Social media is super important for companies, there are right ways and wrong ways to go about it!
Here are some stats to prove it:
- According to the 2020 social media statistics, there are now 3.4 billion users around the globe. That is about 45% of our total present population.
- Active social media users are composed of 48.2% Baby Boomers, 77.5% Generation X and 90.4% Millennials.
- Interesting research shows that a user spends an average of 2 hours and 22 minutes in his social media account every day, including messaging.
- 73% of online marketers agree that their efforts in implementing a social media marketing strategy for their business have been effective.
Now, let’s look at the basic idea and how to get social working for you in 2020 (because just paying for stock auto-posts has never worked for anyone, but people are still paying for it?)!
Some super common questions are: How can I connect better with my target audience? Why am I not seeing better results from my social efforts? Why don’t people talk about my company on social media? Most of the time, the answer is quality content.
Although social media marketing has many aspects like encouraging engagement, promoting your company, and driving website visits, in the end, there is one such aspect unfortunately often neglected: the content.
Social media is all about visibility, conversations, and interactions. These may be from direct messages or comments. If you are not delivering the goods:
- People will stop following you because they won’t learn anything
- People won’t help you build your brand or share your posts because there’s nothing good to share or contribute to
- Social media won’t help your business grow
A Brief Guide to Social Media Content Creation
#1 Think about your customers’ journey
Whether you have just started your business or you’ve been around for a while, it is vital to define your target audience. This goes way beyond demographics, age, and gender. We need to identify their roles, day-to-day challenges, and goals. We have to deliver an experience to help people fall in love with you.
To start, place yourself in your customers’ shoes and research what compels them to make a purchase. To get a better idea of how to do this let’s look at a couple of examples:
The first customer is a creative entrepreneur who always prefers a visual approach, whether its business or personal lifestyle content. They’re passionate and inquisitive and they ask various questions before making a decision to buy. They keep a close eye on Facebook infographics or Instagram posts. Here is their thought process when researching a company:
Our second example hypothetically is someone who is completely opposite when it comes to buying a product. They are more analytical and methodical, interested in facts. Their thought process goes more like this:
#2 Plan your social content
As soon as you are done with the research, it’s time to plan your goals. If you have already been creating content, you need to conduct a social media audit to determine which posts perform well and which performed poorly.
Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn allow you to export your post and page analytics directly from the platform.
Set your goal in advance. For example, do you want more brand awareness? Conducting a content audit will help you understand and objectively decide which content is performing and working towards your goals.
Irrelevant posts are the second largest reason consumers unfollow brands on social media. Stick with your brand voice and style as much as possible and create content that authentically distributes your brand.
#3 Stay consistent
Social Media Marketing goes way beyond just organizing, creating, and publishing content. You need to network and interact. The more open you are and the more you use social media for customer service, the more likely your audience will feel valued. Think about improving the experience and shortening the buying cycle. When you are consistent you can dominate the air space, get tons of attention and provide crazy value at the fingertips of your buyers!
With that, best of luck to you all and if you have questions on social media content strategies or interested in digital marketing services, please get in contact. We would be glad to help you with your project!
HONE Digital Marketing is a digital marketing agency based in Texas.