How to Create Engaging Content for Social Media
Every company should have an informative and well-designed website but this won’t do you any good if no one sees it. The larger your online presence, the higher your chances are of building your audience, customer base and conversion rates. Without content there is no way for your audience to like, post, share or retweet and this means a drop in engagement. You can’t promote products or services if there is no audience to see them.
It isn’t enough to just throw up a graphic or reel every now and then. In order to grow your audience you will need to create engaging content with attractive graphics, informative captions, calls to action and hashtags. Well, this sounds great but how is it done?
The best way to grow your online presence is with engaging and well developed content and the best way to manage that is with a marketing strategy.
So, What Is Social Media Content?
You’ve likely heard the term “content creator”, in fact, it is a pretty common job title at this point. If you find yourself asking what content creation is, you aren’t alone. The Socialish team has put together a quick guide to content creation and how to build your social media presence.
The first rule of content: EVERYTHING IS CONTENT. Any piece of written content, photographs, videos, reels and more are all considered content. Unlike a blog that doesn’t have text limits, social media posts have set character counts, specific image sizes and video lengths. This means posts need to be informative, concise and visually appealing.
If you are hoping to create an engaging feed for your audience it is important to consider all types of social media content, including:
Text
Photographs
Short Videos / Long-Form Videos
Design
How to Create Successful Social Media Posts: Socialish Breaks It Down For You
✶ Do Your Research: Everything is content but that doesn’t mean that your audiences will connect with just anything. If you already have a social media following you probably have an idea of what type of post gets the most engagement. These types of key insights can help you to understand what type of content works for your customers/target audience. It is also a good idea to monitor competitor sites and other industry professionals to see what type of interaction their accounts are getting. Monitoring trending hashtags, topics and even trending songs is a great way to add layers to your posts while widening your viewership.
✶ Define Your Goals: Creating an effective content management strategy will be largely dependant on your goals for your business. Common goals for businesses include: driving traffic to a new blog, advertising sales promotions, gaining followers, connecting with other industry professionals, etc. Having an understanding of your goals makes it possible to create a marketing plan with catered content, specific imagery, hashtags and calls to action.
✶ Get Creative: In the modern age everyone has experience with social media in one way or another. Sit down with a team (whether your staff or the Socialish team) and gather ideas from every member. Everyone on your team will have unique ideas, as well as preferred modes of social media. Get to know why! These insights can help to create successful and relevant campaigns.
✶ Outsource: Many small business owners start their social media journey solo, building profiles and content all on their own. This can quickly result in being overwhelmed, falling off of a regular posting schedule and putting out lacklustre content. By outsourcing your social media to a professional agency you have access to social media marketing strategies, cohesive brand guidelines, dynamic imagery and informative captions that appeal to your target demographics.
✶ Build a Content Calendar: From a business perspective widening your audience means posting on multiple platforms. You wouldn’t stick to just one form of advertising or sell just one product. Diversifying your marketing techniques is a great way to gain visibility but managing multiple platforms at one time can be tricky and overwhelming. A content calendar can help to simplify the process and make sure that your posts are staying consistent. A well-built content calendar will also take the pressure off of coming up with new posts, ideas and graphics on a daily basis.
✶ Schedule Posts: Once you have your calendar mapped out and your posts completed, it is important to build a posting schedule. Now, if you are thinking this is the same as a content calendar, they are close but different. A calendar allows those people creating content to have an idea of what needs to be competed and when. A posting schedule, on the other hand, is a way to maintain a consistent posting schedule. Missing one post here or there might not seem like a major issue but it takes, on average, seven interactions with a brand before a viewer takes action. If you are posting three times a week, these seven impressions will happen much more quickly than if you are only posting once every a week or once a month.
✶ Keep a Content Library: When working with an experienced social media agency like Socialish, you can stock up on content for future use. Scheduling a photo shoot or content day will have experts arrive at your workspace to snap photos, take videos and speak with business owners regarding relevant topics, upcoming promotions and specialized services for a well-rounded content library. By creating a content library it is possible to create templates for future posts that can be easily swapped out for other photos or captions. After a while you will have a ton of options to create engaging posts without the stress of coming up with new designs.
✶ Don’t Overlook Analytics: If you have an established social media profile it is possible to review what type of interactions posts have had. This is a valuable tool for focusing on the types of content that garner the most attention and clicks. For businesses starting from scratch, it is a good idea to create a check-in date for analytical data, reviewing what is there and building your social media profiles on a foundation that is specially designed for your target audience.
Content Strategies Based on Social Media Platform
Now that we have covered what makes content on social media engaging, it is important to consider how it is presented to your audience.
Creating high quality content is a key component of growing your online presence but how you present this content is also extremely important. For example, if you have a long-form video posting it to Instagram in multiple reels that need to be clicked through isn’t the best option. If there are multiple clicks involved your viewers are more likely to lose interest part-way through and navigate away. Instead, cater your content to your audience and platform.
A social media manager has tons of training, practice and industry experience and will help clients create a plan for what type of post is best suited for each platform. Even if a social media post is short and sweet it can be used to redirect to a long-from blog post. Creating exciting headlines can draw viewers in and redirect them to your site.
The best way to engage your audience on multiple platforms is to adjust content to fit a certain platform. If you are looking to promote one service, your promotions can be advertised as a long-form blog post on your website but if you want to post the same/similar content on socials it is important to adjust these pieces of content to fit the platform.
Regularly posting social content is a great way to promote products and services but keeping your brand in front of your target audience is also a way to build trust and encourage meaningful actions, so let Socialish help!