Social media is all about content. Simple? No. With billions of social media posts going out a day, it’s that much harder for your brand to be discovered. But, there are ways you can make yourself more visible and increase engagement by creating the right content for your socials.
Before I start even going into creating content, you need your goals, objectives and strategy in place. If you haven’t sorted this, then have a read of our previous blog ‘Why you need a social media strategy and how to start one’ and then come back here to look deeper into social media content.
With your strategy in place, you should have a better understanding of what your competitors are doing, and how you want to talk to your audience. Now it’s time for content.
Start with a (content) plan
One of the most important things to do at the start is to identify what are your content pillars. By this, we mean to identify three or four themes to return to over and over again, which gives you a framework for creating content (so you’re never stuck for what to write about) and will also provide consistency for your brand. This means you’re not rambling on about off-brand topics – you’re creating content that is relevant to your company and its tone of voice. For example, if you’re in the camera industry, you might want to have a content pillar that is all about ‘how to take the best pictures’. It’s not directly about selling your products, but is enabling and empowering your customers to make the most out of it. With this as one content pillar, you can flesh out a whole load of content ideas based around ‘how to take the best pictures’. This could end up as videos, blogs, white-papers, tips and trick – whatever. But it’s on a key theme to your company.
The 70:20:10 Approach
Our recommended approach to breaking down your content would be the 70:20:10 approach. So, what does that mean?
70% of your content should be planned content that is building your brand and focused around an ‘always on’ campaign (sticking to your content pillars).
20% should be guided by success, so types of posts that have been popular with your audience and following trends.
10% should be driven by opportunities. These posts are likely to be responsive to current events, things happening in the industry or even events within your offices.
On the whole, you want your social media content to be relevant and discoverable. You need to offer value to your audience to encourage engagement. If your content has no value, then it’ll just disappear down the dreaded newsfeed. To make your content more discoverable, you can be using relevant hashtags, work with influencers (find out more about why you should work with influencers) or even branch into paid advertising to increase your reach.
How many posts should I be posting and when?
Regular content is key. The 70:20:10 approach will make this an easier task, rather than posting manually as and when you feel like it.
As we said before, there are billions of social posts going out a day, so posts disappear down your newsfeed fast! Because of this, social platforms have been changing up their algorithms so that posts even from days ago will pop back up towards the top of your newsfeed. But, this shouldn’t stop you from being fully active on social media.
Here’s our recommended post schedule per social platform;
Facebook – 1-2 posts daily
Twitter – 5 posts daily
Instagram – 1-2 posts daily
LinkedIn – 2-5 posts weekly
YouTube – 1-2 videos weekly
Google+ – 2 posts weekly
Pinterest – 3 pins daily
This is a guide and not a regimented system. You may decide not to use all these social media channels and through your own insights, you’ll figure out your best approach in time. But, it’s an effective approach to begin with until you’ve got these insights.
What time should I post?
When it comes to what time you should be posting, this will again depend on your insights. Different audiences have a tendency to use social media at different times of the day. A general insight is that most people are on social media during the evenings, post work or school. You can find these insights within your companies Facebook page insights. Have a look at the Posts section where you should find a graph of when your audience is most active online. From this, you can then find the best time for you to be posting on social media.
What type of content should I post on the different channels?
The type of content you create will differ between the social media channels you’re using. For example, if you’ve decided that you want to use Twitter as more of a customer service platform, then you’ll be posting more informative posts, letting people know any latest news, updates, new products and more. But, if you decide to use Twitter to be more conversational with your audience, then you may change your content to fit this style.
As part of your strategy, you should decide what you want to achieve from each channel and this should guide you to the type of content you post. But overall, keep it relevant, keep it on-brand and create value.
Visual Content
Instagram, of course, is going to be purely visual, so get the camera out and get some beautifully stylised product shots, or products in action (depending on your business offering). If you’re more of a service based brand, then you might post about your brand culture, have a look at our Instagram for instance.
Imagery isn’t just important for Instagram, if you want to catch anyone’s attention on any social media platform, then imagery is going to be key. Whether it’s still imagery, GIFs or video clips. Have a read of our ‘Why using imagery on social media is key for engagement’ blog to look into this further.
Make sure that when you’re creating imagery for your social media accounts, that they all have a similar style. Make a social media visual guidelines document, to make sure that any imagery made is consistent throughout. If you need a hand in figuring out your brand style guidelines, have a look at our branding services.
Insight is key to creating the right content for your brand, so make sure you get plenty of research together before kicking off! Then, before you know it, you should see your engagement improving, your following increasing and conversions rising.
We offer a variety of social media services to help build your brand online, have a look or get in touch today.