Creating content for Social Media
Creating content for Social Media with the purpose of marketing your product or business? Here are a few fundamentals…
First thing’s first. You need a Marketing Content Strategy. Just posting willy-nilly without a plan isn’t effective and doesn’t help you accomplish your goals. A little bit of planning will help you convert followers into customers. The first step in developing a Content Strategy is understanding your business goals as a whole. Here’s a Content Strategy Walkthrough from Nine to Five Freedom that could help you get started.
Starting from there you can begin to brainstorm how Social Media can help you accomplish those goals. Then comes the planning – who is the audience, what do they want to see, what are we going to say and when should we post, what is our budget for boosting these posts? Finally the execution of actually creating the post and scheduling them. If you need help with creation, design or scheduling we can help.
Reviewing your results and process is a must!
A key part of your strategy should be a review of the process and the results of your posts. Ask your team question like how did the process go, what could have made it easier or faster for the next time, and analyze that data. Did your content create sales, did you gain new followers, did it generate dialogue between you and your followers? From what you learn, adjust your strategy accordingly.
Also, remember is that you want to have variety so your followers aren’t seeing the same format over and over and tune you out. You can mix up the medium you use – you can use videos for one post and a great image for another, or maybe a link to your blog for another. While you want to make sure you have brand consistency you don’t want all of your post looking cookie cutter.
Content Types
Another way to add variety to your content marketing is the type of content you post. Three great content types to rotate through are:
- Relevant – Is what your marketing important for the now (Do you sell candy and they make great stocking stuffers? That would be a great post for November or December)
- Valuable- Do you have a special going on?
- Educational – Why does your customer need your product or service? How can you educate your followers?
By rotating through these content types you can make sure you are creating and maintaining value for your audience. Providing value is what lets you keep their attention, build trust, and eventually sell your product. People will naturally gravitate towards the businesses that have helped them out in the past, especially when that business didn’t gain anything from the transaction (immediately). If you help someone or attempt to help someone, by providing valuable information, they are far more likely to return to you for more solutions and pay for them, than if you just tried to sell to them.
