Using social media for your company is more than just promoting your products or services. It’s also a two-way street for communication between your brand and target market, and with social media content, you can gain their trust and loyalty.
Whether it’s on Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn, audiences expect to see something that’s relevant to them. Users don’t click links or like and share posts for no reason – they do so when they relate to something they’ve seen.
Because it plays such a pivotal role in the way people perceive your brand, you need to be mindful about your content: what kind of material you’re creating, your strategies on SEO copywriting services, and how often you publish it. Social media platforms run on an algorithm, and they favour accounts that post frequently. As a reward for their consistency, these posts become more visible.
Think about your favourite brands and how often you see their new posts on your feed. The reason you see them more compared to others you follow is often because of their frequent posting.
There is no one way to determine how many times in a day you should be posting on social media, so it is wise to experiment, especially as a small business. But what matters is when you do decide to be active online, you remain consistent.
Here’s how to ensure you have enough social media content to share that reflects your business and values and elevates your online presence.
Content strategy
Without a proper plan in place, you’ll end up driving people away instead of connecting with them on social media. That’s why having a content strategy is key for social media success. Chances are without one, you’ll be short of things to share online and won’t remain consistent.
There are three metrics you should be looking at when building your social media strategy: reach, engagement, and conversion. If your goal is to expand reach, you want your content to be seen by as many people as possible. This means focusing on your name recall and highlighting your unique selling propositions.
But if you want to generate engagement, you should be more specific with what you’re creating. Knowing your customers (or potential customers) will help you make content that will encourage a response from them.
Take a look at their online behaviours: what posts do they like sharing or commenting on? What time are they usually online and what activities are they doing during this time? A concrete understanding of your target market will drive your social media content creation. When you’ve captured your audience’s attention and they begin to connect with your brand, it will soon result in leads.
Social media is fast-paced by nature, thus content becomes obsolete quickly. When you observe your competition and take note of what they’re doing well, it will present opportunities for you to plan ahead and differentiate yourself in your own posts.
As much as you need to post frequently, you don’t want to go overboard and bombard your audience with too much. Instead, you need to shape an experience for them where they look forward to what you post next. But this all comes back to the strategy you have in place first.
Set up a content calendar
One way for you to visualise your strategy is through a social media content calendar. This document will show you what kind of content you need to create and when it should go live.
It’s a useful tool to see your progress in uploading social media content. Knowing what’s lined up for the month or the quarter lets you have enough time to conceptualise, produce the work, have it approved, and then revise it as necessary.
To organise your calendar, identify what social media channels you want to use for your brand and what kind of content go into each one. Every user behaves differently on different platforms, and you want to optimise your posts for better visibility.
For example, Facebook is great for sharing blog articles as it allows links to be embedded in posts. Meaning, users can click on them to visit your site and see more.
On the other hand, Instagram is great for lifestyle content that’s more dynamic. On the app, there are several ways you can publish your posts – on the feed, on Stories, on Live. The variety makes it a great channel for communicating information in ways that won’t bore your viewers.
It’s hard to achieve your goals and break through the noise if you only post now and then or whenever you get a chance. By creating a social media content calendar, you can ensure you’re staying on track and achieving your goals.
How to find content to share on social media
There are two components to posting on social media – authority content and supplement content. By using a balanced mix of both, you’ll have enough variety to fill your calendar.
Authority Content
Being an online authority means you’re an expert on a specific topic and that you’re able to translate your knowledge in a meaningful way for your followers. For small businesses, it’s key to focus your content creation efforts on what you know. Go back to the nature of your business, and write about timely industry updates. This positions you as a credible resource, while also establishing your niche.
Another way to have consistent authority content is to repurpose what you already have in a way that’s easily consumed on social media.
Story League creates weekly blog articles, but to share it effectively on Instagram, we create social cards that address its main points. And we make sure we present them with eye-catching designs that reinforce what we want to say.
We also know that there are more ways than one to share a message. We stay on the lookout for quotes from industry experts that we can share with our audience and reinforce it with our own insights.
Repurposing content doesn’t always have to be long-form blogs. You can also do it with videos and podcasts.
The average watch time for videos on Facebook is around 10 seconds. While that doesn’t mean you should shorten your video content to that length every time, it proves that longer videos, such as Q&A interviews, might not get the attention you want.
By creating 30, 60, and 90-second clips that tackle a key takeaway that will resonate with your viewers, you can enhance your material for viewing on social media. Use the first few seconds of a video to pique your audience’s interest and then go on to explain (in the video or the copy) where they can access the full version.
The same approach works for podcasts too. Ask a question or identify the topic you’ll be discussing in a short audio capture that gives your audience a reason to want to stay and listen.
Supplement Content
While you need to, putting out original material continuously takes a lot of time and effort. With supplement content, you can use things that already exist on the internet and share them on your pages.
Carefully gather them from a variety of sources and make sure the topics are still relevant to your business and market. When posting, add your voice (and value) to your chosen supplement content.
Some of the biggest brands are quick to catch on to viral trends and insert themselves into the conversation. They do this by looking for supplement content in different places:
Social Media Platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn)
An industry expert has shared important information that’s relevant to your business and your customers, so you decide to retweet it. Your followers see it. They realise that they can count on you to keep them updated with new developments in your industry.
This is one-way supplement content builds your credibility.
A share can go a long way on social media, and with all the content available online, you can easily find something to post on your own platforms.
Reddit is a great source to find supplement content. On its website, you can find communities based on people’s interests in forums called “subreddits.”
When browsing subreddits, you’ll find opinions or stories shared by others. They discuss it among themselves, and this can often be used to identify the pain points your ideal customer’s experience.
Quora
Quora is built for Q&As among users worldwide. Anyone can ask a question and give an answer, creating a vast amount of opinions and commentary on every topic possible. Among these responses, it’s easy to find content that can be reshaped and shared by you.
GIPHY
GIFs are popular for expressing how you feel, and you can find thousands of them on GIPHY.
If your product or service is tied to human emotion, you can use GIFs as supplement content. It could be for reactions to your brand or feelings people get when they buy from you. It’s a fun way to break up the seriousness of your social media every once in a while, while still championing your business. Just be careful though, as GIFs have different meanings to different people.
Growing your social media presence requires you to have the right content to share on your platforms to put your brand in front of your customers.
To achieve this, you need to have a strategy in place – and to stick to it. When the content you produce follows your strategy, your next task is to post consistently.
You want to be seen by your market as an authority in your industry, and putting out content that’s unique and original, will mean you’ll boost your brand and generate more leads.
Enhance your social media presence and engage your audience with captivating content through the utilization of copywriting services.
