It more or less goes without saying that social media wouldn’t be the sprawling online presence that it is without good content. Whether it’s a nice status update or just a good photo, quality social media content matters a lot to a business’s social media marketing strategy as it helps brands build awareness, gain more recognition, and attract customers.
If your business is on social media, give yourself a pat on the back for embracing this important platform! However, the next part can be tricky as your concerns will be on your content. What’s the proper way to go about doing it? What do you even write to begin with?
Should these concerns be bothering you, worry not for help lies below. While there’s no definitive formula for creating the perfect social media content, these tips should come in handy in getting your social media off the ground.
It begins with planning the “how” and the “what”
From a fundamental perspective, creating a good social media marketing strategy first involves figuring out how you plan to create your content and what is the right medium to do so. For the most part, taking care of these two aspects are the most important for an effective strategy.
How to write
Every day, many people are greeted by an abundance of social media content from various pages and competitors. This means that only the most interesting and engaging content will stand out, so write it in a way that your audiences will not only enjoy, but also still reflects your brand.
1. Get to know your customers first
Before you can start creating content, you’ll need to have an idea of who your target audiences are. Doing research is key here as this helps you build the ever-important buyer persona, which is quite important for helping you get an idea of your customers.
In practice, a buyer persona is a profile that serves as an overall representation of your ideal customer. They help companies better gauge how customers would buy their products by understanding their ideal target audience’s age, job, desires, goals, challenges, income, and so on. In turn, this lets them better refine their content to reach their audiences more effectively.
By knowing who your customers are, this makes it easier to determine the goal and purpose of your content, such as to inform, promote, or entertain. In turn, this can help you create more relevant content.
2. Write from the readers’ perspective
The harsh truth is, readers don’t really care what businesses do unless they can get something from them. Fortunately, however, this does not mean they don’t have problems, and you can turn this to your advantage by identifying them and positioning yourself as the solution.
To get your reader’s attention effectively, try to propose what you can do for them instead of boasting about how good your product is or how many awards your company has received. Customers are much more likely to stop scrolling and see how something can help them.
If you’re launching a new product, a plain line like “We got new products” won’t be as interesting to your customer as something like “Got this problem? This may help you.” Bottom line: be your reader’s problem-solver, not an ad.
3. Use your audiences’ language
When communicating with your audiences on social media, the choice of tone and words you use can mean the difference between failure and success. If you want people to be interested in your brand, you’ll have to speak their language.
One good way to start is to skip on the jargon and unfamiliar words. For example, if you’re promoting an Internet service, splattering terms like “VPN”, “TCP/IP”, “DNS” all over your content is only going to confuse people and drive them away, even more so if your target audience is less tech-savvy.
This goes for avoiding vague and overused terms too, like the all-too-unoriginal “Transform your business” line that does not properly convey what the solution is. It’s better to offer people a solution that sounds realistic instead of something they’d gloss their eyes over.
Likewise, remember to pick the right tone and words for different audiences as well.
Talking to millennials or Gen Z readers? Observe the online slang and acronyms they use, such as “LOL”, “YOLO”, “IMHO”, and many more. Aiming to reach working mothers or senior citizens? A more compassionate tone may fit better. Different demographics have different ways to communicate, so adapt accordingly.
4. Make use of visuals
The saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” holds rather true on social media – most people just aren’t going to give walls of text the same amount of attention or interest compared to an image or video. If you want to appeal to your audiences, good visuals never fail.
For images, they can come in various sizes so it’s advisable to do some research on the sizes for the best display. While it may seem insignificant, these sizes matter a lot as they’ll affect how your images or photos appear on your users’ feeds and different devices, and you definitely want your visuals to maintain the same consistent look.
Additionally, it’s worth noting that videos tend to see better engagement rates than just photos and images nowadays. As such, it can be more worthwhile to put out a video sometimes instead.
5. Include your call-to-actions (CTA)
When it comes to social media, any piece of content you create should always be conceived with a purpose. Whether it’s to promote your brand, inform your audience, or just to encourage purchases, every post should always have a CTA to prompt followers to take action.
In practice, call-to-actions can be included in your posts in various ways. More subtle CTAs would go along the lines of “Follow our page for more similar content” or “I’m interested” while more direct ones would be “Buy it now” or “Subscribe here”. As long as it prompts taking action from your followers, a CTA can be inserted in many different ways.
6. Make use of writing tools
Since words are a big part of your content, there’s a ton of online tools out there that you should use to edit and sharpen your posts. Spell checkers, plagiarism detectors, word counts, and idea generators are just some of the types you can find that can improve your content quality. Plus, they are also able to help keep common errors like typos or grammar issues at bay.
