Social media is, at heart, a relationship-building tool. But it can also be used to promote content. It's all about balancing self-promotion, sharing relevant information, and educating, engaging, and entertaining your readers, regardless of whether you use social media for B2B or eCommerce.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Snapchat are all mediums to create and share content. To attract more social media followers on each platform, it is key to tailor your content to fit each of the channels and audiences you target.
This post is platform agnostic. These tips help you craft the best social media content regardless of which channel you intend to post it on. But be sure to familiarize yourself with your chosen channel's posting rules and guidelines before you begin posting.
When you create great content, you're providing free and useful information. You attract potential customers to your website and retain existing customers through engagement with them.
This is the Ultimate Inbound Marketing Practice.
Content marketing brings in many more leads than traditional marketing and costs much less. The consensus is that 60% of online purchases directly result from the customer reading a blog.
Content equals business growth, so get to work and create great social media content!
Here are 24 ideas to help get you started:
1. Use good news
Research backs up that positive news is more likely to go viral.
2. Looks do matter
Nearly 80% of users read by scanning and only picking out words and phrases, so you can increase engagement by organizing content that's easy to scan and has a clear eye path built in.
3. React fast
Engage your audience with breaking news, experiences, or exchanges.
4. Check local happenings
If there's a conference aligned with your brand/business, you can leverage the conference hashtag by incorporating it into relevant tweets or posts.
5. Be emotional
Content is more likely to be shared if it creates a visceral response in the reader. Gut-check yourself to see if you've managed to do that with your content. Did you LOL? Were you concerned you were going to cry then and there? If you didn't feel it, chances are others won't either. Showing authenticity in social media marketing is crucial in establishing your brand.
6. Tell a story
Use your buyer personas as characters so people will relate to them and care about what happens. Make it a continuing story, and those emotionally engaged readers will be back. Keep the plot and characters true to your brand's values and voice.
7. Google News search
It's better than just a regular Google search to find relevant and current content. Search keywords relevant to your business; if your customers are local, search for content relevant to your locality.
8. Different titles bring different audiences
Look at your past content with an eye for reworking headlines to target various audience segments. Use A/B tests on fresh posts to see what resonates with your audience more.
9. Use historical events
Find things that happened on a particular historical date relevant to your industry, and create a post series around them.
10. Major media and pop culture
Extract a business lesson for your audience based on a current news story on a major media outlet or in a pop culture reference.
11. Answer questions posed by your audience
Create evergreen content by addressing any question/comment that asks "What is" or "What do I do when."
12. Be timely
Content that capitalizes on a trend brings lots of traffic in a concentrated time.
13. Be in for the long-term
Evergreen content will bring more traffic over a longer time frame. You want the earned trust that will build slowly, which is what evergreen content brings.
14. Don't use content to sell
You want and need credibility. You get it by providing value and positioning yourself as an expert in your niche.
15. Add value to users' lives
A primary goal of your content is to solve your users' problems. You show them how to overcome the obstacle they've encountered, and you build brand loyalty. Genuinely helpful content will be shared readily, and your audience will grow.
16. Be nostalgic
Content that hearkens to old memories appeals because humans view their past in a rosy glow that focuses on good times.
17. Be trendy
Follow the latest industry news and stay current with any trending topics. Doing so helps you build that trust you seek and become known as the place to head for timely and useful content.
18. Fit the content format to the potential buyers' stage in their customer journey
First, they become aware of a problem and research to define it better and name their problem/opportunity. Use whitepapers, blog posts, checklists, tip sheets, infographics, eBooks, games, and quizzes.
Second, they consider ways to solve the problem or take advantage of the opportunity. Use podcasts, webinars, worksheets, comparison matrices, and templates.
Third, the solution strategy, method, or approach is set, and they compile a list of vendors and products. They shorten the list with more research and make a purchase decision. Use demos, free trials, product guides, consultations, and coupons.
19. Do SEO research
Be sure there's adequate search volume to determine if it's worth investing time and energy to create content around it.
20. Brainstorm
If you feel stumped for ideas, try looking at recently-read books, competitors' sites, related searches on SERPs, and industry studies.
21. Compel your audience
Have the benefit of your content in the title. Use your persona's voice, euphemisms, and sense of humor. Stick with a single idea; don't confuse the reader with tangents. Match your vocabulary to that of your audience.
22. Headlines are important
Research shows that only 60% of people who click into content will go beyond the headline. So spend some time configuring it to get clickers to be readers. A tool to try is Headline Analyzer by CoSchedule.
23. Visuals matter
Everybody's favorite design tool is Canva. Use it to make your content beautiful, encouraging readers to continue and come back for more.
24. Trending tools
Try these tools to stay on top of what's trending and be as timely as possible with your content.
BuzzSumo's "Most Shared" and "Trending Now" functions;
Content Explorer by Ahrefs for finding the best content in your niche, and you can go to the time frame you want to use;
Google Trends for surfacing the biggest daily headlines and marketing trends on the rise;
and Reddit, which may be the first destination you use to find out what people are buzzing about because it reflects the things that people around the world find interesting in real time.
These 24 items are meant to include some ideas, best practices, and tools available to make your social media content as effective as possible. It is not meant to be a comprehensive list.
There is an art to creating content for social media. The number of users across these platforms worldwide is approaching 3 billion, so producing great content is worth your time.
And anyone who follows you on social media could be considered a warm lead. They already like you and are interested in what you have to say. So you have an audience that's ready to engage with your content.
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