A strong social media presence is like a portal that leads to some of the greatest opportunities. Social media can help raise brand awareness quickly, and that too, with minimal to no cost. Brands can generate interest through social media, and quickly cultivate a community around their offerings. Understanding the needs of the audience/customers is simpler and easier with social media.
No brand, firm, or individual can afford to underestimate the power and reach of social media today. We can gauge the importance of having a social media presence by the simple fact that out of the 8 billion people in the world, 4.48 billion are social media users. And about 99% of these use social media on their mobile phones.
Source: Freepik
So, you have the ability to put your brand into the pockets and hands of multitudes of people with just a few clicks. But these obviously can’t be random moves, if they are to be effective. Brand visibility has become easier with social media, but you need a robust social media strategy to avail this benefit.
Social media has definite advantages, but it offers these advantages to everyone. So how do you use it to gain a competitive edge? Efficient social media content management will help you stay ahead of the competition. If you are unsure about how to mold your social media content to boost reach and conversions, we are here to help. Read on to find out how to manage your social media content effectively.
Understanding Social Media Content
Those who are new to social media, need to understand the basics. Long-time users could benefit from refreshing their knowledge about social media content. To create and manage content that makes an impact, you need a thorough understanding of social media content.
The myriad of posts that individuals and firms make across various social media platforms comprise social media content. These posts may include photographs, graphics, videos, links, and text updates. Anything and everything can become social media content. However, for the sake of brand image, you need to be extremely cautious about what you post on social media.
Types of Social Media Content
Let’s take a deeper look at the different types of social media content that you can use for the growth of your brand. Although some types of content grab more attention than others, it does not mean that you limit yourself to those types. A well-rounded social media content strategy should include all types of posts.
- Short-form videos: Short-form video is the most consumed type of content. The general public watches short videos as a form of entertainment after work. Most people do not want to spend hours or even more than a couple of minutes on a video.
Your brand has about 30 seconds to grab attention and convey your most important point. Failing to capture attention in the first few seconds will lead to the audience losing interest and scrolling down. Yes, this is a demanding type of content form, but then again it is that effective and powerful. Taking the time to create short powerful videos can give your brand a huge boost.
- Images: Images are the second most popular and powerful form of content. Images convey a lot and do not make any demands on the time of the audience. The composition, the colors, the text, and the overall vibe of the image will make a quick impression of your brand on your audience.
To make the best use of this content form, you need to create different images for the various platforms. Set a goal for each image, and create each image to suit the goal and the audience. For maximum effect, start with a background photo or design for the image and incorporate illustrations, text, and your brand. Infographics
- Live Video: Live videos provide excellent opportunities for brands to engage with their customers in real time. People tune in to live videos due to FOMO, suspense, and instantaneousness. Live streams also cater to people’s need for social interaction. People can communicate with their favorite broadcasters and even with other viewers.
During the pandemic, live videos increased in popularity and scaled new heights. The viewership in 2020 reached 152.5 million, which was a 20% increase from the previous year.
- GIFs/Memes: GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) is a palette-based file format. This format is used for memes on social media because it supports basic animation. A GIF file typically contains multiple related images, and with a flipbook-like effect, gives the impression of a video. Use GIFs and memes with a powerful context for maximum effect.
- Slide decks and presentations: Take some notes from sales teams who have always used slide decks to convince prospects. Share easy-to-follow decks consisting of 5 to 10 slides on your social media from time to time. These slides could be about products, achievements, or sustainability efforts. They could contain educational and helpful material that people can browse through at their own pace.
- Ephemeral content: Ephemeral content is that which is available for a very short period. This includes stories that you put up on Instagram or Facebook. You can make this content exclusively available only to your followers. Since such content is visible only for a short period, it creates a sense of urgency. If you use ephemeral content regularly, your audience will remain connected due to FOMO.
- User-generated content (UGC): User-generated content is that which fans or consumers create. Consumers or fans will put up reviews of products and services, or demonstrate the real-life applications of products on their own social media. You can repurpose this content for your social media. UGC can boost audience trust and the reach of your brand. It can serve the purpose of testimonials and referrals.
