay. Want more ideas for hotel digital signage? Check this out!
A simple way to showcase relevant regulations specific to your location. For example, an apartment building may highlight their rules regarding short terms rentals and AirBnB.
An innovative alternative to traditional building directory boards are digital directories, allowing you to inform and engage your visitors as they enter your business or lobby. Update tenants and communicate timely information while reaching the maximum number of visitors.
Transform your digital signage into an interactive form of advertisement by either promoting your own business and services or those of businesses close by. Helps to increase brand recognition and can be a source of additional revenue by becoming an advertising platform for local businesses.
Ask your audience to send in photos of them enjoying your product or service, scan them for appropriateness and create a campaign where you feature them on your displays. There’s no better way to build trust and a sense of community.
Increase awareness of your fundraising efforts, leading to a more successful campaign and show real-time progress towards your goal. Whether it’s advertising before an event or broadcasting when it goes live, digital signage can help your efforts become a success! Check out our post on creative ways to get funding for digital signage.
Provide a modern and eye-catching way to connect with your visitors. You may post information around service, broadcast live sermons, display important announcements, and promote events to increase participation.
Modernize your office and boost your sales! Show active listings, photos, neighborhood statistics, and open house schedules to improve a potential buyer’s overall experience.
Stream a video tour of your office, factory, or outside property while showcasing the most interesting parts in a captivating manner.
Show off all the praise you have received from sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor and show viewers social proof of your business or services.
Replace your worn out bulletin board with a slick design where individuals can post community events, services they offer, and anything else going on in the community.
Revolutionize how you communicate information by displaying patients’ names with the individual they are seeing and where they are located. Make sure patients are up-to-date with the latest information as timetables are often canceled or rescheduled.
Inform your viewers of important industry awards you have received to give your business credibility and show off the results of your hard work.
Show badges or logos of organizations you belong to that further build trust and credibility with your visitors.
Engage your visitors from the moment they enter your hotel by allowing them to easily check in using interactive digital signage.
Pass on the savings to your audience by featuring the hottest deals on vacation packages, flights, and accommodation.
Today’s customers are often looking for more than just a good deal. They want to do business with companies they identify with. Share your mission statement to relate to their values and catch their attention.
Increase attendance at after work events by presenting the necessary information in visible places in the workplace. This creates an inclusive environment and efficiently improve staff engagement levels.
Motivate employees by showing productivity measures and daily results so everyone knows exactly where they’re at and areas of improvement.
Let your audience follow the world of sports as it unfolds by providing the latest sports coverage, scores and milestones. Perfect for a university or any place you are trying to engage with an audience that appreciates sports.
Drive sales by showing promotions and special campaigns which can be customized for specifics such as weather changes, special events, etc.
This one is a must if you have multiple conference rooms or many events in your space. You can have a digital display outside each room, which increases transparency within the organization by giving everyone a look at what's going on. It also helps decrease scheduling conflicts.
Give visitors a warm welcome and customize it by adding their name or any other piece of information to show you took the time to personalize a message just for them. Find out how schools can make students feel welcome on their first day back here.
Allow visitors to register their vehicles quickly by entering the model, make, and license plate of their car.
Looking to collect stats on attendance at your events? Allow visitors to quickly sign in with their name and contact information which can be used to build lists and contact them in the future as well. This can also be used to collect attendance of students from the elementary to high school level.
Boost employee engagement by sharing critical data with your staff. Freely sharing stats across the organization helps increase transparency, which is essential for employee engagement.
Recognize and honor student-athletes, coaches, teams and contributors for their achievements to your sports program and create a wonderful sense of community within a school or organization.
Keep everyone on the pulse of the industry and newest trends by displaying Google Alerts as they come in real time. It’s enough to give everyone a high-level overview of the important updates without creating information overload.
We all know about loyalty programs but take it one step further by advertising contests and rewards specifically for those who view your digital signs. If the only way to access specific rewards is to pay attention to your digital signage, people will be more likely to keep their eyes on your content.
Whether you’re talking about topics in your industry or thinking outside of the box, a quick sentence or few bullets is the perfect way to make your digital signage a trusted resource. Since you can cover virtually any topic, the possibilities here are endless.
