In this day and age, no brand can survive without a social media marketing strategy. Coming up with valuable content for every platform you have an account for can make or break your advertising goals.
The social media marketing playing field is home to fast-changing and emerging trends. As a brand, it’s crucial that you stay on top of all these trends in order to stand out from the competition.
Learning how to use each social media channel to your advantage can make all the difference in your ad and content campaigns.
Fortunately, you no longer have to scour the internet to learn how to do just that. Below is a comprehensive guide that will teach you how to write perfect content for some of the most popular platforms out there.
Ready? The road to marketing success begins here.
If there’s one thing you need to know about Facebook users, it’s that they are what experts call skim readers. Skim readers have extremely short attention spans, which means you have roughly eight seconds to grab their attention and deliver your marketing message.
Given how short this opening is, it’s important that you keep your posts noteworthy but succinct.
What to Post
Facebook allows you to post almost anything, like links, photos, videos, and text updates. According to a study run by Socialbakers, videos are the most consumed content on Facebook, while text come in second and valuable links come in third.
If you want to grow a highly engaged following on Facebook, you have to take the most popular type of content and pair it with an attention-grabbing caption.
When writing the perfect caption for anything you’ll publish on Facebook, pay special attention to the first four words because they’ll serve as your hook.
Nike’s Facebook page has several well-produced videos that are less than a minute long. Most of their videos are pretty short but come with powerful captions that reel people in.
https://www.facebook.com/nike/videos/10154923897203445/
Their caption for this video was simple:
“Eliud Kipchoge – 2:00:25
The barrier just got that much closer. #Breaking2 #JustDoIt“
Instead of exhausting all your marketing energy on pushing your product, focus on creating content of value to your target audience, and keep your captions short and sweet.
How to Post
There’s really no end-all-be-all publishing time for Facebook or any social networking site. You can, however, determine when your target users are most active using tools like Facebook Karma, Facebook Analytics, or Simply Measured.
These web-based tools can help you gain a more in-depth understanding of your target users, their browsing behavior, and the type of content they like.
More than an avenue for your 140-character musings, Twitter has proven to be one of the most powerful marketing avenues out there for small businesses. With over 6,000 tweets being sent out every minute, vying for attention can be a challenge.
In order to get the attention of the users you want to attract, you need to craft the perfect tweet at just the perfect hour.
What to Post
According to the renowned marketer Neil Patel, images trump videos as the most shared content on Twitter by 361%. This is largely due to the fact that images take up a huge chunk of space on someone’s feed and deliver a strong message without requiring a click-through.
If you want your posts to travel far, pair your catchy tweet with an equally catchy image to stop users in their Twitter tracks. It’s also a good idea to tweet a few conversation starters here and there to grow a more engaged audience.
How to Post
Buffer’s CEO Joel Gascoigne swears by creating a sharing ratio to keep his Twitter feed varied and robust.
His current sharing ratio is 4:1. That means four “staple posts,” containing links to helpful articles and other related literature, to every one post of other kinds, such as images and plain-text tweets.
You can recreate his success by posting varied yet valuable updates topped by a respectable amount of high-quality Likes and Retweets from a reputable provider. This should help you achieve your marketing goals a lot faster and more cost-effectively.
LinkedIn has become the third-most rapidly rising social networking channel out there. More and more brand execs and business owners are using this platform to network with high-value connections within their respective industries.
Consistently posting relevant blogs, news articles, and status updates will help you establish a presence among your most important industry connections.
What to Post
According to the staff of LinkedIn themselves, a majority of their users are interested in seeing more industry insights from the people they follow.
This is one of the few platforms out there that is receptive to news about your company, services, and products – so take advantage of it.
Whenever posting updates on LinkedIn, keep in mind that having a signature tone is important. You have to find a voice that’s credible-sounding yet shows just the right amount of personality.
How to Post
When posting on LinkedIn, remember that most of the people on there are busy professionals who might not have a lot of time on their hands. Pay special attention to your headline and make sure you publish content that is worth their time.
Add eye-catching images to accompany your updates to increase your chances of gaining more attention.
Louis M. Profeta is an Indiana-based ER doctor who became an overnight LinkedIn influencer after publishing a heart-wrenching article entitled “I Know You Love Me – Now Let Me Die”.
His painfully honest article has a headline that can grab anyone’s attention, whether they’re in the medical field or not. This shows us that a well-written piece that triggers conversations will travel far on a platform like LinkedIn.
Business owners who want to drive traffic to their website or sales page can benefit from creating a carefully-curated Pinterest account.
Considered to be one of the biggest website drivers on the internet, Pinterest can help you connect with your target audience and appreciably increase sales – given you post well-thought out content that is of great value to consumers.
What to Post
Despite being a highly-visual driven platform, the chart below from The American Genius tells us that articles are actually the most popular type of content on Pinterest, aside from regular posts.
If you want to broaden your marketing reach on Pinterest, you have to publish articles that are relevant and useful enough to your target audience that they’d want to save them for later reference.
Shifting your strategy and incorporating articles that help them better their lives and increase their productivity may help you gain the traction you’ve been coveting.
Keep in mind that Pinterest is designed to be a digital mood board, so you have to pay close attention to the visual elements of your posts just as you would your written content.
Martha Stewart Living has a vast collection of boards but all of them are properly curated and well-organized so visitors can easily find what they need without being overwhelmed.
How to Post
Being as consistent as you can on Pinterest will help make your posts more visible to more users. Combining your insightful articles with an eye-catching pin image and a consistent voice should help you garner traction from Pinterest users.
Canva is a lightweight visual editing and graphic design tool that allows you to create custom images for your blog posts. They have tons of templates you can use to create custom pin images for your articles. Get to know it, and your pins should get better straightaway.
Buying a good amount of Pinterest Followers can also help you establish a more credible persona on the platform, which helps you attract even more authentic followers. When people see how popular you are, they’ll definitely come over to check you out.
If you’re really serious about building a presence on Pinterest, install the app on your phone so you can engage with your followers and post fresh pins on the go.
Don’t be Afraid to Experiment
It’s almost impossible to nail down the perfect content strategy for social media marketing on your first try. It takes a bit of experimenting in order for you to gain enough insight to determine the perfect tone and pitch for your audience.
Take the early stages as a learning opportunity to figure out as much as you can about your ideal followers and even your competitors.
Make use of analytics tools in order to determine which parts of your campaign are working, and if you find something that doesn’t seem to work, don’t be afraid to regroup.
In the competitive game of social media marketing it pays to be original and consistent so don’t be afraid to put fresh ideas out there – consistently. Buy yourself a good running start by purchasing high-quality social signals from a provider you can trust to strengthen your social proof and appeal to the internet masses.
Once you’ve gotten the hang of things, posting on various social media channels will get much easier and a lot more rewarding – trust us!
[…] platform is unique and will need a slightly different content strategy. Twitter is made for short messages, while Facebook users are more willing to read longer posts. […]