Wondering what that “secret recipe” is to compelling social media content? Curious as to how you can take your social media posts to the next level? Get people to click and engage? In this article you’ll learn my top five social media content tips to keep your audience coming back for more.
1. Know your audience well
Not knowing their audience well enough is a key reason many social media marketers fail. They don’t publish social content that resonates. You need to have an excellent understanding of who your audience is (their demographic profile) and what’s important to them. What information do they currently know and not know? What makes them tick? What are their pain points? How do they view themselves? What’s the reason they’ve followed you on social media in the first place? Only when you know the answers to these questions will you be able to develop social media posts that are truly valuable to your audience.
2. It’s not about you
Now that you know your audience well, you can publish content you know they’ll enjoy. People follow you on social media because they want to stay connected, not “sold” to. The key to getting more sales from social media (if that’s one of your objectives), isn’t to “sell,” but instead to build a loyal following by providing value and staying top of mind over time.
If every other post is about how great your brand or organization is, you’ll have a hard time retaining your social media followers (which you likely worked hard to get in the first place). The solution is to publish content that brings value to your audience. Think special offers, helpful tips or fact sheets, and interesting videos or infographics. Plus, engage your audience by asking questions and by running contests and promotions – remember that one of the great advantages of social media is the ability to have that two-way conversation.
3. Pay close attention to the image, headline and link description
It’s not just the social media copy itself you should be concerned with, it’s also the image, headline, and link description that goes along with it. These three elements are often neglected but present excellent opportunities to get your audience to click on your post.
Compelling, well-written copy is a must, but you also need to pay attention to the post’s image, headline, and link description (when publishing a link post on channels such as Facebook and LinkedIn). Your image should complement the post and draw people in. It should intrigue them to click. The headline should do the same. And the link description – which many neglect altogether and leave as a blob of unrelated, cut-off text (the default description), should accurately describe the content you’re linking to.
4. Be strategic about posting frequency and timing
You need to determine how often to post on social media and what time(s) of the day. These factors may differ from one of your social channels to the next. Taking a strategic approach to posting frequency and timing is key to maximizing the number of people who see any given post and achieving that balance between providing a steady stream of great content while not bombarding your audience.
Take advantage of analytics (such as Facebook Insights) to see when your audience is online (both days and time of the day). Also experiment with posting frequency – sometimes publishing too often means you’re sacrificing engagement (clicks, comments, and/ or likes) of one post by publishing the next too soon. For instance, depending on the type of audience you have and their size, one Facebook post every other day might be best to maximize engagement, or conversely, you might find two per day is most ideal.
5. Monitor and analyze what works best and optimize results
You can access a wealth of social media analytics from the analytics dashboards built-in to social media channels themselves and social media management systems like Buffer and Hootsuite. See which content topics and types perform best to get a sense of where to focus your social media content strategy and increase reach and engagement.
Also pay attention to “negative feedback,” which Facebook defines as the number of times people have hid your post. You can export a list from Facebook Insights which will show you the amount of negative feedback each post you published has received. You can determine which posts your audience clearly do not like to see by uncovering trends. Lastly, be sure to continually monitor when your audience is online so you can optimize your posting frequency and timing, discussed above.
When it comes to creating effective social media content, there are a variety of factors that must be considered. Developing both a social media strategy and a content strategy are important and will go a long way in setting you down the path to success. I hope the tips in this article will help you publish content that keeps your audience coming back for more.