How Content Marketing and Social Media Work Together
While social media and content marketing could seem to be two different things, they actually work together. Brands can maximize a robust piece of content, such as a white paper or blog post, by posting smaller fragments of the content on their social channels.
A strategy helps you concentrate and maximize your efforts to get the highest value from every piece of content. It also helps you avoid wasting time on vanity metrics and determine what matters to your company, such as the brand's recognition or website traffic.
1. Identify Your Audience
Social marketing via media is a fantastic method to connect with potential customers and develop relationships. Before you can develop the best content for your followers, you must first understand them. This will help you develop a strategies that are more likely to accomplish your goals and increase the number in your company's bottom line.
The best place to start is to monitor who follows your company on social media and how often it interacts with your posts. What are their interests? And what do they need? What kind of information do they look for and why? This information will allow you to target similar users across different social media platforms.
You can also learn more about your target audience by studying the content of companies in your field. What type of content do they create and share? What type of content is working for them? This will provide some insight on how to make content.
In addition, you could reach out directly to your followers on social media to see what they would like to hear from you. For example the clothing retailer ModCloth regularly asks its followers to submit photos of them wearing their products. The photos are then showcased on the social media pages of the retailer. This approach makes the brand feel more connected to its customers and can help drive engagement.
It's time for you to create and share content after you've identified and defined your target audience. Be sure to keep track of your metrics but only those that tie back to your SMART goals and KPIs (which you defined in step one). Be aware that not all of your content will work flawlessly immediately - but if you're consistent and stick with your plan, you'll eventually get the results you're after.
2. Create a Strategy
You need a strategy to increase your social media presence. You won't gain new followers, or convince them to visit or even convert to your site by releasing random content without a purpose or strategy. Instead, develop a documented content strategy that you and your team follow. This will help you create SMART goals and create and share regular content.
Begin by developing your social media marketing plan with your buyer personas (or fictional representations) of your ideal customers. Then, think about the types of content they like and the formats that resonate best on each platform. seo content writing tools and TikTok, for example are great platforms for visuals such as photos and short videos. Twitter, on the other hand, is better for content that is text-based, such as links or posts.
Think about how you can utilize each platform in a unique way to showcase your brand. Instagram is an excellent platform for fashion companies that are looking to showcase their unique products and designs. Similarly, Stumptown Coffee Roasters uses their Facebook page to promote events and locations across the country.
Include call-to-actions in your posts to encourage readers' interaction. For instance, if you're running an announcement or a giveaway invite your followers to leave comments or tag their friends or share the post with their friends.
Remember that social media is a great location to showcase testimonials from customers and reviews. They can be extremely effective in gaining trust from your followers, especially if they come from social media users that recommend or use your product or service.
3. Create Content
You need to create content that is relevant to your intended audience in order to effectively market your company on social media. This can be accomplished by using a variety of ways, including blogging, video, podcasts, infographics and many more. In addition, it's important to think about the kind of content that your audience would like to see and share. Research has proven that promotional and informational content have lower ratings on social media than personal and clearly entertaining content.
Once you have an understanding of your audience and your marketing goals then you can start planning out the types of content you'd like to create. It is recommended to mix promotional posts with entertaining, informative or educational posts. This will help your customers get involved with your business and increase your chances of converting them into customers.
Interviewing thought leaders is a popular way to create content. This is a great way to learn about the latest trends and strategies in your niche and also gives you a chance to promote your business by sharing the article on the individuals who were interviewed on their own social networks.
Other types of content include industry news tips, tricks, and hacks. You should also consider incorporating images in your posts, since it has been proven to be more effective at drawing attention and boosting engagement on social media.
It is crucial to keep track of the performance of your content and make any necessary adjustments. For instance, if a type of content isn't performing well, you might need to change the subject matter or the direction from which it's being distributed.
4. Share Your Content
If you've created a strategy and created engaging content, it's important to share it on social media. This is an excellent way to increase your reach and gain new customers. Keep your updates short and make sure you make sure to use appealing headlines. Don't forget to post different kinds of content: pictures, videos texts, links, and text are all good alternatives.
It's also an excellent idea to generate interest in your content by putting it up on various platforms at different times of the day. This will ensure that your content is reaching the highest number of people possible.
You may also want to think about partnering with influencers, or even launching a contest. This is a great method of generating publicity and traffic for your brand.
Once your audience starts to trust your credibility as an information source, they are more likely to engage in your content and turn into customers. It is important to place more emphasis on quality than quantity when it's time to start implementing content marketing.
It is important to remember that if you are using a pillar strategy to content marketing, it is recommended to share links to your lengthy content on social media. This will give your audience an idea of what's coming and encourage them go to the full article or blog.
It's not always clear why a certain content is shared more frequently than other content. It is worthwhile to study the psychology of sharing to determine what is driving people to share specific pieces of content. This will help you formulate a the best strategy for marketing content in the future.
5. Track Your Results
After you have created and shared your content, it is crucial to keep track of your outcomes. This is how you'll be able to determine if your strategy is effective or needs to be adjusted. It is possible that certain platforms or types are more effective than others, or that some kinds of content are more popular than others. You can track your social media's reach and performance using tools like Mention or Hootsuite.
It is also helpful to keep in mind that even if your content is performing well doesn't necessarily mean that you should stop sharing it across all platforms. It is crucial to adapt each platform's content to the audience it is targeting and follow best practices. This way, you will not overdo it and upset your audience.
When you are analyzing your results, be sure to review all the metrics that are important to you and your team. Choose metrics that are in line with your SMART goals and KPIs. Be sure to differentiate these metrics for each of the social media platforms you use.
With the proper strategy and tactics, you can effectively combine social media and content marketing to improve brand recognition, increase web traffic, boost leads, increase sales, establish authority, and much more. For more information about how to implement an effective content marketing strategy read this free guide that you can download from DemandJump. It contains examples, tips and more from businesses similar to yours that have beaten the algorithms and have won in content marketing. Sign up to get your copy today!