Like any part of your marketing strategy, your social media content strategy needs to start with your target customers. Creating social media posts that resonate and promise to meet their needs is the quickest way to build trust with likely buyers.
But as a new NetLine report discovered, today’s audiences are busier than ever. Your posts’ titles must cut to the chase, providing enough detail that makes reading your post worth their time.
Then, as always, your content must deliver the value your title promises. Follow these tips to create a social media strategy that always delivers the goods.
Simplify, Simplify, Simplify
Chief among the NetLine report’s suggestions is its advice to simplify your content’s language and structure. When you shorten and tighten your copy, you’re more likely to hold onto your audience until the end.
Start with a title that delivers your post’s key information, the report advises. That information should answer these questions:
- Who?
- What?
- When?
- Where?
- Why?
- How?
- How much?
Secondly, use a readability checker to align your content’s language with your busy audience’s attention span and reading capability. Use fewer adjectives and adverbs, too. Instead, use vivid, active-voice verbs to drive the action forward.
Above all, use bullet points, visuals, and subheadings to break up the copy to make it easier to skim. Remember, if you use long blocks of text, your audience will likely think your post would be too long to read and move on to your competitor’s post.
Tailor Posts to Each Stage of the Buyer’s Journey
Most social media platforms allow you to show your posts to various audience segments. Making your posts relevant to people in specific demographics and stages along the buyer’s journey makes them even more valuable to that specific segment.
Be sure to use appropriate calls to action for each post. For example, in a top-of-the-funnel social post, you probably wouldn’t use “Buy Yours Today.” Instead, you’d be better off linking to a blog post with more detailed information, an invitation to follow your brand, or asking them to sign up for your newsletter.
Set Goals That Align with Your Company’s Objectives
While having specific, measurable, attainable, customer-relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals is essential, it’s equally necessary to align those goals with your corporate objectives.
Larger companies often operate in silos, meaning that each department does its own thing. Unfortunately, a marketing department that doesn’t collaborate on content with its sales, support, subject matter experts, and, especially, their executive teams won’t set goals that will help the company achieve its potential.
Instead, meet with your executive team often to make sure your departmental goals align with theirs. Then, translate those larger goals into concrete KPIs that will help your social media teams do their part toward meeting your company’s business goals. That way, when they see your corporate revenue rise, they can say, “I played a part in that achievement.”
Post When Your Audience Is Online
Using your social media and content analytics, learn when various audience segments are using each social platform. Then, schedule the posts you’ve chosen for each segment during the time they’re online.
And, with a content automation tool, you can easily schedule your posts to publish automatically – even if some of your target segments are halfway around the world. They’ll be more likely to comment on your posts – and even share them with their colleagues and friends – if you reach them at their peak usage times.
Use the Same Social Platforms Your Prospects Use
Your analytics tools will give you a good idea about which social platforms your target audience uses and why. For example, if you’re a B2B company, your hottest prospect’s CEO might use Facebook to connect with friends and family. However, when she’s at work, she’s on LinkedIn, researching new sources for raw materials and support services.
So, ensure that the social platforms that you use relate to your customers’ purchasing interests. They’ll be more likely to be in a purchasing or researching frame of mind when they’re on those sites.
If you limit your social presence to those platforms, your teams will have more time to interact with your audience, answering questions, responding to feedback, and asking audience members for input. Engage in conversations often – and put the social back in social media.
Integrate Social Media Posts into Your Content Audit Plan
Whether you do a separate content audit for social posts or analyze them during your regular content audits, it will pay to look at which posts netted the most followers, the most conversions, and the most sales.
Look for commonalities among your best performers. Then, look at the posts that didn’t live up to their potential. Examine them closely to see where your content might have veered off the path to success. Then, task your teams to shore up those areas in future posts.
Promote Your Best-Performing Owned Content
Along with your conversations, mix in links to some of your blog’s best-performing posts, especially if they’re relevant to your audience’s queries. You’ll get even more traffic, and you’ll build your reputation as a helpful expert who will go the extra mile to meet your prospects’ needs.
Use a Variety of Formats
If your audience is like the nation’s general population, they have a broad range of learning styles and preferences. Although visual learners are in the majority, be sure to include all your audience members’ preferred formats to reach everyone with your message.
Both video content and podcasts are growing in popularity. Since they can reach both visual and auditory learners, be sure to include them in your social media content planning.
Although demand for both of these formats is growing, video is clearly viewers’ top choice. In 2022, people watch an average of 19 hours of online video per week. (This is an increase of 1 hour per week compared to 12 months ago, and a staggering 8.5 hour increase per week across the past 3 years.) And when asked how they’d most like to learn about a product or service, 73% said they’d prefer to watch a short video.
Image via Wyzowl
For that reason, video ought to be a central component of any company’s content strategy. Case studies, explainer videos, how-tos, and customer testimonials are all popular video topics for businesses of all kinds. Incorporate live video when possible to build buzz around new products, special events, or influencer endorsements.
For those audience members who prefer to read, link to blog posts and other written content. Many people might watch an introductory video on a topic but want to dig into the details by reading, where they can print out the content, underline critical points, and write notes in the margins to note questions they might have.
Finally, Post at an Ideal Frequency for Your Business
Posting on social media might vary according to your audience. However, you want to provide maximum value without spamming your audience’s feed with too many posts.
Start with these standard recommendations and tweak your frequency from there:
- Facebook: 3-7 times per week
- Instagram: 1 post per day or fewer
- Twitter: 1-3 posts per day
- Pinterest: 1-5 posts per day
- LinkedIn: 3-5 posts per week
- TikTok: At least 1 post per day
Your social content isn’t the only thing you should consider simplifying. With DivvyHQ’s comprehensive content marketing platform, you’ll have a content calendar where you can plan, schedule, publish, automate, and analyze content across the enterprise, including social media content.
With a central hub where you can conduct the entire range of content operations and organize it all with a leading-edge content metadata management system, you’ll streamline your entire workflow from start to finish. Spend more time on content creation and less on repetitive processes with DivvyHQ. Begin your free 14-day trial today!