Why Custom Content is Essential to Successful Social Media Marketing
Tips and Tricks for Effective Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing has changed the landscape for different businesses. This type of digital marketing strategy has created opportunities for brands and small businesses to reach out to the right audience. But one thing that sets good brands from mediocre brands on social media is their ability to create good content. For successful brands, good content is their bread and butter simply because they give users a reason to follow their social media profiles.
The good thing about social media platforms is that you can create a variety of content. You can choose to post photos, texts, videos, or even a combination of these options.
What is Social Media Marketing?
But before anything else, let’s discuss the basics first. So, what’s social media marketing? It’s the use of social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to promote brands, organizations, products, and services.
Facebook alone has 2.45 billion active users monthly, while Instagram has 1 billion active users per month. And because of this, it isn’t surprising why 71% of small-to-medium-sized businesses market their brand using social media marketing methods.
Over the years, the impact of social media marketing allowed even small entrepreneurs to have a fighting chance against companies with a much bigger marketing budget. But an effective social media marketing strategy is only as good as its content. Seventy-two percent of marketers believe that a good content strategy can yield better engagement.
Unfortunately, a study shows that 32% of marketers think that their content strategy is either weak or fair. In addition to this, 60% feel that it’s challenging to create consistent content. This problem isn’t limited to producing blogs or web content. Social media marketing managers also struggle in creating cohesive and high-quality content that they post on different platforms.
Creating Custom Content
Creating custom content is easier said than done. But as a rule of thumb, you need to always focus on the quality of your content. You want something valuable to your audience. Creating custom content using social media platforms gives you the freedom to explore different media from photos to videos.
Different platforms have a different focus in terms of content. Take Instagram marketing, for example; you’ll notice accounts that have thousands of followers follow a theme plus they make use of stunning photos or of highly informative videos that can get their audience hooked.
On the other hand, successful Facebook Pages usually contain a mix of texts, links, photos, or even videos.
Apart from quality content, you also need to produce regularly to keep your audience hooked. You’ll need to schedule your posts and engage when you have followers leaving comments or asking questions on the comment section.
Why is Custom Content so Important?
What makes custom content so important? Custom content is vital to social media because it sets your brand apart from the rest of your competitors. It can help your brand to stand out because it shows your brand’s personality. Furthermore, it is also a chance to leave a good impression to your audience with the possibility of getting their loyalty.
If used the right way, it has the power to attract the right followers. High-quality content is the reason why users follow your account. For instance, having regular fitness-related videos and photos on your Instagram gets you the chance to get followers who have the same interest as you.
It also highlights your knowledge of a topic. You can use custom content to improve your reputation online and maybe even make you a subject-authority in your niche. In the long run, this pays a dividend, making it easier to sell products to your audience.
Tips & Tricks
But how do you do it? There are simple tricks that you can utilize on your content that can help boost your ability to reach your desired audience.
Make Content That is Easy to Share
First, you want to make sure that your content is easy to share. Consider social media marketing as a modern-day word of mouth marketing strategy. Getting people to share your content on their feed or their story is a great way to expand your network. Using your network to do the publicity for you not only saves you time and money; it even elevates your reputation online.
There are different ways people share your content. On Facebook, users can share your content to a private group, on messenger, or directly on their feed. Sharing content in personal stories or embedding their posts to their blog are the options you have on Instagram. There are many more ways to share social content, such as through WhatsApp or Email as well. With all these options, it is essential to keep your accounts publicly available. This way, everyone can share what you’ve posted.
And just in case someone tries to steal your content and not give you any credit, you can watermark your photos and videos with your username. This way, if users stumble upon the misuse of your material, they can report it back to you.
Be Authentic
Another important rule that you have to follow whenever you are posting online is to be authentic. With authenticity in mind, it is possible to establish a relationship with your audience. But how do you stay “real” in the eyes of your audience?
Unfortunately, the concept of authenticity gets thrown around a lot on social media. But in reality, authenticity is such a vague concept that brands and organizations are unaware that they are already breaking the rule of being authentic.
The first thing that you need to do is to know your audience well. This way, you know what they expect from brands that they trust.
Unfortunately, some brands opt to ride the popularity of trends while subtly pushing their products. A lot of brands tend to use trending hashtags just for the sake of getting more followers or improving their short term traction. On some occasions, they even use tragic events as a means to promote their brand. Authenticity can be in the guise of charity, which can easily be caught by an attentive audience.
Beware of this kind of strategy, as it can be seen in a negative light. Instead, focus on genuinely caring about your audience, industry, and values.
Being authentic is all about building trust within your niche. To be trustworthy, you need to stand for your values. And of course, be sure to personalize your messages. For example, address your audience directly, in a personal tone-of-voice, to give them the impression that you’re a person, not a company.
Focus on Value
Lastly, you want to focus on the value of your content. Does it teach your audience something new? Does it offer new insights that have practical value to them? High-value content gets more shares and engagement since your audience. Sharing high-quality content is also an opportunity to build not only your reputation but also establish your authority in your niche. It is also a chance to prove your credibility. All of which have a positive long-term effect on your social media marketing campaign.
Now, what are good examples of high-value content that you can share online? An infographic is an example of high-quality material. It visually shows crucial information that will help your audience. However, there’s no need for them to read a 1500 word article.
Next, you can also create short videos that aim to educate users online. You see a lot of these videos, from cooking tutorials to short exercise videos. With minimal editing skills, it is possible to create high-quality videos that you can share across different platforms. You can publish these videos using your Instagram account or on a separate YouTube channel.
Using Facebook, you can also share informational blogs that relate to your niche. It can be straight from your website, or it can be from other websites.
But remember that adding value to your content doesn’t mean that you should be boring. Content should always be engaging. It should speak a language that can be understood by your audience.
This Is Why Custom Content is Essential
Marketers will agree that content is at the top of today’s digital marketing totem pole. Content has the power to build your company’s credibility and attract the right followers. And nowadays, content marketing extends to your social media marketing campaigns. You need to create custom content if you want to maximize your social media presence.
So what are tricks that can help you create good content on social media? First, you want to create content that is easy to share and. Having a social media account set on private doesn’t make it easier for your audience to share your content with their network. And also, don’t forget to be authentic whenever you’re sharing content. Your brand’s values and voice should be sincere, and something your target audience feels drawn to. Once you have both authenticity and shareability covered, content should be valuable to your audience. By following these tips, it is possible to create content that can improve your presence on different social media platforms.
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