Social media has become a hub where people around the world can congregate, interact and find information with ease. In the last few years, business owners have jumped on board and taken advantage of this amazing opportunity to address their target audience directly. In a survey conducted by social scheduling tool Buffer in 2019, 73% of marketers said that their company’s social media activity had been ‘somewhat effective’ and ‘very effective’ for their business. Adding to that, in a survey by Lyfe Marketing in 2019, around 71% of consumers using social media said that if they had a positive experience with a brand on social media they would be a lot more likely to recommend that brand to their friends and family.
In short, social media, whether you love it or hate it, works for marketing. It is the easiest and the cheapest way to get your brand, products or services right in front of your target audience. But in today’s crowded world of social, how can you make sure you’re getting the most out of your efforts? We’ve pulled together 10 of our favourite tips for creating content for social media, to help you create a stronger and more impactful social presence.
USE A MIX OF MEDIA
There’s so much you can play with and have fun with on social media these days. Don’t just post regular text posts and the odd photo, get experimental with the multitude of tools on offer to you. Explore how you could use Instagram Reels, Tik Toks, Facebook Live Video, Twitter polls and more. The more diverse your content, the more your audience will sit up and pay attention.
FIND YOUR OWN BRAND VOICE
Like all of your business branding, your social platform should be uniquely yours. Copying the tone or style of another social account just adds to the noise. You want your brand to stand out, cut through the crowd and make people recognise your brand values and personality.
BE SOCIABLE ON SOCIAL
It feels like it shouldn’t have to be said, but social media is all about being sociable. Even for brands, social media offers the rare opportunity for businesses to have an authentic conversation with their target audiences. Make sure to spend time interacting with your followers, being reactive to mentions and likes and forming a personal connection with your consumers.
INCLUDE A CALL TO ACTION
Every post should have a purpose, whether that is to sell a product or service, create brand identity or awareness, or bring attention to a launch or event you want to promote. With this in mind, you should be telling your audience what you’d like them to do off the back of the post. Do you want them to click a link, buy a product, sign up for a newsletter? Be clear with your calls to action and make it as easy as possible for users to take action.
GIVE YOUR FOLLOWERS AN INSIDE LOOK
Humans are curious creatures and we always love to see what’s behind the proverbial curtain. Give your followers a look at what goes on behind the scenes to help make them feel like part of the team. This helps to build a community feel and in turn, helps to increase brand loyalty.
UNDERSTAND WHAT IS ON YOUR AUDIENCE’S MIND
Make sure to spend some time researching hashtags and keywords that seem to be trending within your audience. You want to be able to reach your audience in an organic way, so what better way to do that than by popping up in their feeds or their for you page. Knowing the hashtags your users are using, helps get your foot in the door and your content seen by the right people.
BE REACTIVE WITH TRENDS
Jumping off from our last point, keeping your eye on trends is a great way to keep your brand content fresh and in the moment. With platforms like Twitter, it’s all about what is happening in the here and now, so make sure to pay close attention to the trending topics page. Jump onto any trends you think have a connection or relevance to your business or audience’s interests, in order to get your posts seen by a greater number of users.
CREATE A CALENDAR FOR RELEVANT SPECIAL AWARENESS DAYS
Every year is filled with special awareness days and pinpointing days that are highly relevant to your brand and core values, can help give you even more ideas and inspiration for high quality content. It can also reaffirm what your values and beliefs are as a brand, building brand awareness and identity.
MAKE USE OF ANALYTICS
We know that numbers are not as thrilling as designing a creative social media post, but they are crucial in understanding how your audience reacts with your content. Every social platform has its own version of analytics, from Instagram insights to Pinterest business analytics. These can help you see what posts have proven most popular, which ones flopped and even which hashtags are driving the most engagement. It’s important to check in with your analytics at least once a month and use that data to inform your future social strategies.
KNOW WHO YOUR AUDIENCE ARE
You may already have a strong idea of the type of people you want to target with your content, but sometimes the content we create can miss the mark and attract an audience that is not fully aligned with our business. Using the analytics features mentioned above, we can see what audience demographic we are attracting and if it doesn’t sync up with who we’re trying to target, we can readjust the content and try again. Choosing the right platform for your target audience is especially important for this, as more baby boomers use Facebook than Instagram and more millennials use Twitter than Facebook.
Although it can be hard work, creating content on social media can be a great way to get creative with your marketing and really connect with your target audience. After Google organic searches, social media is often the source that can help drive the most conversions or leads for businesses. If you’d like to find out how we can help you with your business’ social media, get in touch.
