A Provocative Rant About Content Marketing On Social Media
How Content Marketing and Social Media Work Together
While social media and content marketing could seem to be two different things, in reality, they are in fact a team. Brands can maximize a robust piece of content, such as a white paper or blog post, by posting smaller snippets of the content on their social channels.
A strategy can help you focus and optimize your efforts so that you can make the most each piece of content. It also helps you avoid wasting time on vanity metrics and identify what matters to your business, like branding awareness or traffic to your website.
1. Identify Your Audience
Social media marketing is an effective tool to create relationships with potential customers. However, before you can develop the right content for your target audience, you must know who they are. This will enable you to design a strategy that is that is more likely to meet your goals and increase your bottom line.
Begin by watching who interacts and follows your company in social media. What are their interests and what do they want? What kinds of information do they look for and why? This information will enable you to find similar people across different social media platforms.
You can also gain insight into your target audience by studying the content of other companies within your industry. What kinds of posts are they making and sharing? What kind of content is most effective for them? This will give you an information on how you can create your own content.
You can also directly reach out to your audience via social media to learn what they would like to learn from you. ModCloth for instance frequently asks its followers to submit pictures of them wearing their products. The photos are then showcased on the retailer's social media pages. This helps the brand feel more connected to its followers and helps increase engagement.
Once you've identified your audience and developed a strategy, it's time to start creating and sharing content. Keep track of your metrics, but only those that are connected to your SMART objectives and KPIs you defined in Step 1. Be aware that not all of your content will perform perfectly immediately, but you will eventually see the results if you are consistent and follow your plan.
2. Create a Strategy
You need a strategy to expand your social media presence. Posting random content with no goal or strategy isn't likely to help you gain new followers or get them to visit your site or turn into a customer or client. Create a documented strategy for content that you and your team can follow. This will assist you in setting SMART goals, create and share content frequently and evaluate your results.
To create your social content marketing strategy for your media Begin with your buyer personas for social media (or fictional representations of your ideal clients). Then, think about the types of content they prefer and the formats which resonate most with each platform. Instagram and TikTok for instance are excellent platforms for visuals, such as short videos and photos. Twitter, on the other hand, is better for text-based posts or links.
Consider how you can use each platform in a unique manner to present your brand. Instagram is an excellent platform for fashion brands that wish to showcase their distinctive products and designs. Stumptown Coffee Roasters also uses their Facebook page to highlight events and locations throughout the country.
Another effective way to boost engagement on your social media profiles is to invite your followers to engage with you through the use of call-to-actions in your posts. If you are hosting an event or have an announcement, ask your followers to share the post, tag friends, or leave comments.
Remember that social media is a great platform to display customer testimonials and reviews. These can be incredibly effective in building trust that your customers have in you, especially when they are from other social users who are recommending or using your product or service.
3. Create Content
To effectively promote your business on social media, you need to create content that is appealing to your intended audience. This can be achieved through various methods, including blogging, videos, podcasts, and infographics. In addition, it's crucial to think about the type of content your target audience wants to see and share. Research has proven that information and promotional content are less popular on social media than personal and fun content.
Once you've figured out your audience and your marketing goals, it's time to plan the kind of content you want. It is best to combine informative, entertaining or educational posts with promotional ones. This will help your customers get involved with your business and increase your chances of turning them into customers.
Interviewing thought leaders is a common method to produce content. This is a great method to get an understanding of the latest trends and strategies in your particular field and also gives you the chance to market your business by sharing the article with the interviewed individuals' own social networks.
Other common types of content include tips, tricks, hacks and industry news updates and other interesting tidbits that will add value to your readers. It is also advisable to incorporate images into your posts, as it has been proven to be more effective in grabbing attention and increasing engagement on social media.
Finally, it's also important to keep track of your content performance and make any necessary adjustments. For example, if one format of content is not performing well, you might need to change the subject or direction from which it's being shared.
4. Share Your Content
If you've developed a plan and crafted appealing content, it's crucial to share it on social media. This is a great way to increase your reach and gain new customers. Keep your updates brief and make sure to use catchy headlines. Also, don't forget to change the type of content you publish video, images, text and links can all be good options.
It's also a good idea to try to generate interest in your content by posting it on various platforms at different times during the day. This will ensure that your content is seen by the most people.
You might also look into partnering with influencers or even running an event. This can be an effective way to increase traffic and create buzz for your brand.
When your audience begins to trust your credibility as an information source, they're more likely to engage in your content and convert to customers. It is important to place more emphasis on quality over quantity when it's time to implement content marketing.
It's important to note that if you are using a pillar strategy for content marketing, it's a good idea to post links to your long form content on social media. This will give your followers an idea of what to expect and will encourage them to go to the entire article or blog.
It's not always easy to determine why a specific piece of content is more shared than others. It's worth looking into the psychology behind sharing to see what may be driving people to share certain types of content. This will help you develop a more effective marketing strategy in the future.
5. Track Your Results
It is important to monitor the results after you have created your content and then shared it. This is how you will know if your strategy is effective or needs to be adjusted. For instance, you could find that a certain kind of content is performing better than the other or that certain platforms provide more engagement than others. You can monitor your social media's performance and reach by using tools such as Mention or Hootsuite.
seo content marketing is also helpful to keep in mind that just because your content is performing well doesn't necessarily mean that you should stop sharing it across all platforms. It is essential to tailor the content of each platform to its intended audience and best practices. This way, you'll avoid overdoing it and offending your viewers.
When analyzing results, make sure to include all metrics that are important to you and your staff. Select metrics that are in line with your SMART goals and KPIs. Be sure to distinguish these metrics for each of the social media platforms you utilize.
With the proper strategy and tactics, you can successfully combine social media and content marketing to improve brand recognition, increase traffic to your website, increase leads, boost sales, establish authority and more. For more details about how to implement a successful content marketing strategy, check out this free downloadable guide from DemandJump. It offers strategies, case studies, and more from companies similar to yours that have beaten the algorithms and have won in content marketing. Sign up today to receive your copy!