- Audio snippets and podcast episodes: With audio snippets and podcasts, you can give a ‘voice’ to your brand. People tune in to podcasts on the go, especially while commuting. With some quality audio content, you can really connect with your audience.
- Interactive content: Interactive content refers to the content that calls for the audience to take some kind of action immediately. Examples of this type of content are quizzes and polls. People love this type of content because it involves and engages them. With interactive content, you can provide your audience with an immersive and personalized experience.
- Long-form video: Whatever you do, some things cannot be presented well in short videos. In such cases, you need long-form videos for the sake of depth and authority.
Mostly, long-form videos are used for detailed tutorials and how-tos. Basically, long-form videos are most suitable for educational and informational purposes.
- Text Posts: Do not underestimate the power of words. Although visual content is the most popular, words complete the picture of the brand’s personality. Make sure that your text posts receive the same attention to detail that you give your visual content. The vibes of your text posts should match those of your other content. Text posts should be creative and consistent.
- URL/Links: Links deserve more credit. They provide the audience with easy access to more content or products while allowing brands to move beyond the limits of social media platforms. URLs can help drive web traffic and sales.
Planning Your Social Media Content
Planning your social media content can help you make impactful and aesthetically pleasing posts, rather than hit-and-miss ones. Here are some tips on planning social media content:
- Content calendar creation
A content calendar is a significant aid to the content planning process. You can create content in advance and keep track of your social media campaigns with a content calendar. A calendar can help you improve posting consistency, manage your content team, and scale up your content production with ease.
Set your brand up for long-term success with a suitable content calendar. You can create your own social media content calendar in Excel. Include post data, day, platform, topic, link to the content, and a brief overview of the post. Excel training courses can make such tasks a breeze.
- Content themes and strategies
A high-level plan for creating and distributing content is called content strategy. Your content strategy will guide your efforts in the right direction for your content goals. It will help you define success metrics and improve processes.
Content themes are high-level topics that will guide your content creation. Examples of themes are ‘back-to-school tips’ and ‘holiday entertaining tips’. Try to choose broader themes that have the potential to appeal to a wider audience.
- Keyword and hashtag research
The keyword data required and suitable for your social media marketing will be different from that which you use for pay-per-click advertising or even your search engine optimization efforts. Across different platforms, there will be query variances and behavioral differences. You will have to perform keyword research for each social media platform separately.
Hashtags are generally used to attract attention to posts. Researching hashtags can help you come up with new and better ideas for content. You can use hashtags as a social media listening tool to find out which topics your target audience is interested in. Find relevant hashtags by analyzing the hashtags used by competitors.
Content Creation and Optimization
Create and optimize content for specific goals. Content optimization will help a wider audience find your content.
- Creating captivating visual content: Remember that social media posts engage our sense of sight first. So, it goes without saying that your content needs to be visually appealing. Visual content includes photos, videos, carousel posts, memes, GIFs, illustrations, infographics, and animations. You should establish a certain color palette for your brand and work with it. It will not only make your posts look beautiful but also make your posts and brand recognizable and memorable for your audience. Use high-quality photos and videos to showcase your brand. Add some text but don’t overdo it. Add alt-text descriptions to images and subtitles to videos. Video posts may also fare better with descriptive transcripts.
Image Source: Pexels
- Writing engaging captions and posts: Copywriting skills are in high demand these days because these skills can help engage the audience and create a rapport with them through just a few words. For writing engaging captions and posts, remember to keep it simple, authentic, original, and real. You can say a lot more with fewer words. On social media, people usually prefer shorter captions. Learn from the industry leaders. Avoid overselling and remember to add in some humor (wherever it can be eased in, and does not sound forced).
Scheduling and Automation Tools
Brands and firms use social media management tools for various purposes. These purposes include creating posts, scheduling campaigns, increasing social engagement, providing better customer service, managing multiple social media pages, monitoring the interests of the target audience, keeping a watch on the competitors, and analyzing content performance. You can use tools such as Bulkly, Loomly, Buffer, Sprout Social, HootSuite, and SocialPilot to manage your social media content.
Scheduling and automation tools can help publish your content on social media platforms when it is likely to engage more people. With such tools, you can ensure relevance and maintain consistency. These tools can help save time, enhance brand awareness, and streamline your entire content management process.
