Content Marketing: Social Media Style

Whether you love or hate the social media trend; the reality is that it is a part of American culture, with people of all ages devoting time to their favorite social media outlet. Think about it – if you have kids, they are on social media, you and your friends are on social media, and more than likely, even your parents have an account on one of the social media outlets. In fact, the 55-64 year old age group is the fastest growing age group on Twitter. Social media has broadened into every age group imaginable. According to the Business Insider (BI), Social Media is now the top Internet activity. BI reports that Americans spend an average of 37 minutes per day on social media, a higher time-spend than any other major Internet activity, including email. As a business owner, you have an opportunity to use social media to:

a) interact with your target market daily,
b) develop brand loyalty, and
c) generate new business.

So, how do you develop a social content marketing strategy that keeps your people engaged?  Here are a few tips in keeping your brand in the newsfeeds:

1. Use photos.

According to recent marketing research, photos makeup 93% of the most engaging posts on Facebook. Maybe it’s because; the brain processes visual data 60,000 times faster. While website links or YouTube videos might be relevant or interesting to your brand, people aren’t likely to share them. Grab your audience with a photo and they will share with their network allowing you to reach new people.

2. Plan out your top social media outlets for postings.

When developing your marketing plan, you will need to identify the top social media outlets that are the best fit for your company. Social media gives people the illusion of personal conversations so if you post the same info across all your social media outlets, you will lose the conversational approach. For instance, tailor your Twitter tweets to the twitter audience. A tweet includes a shorter message, but with relevant #hashtags and interaction with key people interested in your content. Also, since the newsfeed shifts so quickly, you can re-post a blog link several times, but try that on Facebook and people will be turned off.

3. Blog

Did you know that B2b companies that blog generate 67% more leads than those that don’t!  In fact, it’s so important that we devoted last month’s entire blog to the subject: Click here to read Content Marketing – Blog Writing.

4. Don’t be a robot.

For time efficiency, you will need to automate some of your social media postings. However, there must be a real live person engaging the audience, sharing info, growing the site, and handling any positive or negative feedback. People want to think there is a beating heart behind your brand.

5. Use customer testimonials.

According to Social Times, customer testimonials have the highest effective rate in social media sharing at 89%. The great news about this is that these are so easy to share on social media! Post the positive, support it with a picture, and you just graduated from PR101!

Let’s face it; it’s a full time job keeping up with content marketing. We will develop a content marketing playbook for you,and track metrics to support its effectiveness. Because we are a small firm we can shift the plan based on results, and find deep engagement with you target audience. The potential of content marketing via social media is endless. Isn’t it time you tested the waters?