Did you know that there are now 4.62 billion people around the world using social networks with a whopping 424 million new users joining only within the last year?
With that said, this article will explore what social media content is, how you can use it in your content marketing strategy, and everything else you need to know about social media content.
Ready to boost your brand awareness?
Keep scrolling!
Most marketers would agree that using social media for ad placement is a vital part of promoting brand awareness, boosting traffic, and converting leads.
In fact, experts predict annual advertising on social media in 2022 to increase past $134 billion!
With so many platforms to choose from, you may be unaware that there are many types of social media networking websites that are designed for different purposes.
Let's jump into the different types of platforms:
• Social networks: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn
• Media sharing platforms: Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, TikTok
• Discussion or Community forums: Reddit, Quora, Digg
• Bookmarking and Content Curation: Flipboard, Pinterest
• Consumer Reviews: Google, Yelp, Zomato, TripAdvisor
Social networks are used to communicate with individuals and brands via the internet. This type of social platform is good for customer service, engagement, and lead generation.
Additionally, media sharing types of social media channels are used to find images, live videos, and any other type of media. They provide brands a place to discover and share media to help them target their audience and convert them into customers.
Discussion or community forums encourage businesses to be a resource for market research. These types of forums are one of the oldest ways of running social media marketing campaigns.
Content curation platforms, sometimes called bookmarking platforms, help businesses by running media marketing campaigns that help your website generate website traffic and user engagement.
Customer review networks help people find, begin sharing content, and review different businesses, products, and services. When a business has positive reviews, this is social proof a brand is legit.
Finally, here are some examples of shareable social media content:
• Written posts such as blogs, articles, and guides
• Ebooks
• Links to external content, such as products or services
• Images
• Videos
• Stories
• Live streams
• Infographics
Hashtags are vital for social media because they enable your content to be found by the right people.
Simply put, hashtags are keywords for social media.
By using relevant hashtags, you can drive traffic to your content. This can boost your views, clicks, likes, and shares.
There are also free tools you can use, such as All Hashtag to help you find your audience:
Input your keyword, click the volume you want your keyword to have, and click generate.
Your results should appear similar to this:
There, you can copy your preferred hashtags or check social trends.
Additionally, you can use BrandMention’s Free Hashtag tracker.
To measure the metrics of your hashtag performance, you may need a hashtag analytics tool.
By using a hashtag tool, you will be able to track how well your campaign is performing.
You can also uncover key information about your audience and competition.
Educational content can be manuals, ebooks, infographics, or textbooks.
Other types of informative content include tutorials, how-to guides, recipes, product reviews, and step-by-step articles or videos.
In fact, B2B content marketers primarily use emails and educational content to nurture their audience.
With that said, here are some tips for creating educational, social media content:
• Write content that is relevant to your niche
• Write content around your target audience
• Be specific and use relatable actions
• Approach the content from a different perspective
• Create engaging content
• Choose a style and tone that stays consistent with your brand
Inspirational content helps people imagine how a product or service will enhance their life by seeing it from a different perspective.
Inspiration is the difference between a product that produces sales and a product or service that becomes a "must-have".
Here are a few ways to write inspirational social media content:
• Cultivate empathy
• Be relatable
• Deliver the struggle with a positive undertone
• Express hope
• Conclude with a CTA
Interactive content is any type of content that expresses its message by encouraging user engagement.
This type of content consists of quizzes, ebooks, videos, and animated infographics.
Here are a few social media content ideas:
• Participate in a challenge and engage your audience to do the same
• Create product or service teasers
• Run a flash sale
• Broadcast live
• Create a poll
Connecting with your audience on social media posts is an important part of brand awareness.
In fact, 88% of consumers say that authenticity is a key factor when deciding what brands they like and support.
Here are a few ideas for posting authentic content that connects you with your audience:
• Post behind-the-scenes clips
• Product previews
• Post Instagram stories
• Be personal
• Nostalgia-related posts
• Shout-outs/Thanking fans
• Featured employee
• Pictures of events you attended
• Sharing your favorite cause
• Asking for feedback
Promotion is key to increasing sales, traffic, and conversions.
Free stuff is always a great promotion tool, but, let's move on to some other ways you can promote your content:
• Join relevant Facebook groups
• Publish sneak peeks on LinkedIn
• Answer questions on Quora
• Ask for testimonials
• Create a podcast in your niche
Small businesses and large corporations alike all have access to and the ability to produce entertaining content.