We all know the holidays come with many changes. If you have an updated schedule, special events, or seasonal products you can easily let your audience know by featuring this on your displays.
Familiarize your audience with scheduled speakers by showing a short biography and picture before an event. It’s the perfect way to give a warm introduction and promote your event without being too pushy.
Announce important milestones like weddings, anniversaries, births, etc. and easily share them with everyone to increase inclusion and strengthen corporate culture.
Cater to the health conscious crowd by providing detailed nutritional information on menu items you offer. Consumers are demanding this information more than ever to help them make informed decisions about what to purchase.
Keep your audience on their toes by presenting new facts which will foster creative leaps and help generate new ideas.
Summarize information in a visually appealing way to make it easy for your audience to digest information in just one glance
Embed a QR code in your messages to prompt action from viewers - whether it’s sending them to a website, a survey, or to download a promotion. QR codes help track the ROI on your messages as you can see how many visitors responded to the message.
Collect customer emails by giving them an easy way to sign up for your newsletter right on your display.
Promote a culture of honesty by sharing your customer satisfaction ratings with your target audience to build trust and show off your world-class customer service.
Grab the attention of your audience by showing previews of old favorites or the newest releases. Another option is to feature work done by those in your company or local artists.
You may already have a FAQ section on your site, but why not expand it into a longer form answer? These could be questions about your product or service, or more general ones related to your industry.
Give your audience short and sweet updates on what you have accomplished in the past week so they can stay up to date without overloading them with too much information.
Whether your business is in the kitchen or the boardroom, there are behind the scene moments your audience would love to see. Show outsiders a "Day in the Life", your suppliers, or "How It's Made". These can be short snaps, but they’re an excellent way to connect with your audience and show them what business looks like.
Show parts of your interview on screen, or stream the talk via video. Industry experts give a unique take on trends and can bring in a unique third party perspective related to your business or brand.
Get your users involved and feature photos of your products in use. This user-generated type of content does well because it gives viewers inspiration for how this product can fit into their lives. It’s especially entertaining if your products get used in odd or unique ways, or end up in random places!
Help your audience decide if, when, or how to make a decision by showing a visual for them to follow. What is a decision tree you ask? It’s as simple as asking a key question, and giving “yes” and “no” options that lead to a final answer or course of action.
Regardless of your industry, you can create an infographic to illustrate your point quickly. They’re a fun way to draw comparisons, outline a process, or show the benefits of a product or service. If you’re passionate about something or want to get a message across quickly - an infographic is the way to go.
Every industry has its secrets or things that outsiders have no idea about. This could be something related to the best time to buy, when to shop, or how to take care of products to prolong their useful life. Go ahead, share these with your audience.
Hacks, tricks, or shortcuts. Call them whatever you want, but there seems to be a hack for everything these days. People love them. You can share general life hacks or those related to your industry or product. The list is endless so get creative and help your audience get quick results in their everyday lives.
These are insanely popular amongst millennials and an excellent way to grab their attention and bring some humor to their day. Memes are often videos and images with humorous text that typically go viral and are particularly relevant if you’re trying to connect with a younger audience. Read more about how Rise Vision uses meme's here.
This can include company updates, events, and any topics that will affect customers of your organization. It can be used for internal business communication or in a lobby or front office for all to see what your company has been up to. See more ideas for your front office digital signage here.
Maintain transparency with your audience and share these targets either internally, or in a public area for all to see. This is an excellent way to stay motivated and to share successes and future plans.
Entertain your audience and promote giveaways that you plan or are currently running. Include instructions and make it easy for a viewer to digest the information they need to enter and exactly what they will get out of it.
Digital signage is an excellent opportunity to introduce STEM into the classroom. Read this post to get ideas for creating a STEM project with digital signage.
Use digital signage to teach students about financial literacy.
Promote school fundraisers on your digital signage to encourage donations.
Widen your reach and provide your audience with useful information by featuring industry experts answering popular questions.
That’s it. 120 creative digital signage content ideas with examples and tips to help you get started creating beautiful, engaging digital content.
While it’s not an exhaustive list, we think it offers some great suggestions to get you started and perhaps even triggers more possibilities that may be relevant to your situation.
Do you have any ideas we missed? We’d love to hear them and what you plan to create!