Make the Most of Your Social Content
Eye-catching videos and images are important, but the copy you include is just as important. Create strategic content that captures attention, centers on your audience, and maximizes your efforts. Dr. Annmarie Kent-Willette gave some great tips to do just that at the February Engage event. Here are a few highlights.
Attention Getting Devices
Use attention getting devices you would rely on when developing traditional types of content. These include telling a story, using an interesting quote, injecting humor, and highlighting startling statistics.
Audience Centered Content
Center your content on the audience. Employ the word "you" to speak directly to the audience. Be sure to clearly convey what the benefit to the audience is.
Positive and Focused Content
Keep the content positive. When you're trying to solve a problem, focus on the solution. For example, if you want to increase recycling efforts, remind your audience what small actions they can take rather than focusing on what they should not do. Maintaining this focus on actionable steps will help achieve your goals.
Maximize Your Effort
You've done a lot of work building your content, so make sure you maximize your efforts by repurposing. Start with a blog post with 4 - 5 tips. That can be posted on your website or LinkedIn. Then break that down into "bite size" pieces for 4 - 5 social media posts that promote your full blog post and drive traffic to your site.
Content Tailored to the Platform
Finally, always pay attention to the platform. It's easy to fall into the trap of copying the same content to all of your channels. Use the general content, but tailor it to the needs and features of each platform. For example, on Twitter, make sure you leave plenty of room for people to retweet. And, you may want to schedule multiple posts an hour reiterating your call to action or responding to comments because the Twitter conversation moves so fast. On Facebook, to get the most of the content algorithms, make sure if you use video you upload directly to Facebook instead of posting a YouTube link. On Instagram, reformat your content to take advantage of posts, reels and stories to gain the most exposure.