This topic is available as a podcast too - listen here!
In this week’s 2nd instalment in our GOLDEN RULES FOR SOCIAL MEDIA series, we’re talking CONTENT.
These 3 Golden Rules are the core principles that make or break a brand’s digital presence.
Last week, we kicked off our series with a focus on COMMUNITY - building a strong digital audience that is fully engaged with your business. This week, it’s CONTENT’s turn.
Don’t use enough hashtags? Yeah, not a biggie.
Only post 2 times a week? It’s better than no times a week!
Not a fan of emojis in your captions? Audiences will survive!
But no community or crappy content? Now those are deal breakers…
To build a strong digital community, you have to give them something to keep coming back for. And that’s what we’ll chat about today: how to create content that your community will lap up and love.
AUTHENTICITY
This is the cornerstone of a great content strategy, so let’s start with this one shall we?
Audiences can smell when they’re being duped, and that’s a one-way ticket to Unfollowville. We’re starting to see the beginning of Influencer Fatigue which is great news for brands just like yours! Why? Because audiences are starting to tune out of content that is clearly orchestrated by larger corporations towards content that is genuine, authentic, relatable, unpolished and perhaps a little rough around the edges. The more authentic and vulnerable you can be, the more audiences will gravitate towards what you’ve got to say. The opaque and highly-curated messaging has seen it’s time out and it’s making space for honest connection. Great ways to be authentic: share your origin story, how you started, your biggest business struggles and how you’re working through them, failures you’ve had along the way and what you learned, offering a (limited) backstage pass into the behind-the-scenes aspects of your biz, showing your personality and perhaps your viewpoints on certain things and inviting discussions around those topics with your audience.
90:10
Spend more time adding value and less time selling. In fact, spend 90% adding-value (through educating, informing, enlightening and engaging with your audience on topics that enrich their lives) and only 10% selling. Through adding value rather than clutter, you’re building up trust and loyalty equity with your audience, so that when it comes time to finally laying down your sales pitch, you can (more successfully) trade that equity for $$$ and see a real uptake in your offer. Audiences that feel like they’re getting bonus content from your social pages as a matter of course rather than exception will be a lot more open to engaging with your sales pitches than those that are worn down by your calls to actions.
LOOK SHARP
And no - we don’t mean the store (unless you’re shopping for props in which case: have at it!). Here, we’re talking about filling your feed with beautiful imagery featuring models your audience will resonate with, scenes and settings that inspire your shoppers, great lighting and thoughtful composition. Dull imagery is also a one-way ticket to Unfollowville, so if you feel your image-capturing skills are not up to scratch, I would definitely outsource this! We’ll talk more about imagery in coming blog posts and podcasts.
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Image Shot by Shout & Co. for Jess of Made of Words
USE VIDEO
Video is one of the fastest growing mediums because it’s just such an engaging format. It tells a story so much better than a static image could. We spoke about video 2 weeks ago in a previous blog post and podcast so head over here if you missed it! You don’t have to have crazy shooting and editing skills to create a scroll-stopping video either: Reels, Tiktok and Stories provide easy-to-use platforms that can level up your video outputs within minutes. Take advantage of Lives & IGTv too to deliver your message to your audience. It’s also a great way to get your face in front of your audience.
AUDIENCE-CENTRIC
Sorry to say, but your content is not actually about you, it’s about them - your audience. When you start delivering content that your audience loves, and less of the content you love, that’s when you can really start to unlock the growth in your social presence. So find out what they want to know more about: run polls in your FB posts, add question boxes and sliding scales to your stories, do fun “this or that” sequences, ask questions in your captions, send short surveys to your database to get a sense of what they’re keen on. Scope out their stand points on things and then start doing more of that.
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Image Shot by Shout & Co. for Jess of Made of Words
Now that you’ve got an idea of WHAT makes great content, here’s HOW to make great content:
Keep it short and snappy: people don’t have time (or interest) in reading too much copy
Keep the important information for the first part of the caption: people only really ever read about 20% of a chunk of writing
Add a headline to your post: i.e. the first few characters in your post should be an attention-grabbing headline that draws people in. Your headline could also be your call-to-action, letting people know right off the bat what they need to do as they read the caption
Use paragraphs or line breaks - it’s easier to read
If you have many points to get across, use bullet points in the form of emojis
Punctuate your captions with emojis: studies have shown that they increase engagement by A LOT
Finish off with a question, or make it your caption headline: this encourages interaction
Include a call-to-action. They don’t always have to be a salesy one, but something like “let us know below!”, “what’s your dog’s name? Share with us in the comments!”, “drop an emoji here to tell us what you’re up to this weekend!” etc. Remember the 90:10 principle and use those CTAs accordingly!
Keep it in a positive tone: no one is crazy for Negative Nancy! (Sorry to all the Nancies out there! We’re sure you’re awesome!)
Use contractions like “can’t” rather than “can not” / “it’s” rather than “it is”
Use the numeral rather than the word: 8 rather than writing out “eight”
And if it includes someone else, always use @ mentions! They’ll probably share the post with their audience, getting you in front of a whole new network!
Next week, we’ll be back with our last instalment of the 3 Golden Rules of Social Media.
Read last week’s COMMUNITY focus if you haven’t already. Next week, we’ll be rounding it off with the final “C” - so stay tuned for that!
If you have any questions around building your community, generating great content or just digital marketing questions in general that you’d love answered, get in touch!
And of course, if you’re needing help with your imagery, video, content or social media and want to chat about how Shout & Co. can help you:
