Content marketing for social media

We at The Marketing Eye take content seriously. In our blog post the smart content marketing funnel we talk about how we believe content marketing is much more than just another long line of marketing buzzwords.

But our love for content doesn’t end there! Great, inspiring content should also extend to content marketing for social media, it shouldn’t be used purely for self-promotion. A healthy mix of content from others, content from yourself and some non-business updates is a great way to boost follower engagement and establish yourself as an authority in your industry.

Sharing valuable content isn’t just a nice gesture either, it can have great results. A well planned and executed content plan, designed specifically for social media, can help you boost lead generation as well as brand recognition.

Your content strategy should be your plan for coordinating, creating, distributing and amplifying your company’s business objectives through social media. And in homage to our smart content strategy, it should focus on the awareness, engagement and conversion phases of the sales funnel.

The content you create, curate and share should closely relate to your company’s mission and should focus on industry topics. If it isn’t relevant, valuable or educational then it may be less likely to be discovered!

Having a content strategy allows you to:

• Set goals
• Know and understand your target market
• Plan a strategic publishing schedule
• Identify where to share content
• Establish which topics you should cover

Whether you currently share the content you create or not, it is best to start looking at your target audience when creating a content strategy for social media. What are their interests? What sort of content do they find valuable?

If you already share your content via social media it’s worth reviewing what’s worked best. Do posts with images see more interactions than posts without? Do you find sharing snippets of your blog articles help drive traffic to your site? If you have found something that works and has positive effects, then keep doing it and consider doing more. It pays to pay attention to the results!

If you don’t currently share your content via social media, ask yourself why? If no one knows you’re creating great content then you’re just wasting your time. Get sharing your tips and ‘how to’ guides and establishing yourself as a go-to destination for high-quality information.

But don’t forget to measure the results of your efforts. Ask questions, track traffic, review regularly. Find out what is working best and what isn’t so you can stop sharing updates and content that isn’t well received and continue to share more of what’s working well. 

Top tip from The Marketing Eye:

Create a content calendar - creating a publishing schedule for social sharing, blog releases and video posts will allow you to plan effectively to ensure you always have enough content which is published on time. Keep it somewhere everyone in the team can access. Then, if one person is out of the office, your social media doesn’t grind to a halt!

In another blog post we’ll look at content creation vs. content curation for social media. In the meantime, if you would like help with your social media strategy please get in contact here.