By now you know the importance of social media when it comes to marketing your business (if you’re not quite up to speed, download our FREE E-Book!). Yes, it’s important to have a business page and provide content regularly, but it’s much more than posting on a regular basis. You want your audience to engage with you, to come back day after day because they find value in what you’re offering. Pretty pictures and funny videos can certainly attract attention but to truly become the authority on a topic or the go-to place for answers in the mind of your audience, you have to have a solid, thoughtful content strategy built around your audience and the social media platform they’re on.
The power of content
If you’re a LŪM follower, you know we place great importance on content! And for good reason! Good content should be all about the customer or user and should add value to their life, making it easier and/or more enjoyable. Content that provides the solution to a need or answers a question, or even entertains, can build trust, relationships, and brand loyalty. In sum, it’s the key to engagement and engaging your audience on social media should be your top priority, not just improving your total “likes. If you require a bit more convincing to pay content the attention it deserves, check out our blog post “5 Reasons Content is King.”
However, content should not just be tossed out for the sake of posting something on your social media accounts. A solid content strategy takes thoughtful planning and purposeful execution. Here are some tips to help you develop quality content for your social media audience:
Identify your audience.
First and foremost, before you can develop any content, you need to know WHO you’re talking to! Audience analysis is an incredibly important step in any marketing initiative but is even more so important when we’re talking about social media content development. If you currently have a Facebook or Instagram page, be sure and check out your analytics/insights. Facebook, especially, makes it easy to identify who your followers are, how they interact with your business and many more valuable demographics. From there you can see what kind of content they’ve already reacted the most favorably to and/or what kind of content might interest a particular segment of your audience. If you’re not sure which platforms would be the most beneficial for you to deliver content on, check out our blog post about the various social media platforms you should be using. We break them down by target audience so you can determine which platform your audience is already using the most. In addition, if you have a website, Google Analytics can offer valuable insights about who visits your page, which social media platform they acquired your site through, what content they’re most engaged with, and other valuable data points that you can build a content strategy around.
Consider the platform
Now that you’ve identified who your audience is and which platform they’re on, consider how they use that platform. In general, when it comes to digital content, you want to keep it short and to the point and ALWAYS provide a visual. However, we know that social media is no one-size-fits-all. Different platforms lend to different types of content—Instagram is all about images, Facebook allows for deeper detail, business information and reviews, YouTube is all about video, etc. So, consider the platform and be sure to tailor the way you deliver your content to the way the audience expects and prefers it. Rest assured, this doesn’t mean you develop separate content for your Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn pages, it just means you tweak it slightly to accommodate the audience and nature of that platform.
Add keywords and hashtags
Keyword research can really help you refine your content, ensuring the terms your audiences are using search for and/or talk about your business are associated with your content. By determining what people are looking for, as it relates to your product or service, you can tailor your content to meet their needs. Similarly, hashtags can help you align your brand with trending topics; all it takes is a quick search on the media platform you are using to find the most popular hashtags. They can also be used to encourage your target audience to take part in a conversation with you or about you. Check out our blog post about the importance of hashtags when it comes to social media content.
Develop a content calendar.
Once you know what type of content is best for which platform, and who you are writing for, you need to plan it out! At LŪM, we’re all about the content calendar. It’s a really simple, clean way to organize various content, social posts, events, etc. EVERYTHING in your marketing arsenal should be thoughtful and planned, and a calendar makes this task very easy. Be sure your calendar specifies which platform your content will be on and account for any adjustments (image sizing, links, etc.).
Looking for more? Check out these other posts:
How to Identify and Engage Your Social Media Audience
Visual Content Speaks Volumes During Social Media Consumption
3 Tips to Move Your Social Media Forward