The Worst Advice We've Seen About Content Marketing On Social Media Content Marketing On Social Media
How Content Marketing and Social Media Work Together
While content marketing and social media might appear to be two different things, they actually work together. Brands can maximize the impact of a large piece of content, such as a blog post or white paper by posting small portions of it on their social media channels.
A strategy helps you concentrate and maximize your efforts to get the highest value from each piece of content. It helps you avoid vanity metrics and determine what is most important to your company, such as the brand's recognition or website traffic.
1. Identify Your Audience
Social media marketing is a great tool to build relationships with potential customers. However, before you create the right content for your audience, you must know who they are. This will help you design a strategy that is more likely to reach your goals and boost your bottom line.
Begin by observing who interacts and follows your company in social media. What are their interests? What do they need? What kind of information do they hunt for and what is their reason? This information will enable you to find similar people across other social media platforms.
You can also gain insight into your audience by studying the content of other companies in your industry. What kinds of posts are they creating and sharing? What kind of content is most effective for them? This will give you insight into how to create your own content.
Finally, you can also contact your audience via social media to find out what they would like to hear from you. ModCloth for instance frequently asks its followers to send photos of themselves wearing its products. It then features these images on its social media pages. This makes the brand feel more connected to its followers, which can help drive engagement.
Once you've identified your audience and devised a strategy for them, it's time to start creating and sharing content. Keep track of your metrics, but only those that are related to your SMART objectives and KPIs, which you established in Step 1. Be aware that not all of your content will perform perfectly in the first few days, but you will eventually see the results if you are consistent and adhere to your plan.
2. Create a Strategy
In order to see growth through social media, you need a plan. You will not gain new followers, persuade them to come back or convert to your website by releasing random content with no purpose or strategy. Develop a written strategy for content that you and your team can follow. This will aid you in setting SMART goals, develop and share content regularly and track your progress.
Begin by developing your social media marketing plan by defining your buyer personas (or fictional representations) of your ideal customers. Then, consider the kinds of content they like and the formats that work most with each platform. Instagram and TikTok, for example, are great platforms for visuals, such as photos and short videos. Twitter, on the other hand, is better for content that is text-based, such as links or posts.
Also consider how to use each platform to showcase your brand in different ways. Instagram is a great platform for fashion companies that want to showcase their unique products and designs. Similarly, Stumptown Coffee Roasters uses their Facebook page to promote events and locations across the country.
Incorporate call-to actions in your posts to encourage readers' interaction. If you are hosting a giveaway or an announcement, ask your followers to share the post, tag friends, or leave comments.
Don't forget that social media is a great platform to display customer testimonials and reviews. They can be extremely effective in increasing the trust your customers have in you, particularly when they are from other social media users who are using or recommending your product or service.
3. Create Content
To effectively promote your business on social media, you need to create content that will reach your target audience. This can be accomplished by using a variety of ways, including blogging or video, podcasts, infographics and many more. It's also important to think about the type of content that your audience will want to see and share. Research shows that information and promotional posts have lower ratings on social media than personal and fun content.
Once you have a clear understanding of your target audience and goals for marketing, you can begin planning out the kinds of content you'd like to create. It is best to combine informative, entertaining or educational posts with promotional ones. This will help your customers engage with your business and increase the chances of turning them into customers.
Interviewing thought leaders is a common method to create content. This is a great way to learn about the most recent trends and strategies within your field. You can also promote your company by sharing the article on individuals' social networks.
Other common types of content include tips, tricks, hacks and industry news updates and other interesting information that will be of interest to your followers. Consider adding visual content to your posts. This has been proven more effective in grabbing attention and increasing engagement.
Finally, it's also important to keep track of your content performance and make any necessary adjustments. For instance, if a format of content is performing poorly you may need to alter the subject or direction from which it's being shared.
4. Share Your Content
It's important to share your plan and relevant content on social media. This is a fantastic opportunity to increase your reach and draw in new customers. Be sure to keep your updates short and use catchy titles. Don't forget to diversify the types of content you post such as videos, images, text and links can all be good options.
You can also attempt to get attention by posting your content on different platforms and at different times. This will ensure that your content reaches the largest number of people.
You might also think about partnering with influencers, or even running a contest. This could be a great method of generating publicity and traffic for your brand.
When your audience starts to trust you as an information source, they are more likely to read your content and turn into customers. It is crucial to place more emphasis on quality rather than quantity when it's time to start implementing content marketing.
It is important to remember that if you are using a pillar strategy to content marketing, it's an excellent idea to share links to your lengthy content on social media. This will give your readers an idea of what they can expect and will encourage them to click through to read the whole article or blog.
It's not always clear why specific content is shared more often than others. It's nevertheless worth investigating the psychology behind sharing to discover what drives people to share certain pieces of content. This will help you develop a a better content marketing strategy for the future.
5. Keep track of your results
It is crucial to keep track of the results once you have created your content and then shared it. This is how you'll be able to tell if your strategy effective or needs to be adjusted. For instance, you might observe that one kind of content is performing better than others or that certain platforms have more engagement than others. You can make use of tools such as Mention and Hootsuite to track your social media engagement and see how your content is performing.
Keep in mind that just because you are sharing your content on multiple platforms, it doesn't mean that it's doing well. Each platform has its own audience and own best practices, which is why it is essential to tailor your content to each platform. You can avoid irritating your audience by not overdoing it.
When you analyze results, be sure you include all metrics that are important for you and your staff. Select metrics that are in line with your goals and KPIs that are SMART Be sure to distinguish them from the different social media platforms you are using.
You can integrate content marketing with social media effectively if have the right strategy and strategies. This will allow you to build brand awareness and increase traffic to your website, increase leads, boost revenue, establish authority and much more. For more details about how to implement a successful content marketing strategy, check out this free downloadable guide from DemandJump. It offers examples, tips, and more from companies similar to yours who have beat the algorithms and succeeded at content marketing. Join marketing content planner to receive your copy today!