Monitoring and Engagement
Monitoring your social media pages and engaging with your audience will prove beneficial for the growth of your social media presence.
Tracking social media performance: Tracking content performance will help you find out whether your content strategies are working the way you want. To track content performance, you need to keep an eye on social media metrics such as reach, impressions, follower growth, and demographics. Social media platforms provide information about the ways in which people are engaging with your content through social media metrics. Using these metrics, you can find out which type of content is working well and which areas need improvement.
Responding to comments and messages: It is incredibly important to respond to comments and messages, but it is even more important to respond well. Your responses need to align with your brand’s image (voice, tone, and personality). The comment section and messages can become a source for new content ideas. Interacting regularly and in a timely manner with your audience will help build trust. If responding to all the comments on various platforms gets overwhelming, try using a social media management tool that allows you to respond quickly without the need to jump from platform to platform. To manage audience expectations regarding your responses, you can specify response time in your profile/bio.
Crisis management: Even after practicing caution with your social media content, you might find your brand in hot water due to some reason. The reputation of your brand need not be (and won’t be) permanently damaged due to such a crisis. You just have to make smart moves to rise above a crisis. Respond promptly (but after careful consideration) to a crisis. It may mean that you have to delete a post immediately and offer an apology or explanation. Identifying potential issues will become easier if you practice social listening (monitoring social media for opportunities and problems). Additionally, you may be able to prevent a crisis or unfavorable events with an established and clear social media policy.
Analytics and Data Analysis
Social media analytics can help you make tactical and strategic adjustments. Through social media analytics, you can track the activity of your audience and their patterns of engagement. Spotting trends relating to products and services becomes easier. You will be able to gauge audience response to content.
Social media KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) will tell you how your content is performing in the short term, while ROI (Return on Investment) will give you the big picture. Social media reports and data visualization will help you improve the speed, quality, and effectiveness of your decisions. Use the built-in analytics features in the most popular social media platforms along with external tools for analytics and visualization.
Challenges and Solutions
When you start to work seriously on your social media, you might come across some of these common social media content management challenges:
Challenge#1: Fierce competition
The simplest way to deal with competition is to prioritize your brand. Although observing and learning from your competitors is a good idea, your content management strategy should not revolve entirely around your competition. Focus on establishing a unique brand identity and boosting your social media presence. Keep producing quality content and making meaningful interactions with your audience.
Challenge#2: Low or stagnant reach and engagement
Increasing social media reach and engagement organically has become a challenge. Social media platforms keep making changes to their algorithms, and staying on top of these changes is difficult. If you are struggling to make the presence of your brand felt, study the industry leaders. Also, check your content for the most successful posts; these posts may give you clues as to what type of content your audience likes. You need to strike a balance between quality organic posts and strategic paid promotions. Include more interactive content as it encourages engagement.
Challenge#3: Lowered productivity and time management issues
Creating and managing content takes time. You may sometimes feel overwhelmed with the number of notifications you receive. As mentioned above, using a social media management tool to schedule and automate some of your tasks can help save time. Templates and shared content calendars will make your life easier.
Challenge#4: Coming up with fresh, original, and engaging content ideas on a regular basis
For fresh and engaging content ideas, hold regular brainstorming sessions with your team and encourage them to provide ideas without withholding any, no matter how ridiculous they consider the idea to be. Your comments and messages may also contain some ideas for fresh content. Additionally, you may be able to repurpose UGC or gain some ideas from it. Learn from industry peers and experts, and ask for suggestions from your audience. Research tools may also help you find out what content is most popular, relevant, and shared, and this data might help you come up with something new.
Wrapping Up Social Media Content Management
To stay ahead of the curve, go beyond social media trends. Trends monitoring will help you keep up with trends and use them to your advantage, but to stand out, you need to create trends.
For efficient and effective social media content management, identify your target audience and your objectives. Tailor your content strategy to suit your audience and objectives. Create engaging and valuable content. Practice social listening and grab opportunities. Make connections and collaborate with influencers and industry leaders. Make adjustments to your plans as and when required. Utilize tools that will make your tasks easier. Finally, remember that the key to efficient social media content management is dynamism.