Content marketing is 3 times more efficient in terms of leads than outbound marketing and, on top of that, 72% of companies say digital marketing increases leads.
With that said, here are a few ideas to help you begin content creation that’s entertaining for your audience:
• Understand that humor is subjective
• Avoid offensive pieces of content
• Don't post anything that doesn't align with your target audience or brand voice
• Be light and keep it simple
• Remember that you are human as well as a brand
• Use appropriate memes and gifs
(Source: Keysandcopy)
If you are beginning to invest time, effort, and even some cash into posting on social media, you want to get a good return on your investment.
With platforms like Instagram dominating the social streaming services in terms of engagement (81% versus Facebook's 8%), you may be asking yourself how to take your content to the next level.
Here are the best practices for social posts:
• Do your research
• Develop your brand voice
• Stay positive and upbeat
• Invite people to become new followers
• Use images and videos
• Use the right hashtags
• Always use a CTA (call-to-action)
The more relevant your posts are, the more successful they will be.
Not only do your posts need to be relevant, but you need to take the time to understand your audience. Additionally, you need to know how to choose the best content for your business.
Start with demographic information and go from there.
You can develop your brand voice by creating custom content. The brand voice usually refers to the personality of your overall marketing activities and social interactions online.
You can create your voice by focusing on the language and tone you use when writing content and engaging with your audience.
Keep your voice constant throughout your social media accounts and website content.
Include a CTA at the end of every post and don’t forget to invite new viewers to become followers.
A CTA can be anything that tells a visitor to engage with your business, such as, “sign up now,” “try this new product” or, “visit us today!”
A social media calendar is an overview of your upcoming social media posts. This method can also be used for blog posts, event planning, and much more!
Here are a few actionable steps you can take to create a posting schedule:
• Choose your social channels and content
• Decide what your social media calendar should have
• Invite your team members to review and provide feedback
• Use a social media calendar template
• Be organized
Deciding what type of content to post is a big part of your social media strategy. It's also an important step to begin building your social media calendar.
Let’s explore some standard content mix formulas to get you going:
• Your posts should promote your business and drive conversions
• Your posts should be SEO optimized with keywords and shareable with curated content from industry thought leaders (such as case studies)
• Your social posts should involve personal interaction with your followers
• Your posts should be designed to inform, educate, or entertain
With that said, why do you need to focus so much energy on social media content?
Content is a crucial part of achieving business and social media goals such as brand recognition, thought leadership, audience engagement, and lead generation.
It gives your brand the chance to cement your position as a resource for your audience.
One of the most valuable forms of social content is high-quality images and videos.
These forms of content increase user engagement and expose your brand to new and existing customers.
They can also encourage your viewers to stay on your content rather than quickly scroll through.
Visual content is also much more understandable than long-form content, such as blogs and articles.
A vital tool to achieving social media success is creating strong marketing goals that act as a game plan for coordinating, creating, and distributing your content.
A great social media strategy always includes time for engagement, answering asked questions, and simply connecting with the people you're trying to reach out to.
Algorithms are another factor to take into account when interacting with your audience through your social media posts.
Social media algorithms are similar to Google's crawlers. They are a way of sorting through and indexing posts in a user's timeline or feed based on relevance instead of publishing time.
Social media platforms prioritize content that a user sees in their timeline by the likelihood of user interest.
Here are a few great tips for an excellent content strategy:
• Choose the right goals to focus on
• Again, know your audience
• Know your competition
• Perform a social media audit
• Set up social media accounts and improve your business profiles
• Create compelling and engaging content
• Track your social media performance and adjust your strategy as needed
As a rule of thumb, use S-M-A-R-T goals:
• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time-bound
You should know your audience in the following ways:
• Age
• Location
• Average income
• Job title or industry
• Interests
The more you know about your target audience, the more you can design a good strategy for converting them to qualified leads.
By performing a competitive analysis on your competition, you can understand who you are up against and what they are doing better than you.
You'll get a good sense of what to expect and what's expected of you. This will help you set logical social media targets of your own.
Whew! That's a lot of information!
This article highlights some of the most important parts of social media content.
We've put together some valuable, actionable goals you can use right now to boost your social media presence and brand awareness.
With that said, are you feeling a bit overwhelmed?
Schedule a call with one of our content experts today!