For the most part, writing well on social media lies in creating interesting, relatable, and engaging content for your readers.
Good content should not be overly promotional or mundane – take your social media content as a way to communicate to your audiences on an interpersonal level. As every brand has its own personality and style, only you will know the most suitable way for your brand to do so.
What to write
Once you understand how to start writing your social media content, the next part involves figuring out the mediums to get your brand’s messages out to your audiences. This is where your content comes into shape, and there are plenty of social media content ideas that every business can make use of.
1. Informative posts
A mainstay of social media content, informative posts are a reliable way to inform or educate your audiences about a particular topic. Being knowledge-based, these posts can let you demonstrate how capable and knowledgeable your company is in solving a customer’s problem.
Generally, written posts should focus on providing information that your audiences would want to know; tips, tricks, and “life hacks” are one good example of this.
For instance, if you sell cleaners, your post could be something like “Secret Tips to Clean Your Kitchen”. Or, if you run an air-conditioner maintenance service, a post like “The Dangers of Dirty Air-Cond” can be an interesting topic. The idea here is to inform and educate your audiences in a relevant way.
2. Company-related posts
In contrast with written posts, company-related posts focus more on highlighting your company, such as its background, achievements, or fun happenings. These posts help your audiences know more about your brand, making them ideal for building a positive image for your brand.
If you’re creating a company-related post, photos marking your company’s latest achievements and “Get to know our staff” are good places to start. Share about your company’s origin backstory or how it overcame a major obstacle (such as the COVID-19 recession). These are all fun ways to show the deeper side to your company and let people relate to you better.
3. Ask me anything (AMA) posts
If you’re looking to interact more with your audiences, have them ask you anything! Originally a concept on Reddit, AMAs have since appeared on other platforms. Since questions can flow freely here, these posts are a good opportunity for people to find out more about your brand.
The classic way to create an AMA is by asking questions through text, but there are other methods to do it as well. Facebook Live and Instagram Live are well-suited for AMAs as you can answer everyone’s questions in real time. Just be sure to prepare beforehand and choose a time where your AMA will reach the most people.
4. Testimonials & User-generated content (UGC)
Want to get the attention of all your followers and more? Consider making them a part of your content! Putting up testimonials or UGC can attract the attention of many people and let them see what your followers and customers think of your brand.
If you have a product or service that’s well-received, testimonials are a credible way for showing how good your brand is. But that’s not all, you can also encourage your followers to share some UGC, such as their own photos, fan art, and the like. Since the content stems from your audiences, they have the added benefit of being more authentic and credible as well.
5. Regular content series
Creating a regular content series can pay off really well in the long term, especially if you’re brimming with content ideas. Whether it’s for promotional purposes or just amusement, serialized content can keep people invested in your brand for a long time!
But there is one prerequisite to this – a good topic. A regular content series needs to be tied together by a theme. For example, if you’re a restaurant owner, you can consider a “weekly recipes” series by regularly sharing a different food recipe every week. In effect, a good recurring series keeps your followers hooked on your brand as they come back for more content.
6. Entertainment posts
Let’s face it, life gets rather stressful sometimes, and all a person needs is a good piece of entertainment to unwind and people do seek out their dose of entertainment on social media.
As entertainment posts are meant to be light-hearted and fun, don’t be afraid of taking a more casual approach than you normally would. For example, memes of your products and funny stories of your clients are all good ways to entertain your audiences. After all, a little bit of fun can go a long way in keeping your followers and attracting new ones.
Granted, these are just some of the more common social media content ideas; there are plenty of other ideas that are worth doing. The only limit here is one’s creativity.
With that being said, there is also the need to be mindful of what you should not do on social media. Sure, social media platforms have a good degree of freedom, but only content that’s smartly planned and created will make it in the end!
Summing things up, if you’re a business that’s utilizing social media, your social media content needs to be interesting and engaging enough to compete with the content of numerous other brands and pages out there. To do so, figuring out how and what to write should be the first of any social media marketing strategy, especially in 2021. Although the tips listed above are not an exhaustive guide, hopefully, they will get the ball rolling with your brand’s social media content!
If you’re still unsure of where to begin or could just use some professional help in getting started, Artisense has you covered!
Our agency’s team of professionals is highly adept in all things concerned with social media, making us the perfect ones for crafting a social media marketing strategy that suits your goals. Whatever your social media needs are, don’t let them wait around! Reach out to us today!
