What does it take to fuel engagement on your brand’s social media space? Simply put, your audience should know what you are doing. They should be able to experience the value that you promise. And they should trust that you can deliver according to promise.
In the core of this, you need to understand that it all starts with the content that you provide.
The success of your social messages is not dependent on the frequency of your content. Your content should be relatable, reliable and relevant.
Start with this question, “If I am the audience, why should I care about this brand?”
Here are some practical tips to make sure your content will make and not break your social media space.
Respect the truth
Fake content has done more harm than good for the brands that encourage the use of this. And the social audience who are lead to believe that fake content is true. Credibility in the social space is a rare commodity. It’s a race to be the first, not the race to the truth*. Rise above all this. Commit yourself that you will put credibility and reliability over all things. When it comes to sharing content on your space, respect the truth.
Reflect on your limitations
You are not perfect. As a brand, you have limitations. Use this to engage your audience. Welcome criticism and handle social media crisis like a pro. Take that extra step beyond just posting social content. Do you think your product is inferior to your competitors? Then accept it. Start building content out of your motivation to provide an equally good product. You need not stay quiet about it. When you are small, let the whole world know that you are growing.
Reinforce the benefit
In content marketing, there is a tendency that as you keep talking less about your brand, you miss the chance in talking about the value that it gives to your users. Your user’s brain are busy. More often than not there has to be some clarity on your value proposition in your social content. In the social media space, there is no such thing as false humility. Strike a balance in your content. Make sure that your users won’t be distracted from how awesome your content is. But they forgot how valuable you are.
Re-calibrate your strategy
The only thing certain about the social media space is that it would keep evolving. It will keep changing. To catch up with the phase of how content is being generated, and how the users are accessing these content. With the changing times, you need to alter your strategy. A good way to do this is to have someone from your team to “listen” to the social media trends through research. Re-calibrating your strategy will help you get out of the “rut” of content marketing. Stay open to relevant ideas.
So in the coming year, try to be more intentional in your social media space. It is not just “one of your marketing spaces” but “a significant marketing space that can fuel sales.”
The content space will be even more competitive. Content Marketing Institute released a report. Revealing that B2B marketers top priority is creating content (72%)
If you find yourself limited in the content generation side of things. It’s not too late to consider the options available for you. You can either outsource, collaborate or dedicate a time to educate yourself. Any one of these options can surely help you to start with the right foot on content marketing in 2017.
