Whatever the marketers deliver to the audience, it is the content that should be valuable and should target the right segment of the audience. The benefit of content is that it is cheaper and even sometimes available free of cost. Other traditional marketing channels, as compared to content marketing, are expensive. Social media plays an important role when it comes to content marketing. Social presence, along with social activity, is essential for your business.
More than 4.5 million people use the internet worldwide, while those who use social media have crossed the 3.8 billion mark.
It has been estimated that nearly 60% of the world’s population is already online. Therefore taking your business online comes with numerous opportunities. For a small business where there is a restriction on the budget, the major effort is dedicated to creating awareness about the business. Incorporating the two together makes your business grow manifold.
Here in this article, let’s discuss some of the ways how content marketing and social media work together. But before that, let’s also understand the different types of social media channels suitable for content marketing.
Different types of social media channels that are suitable for Content Marketing depending on the type of audience you need to cater to, you choose the social media channel. Although Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are quite popular. To share professional content, you can opt-in for LinkedIn as marketers are already aware that organic searches generate more traffic, so why is there a need to create attention-catching headlines or super-impressive content. The point here is that the content should be shareable. As more and more people spend time on social media, it is highly likable that they will share content which they find valuable.
Social media provides greater connectivity. You can share content not only with your friends but with friends of friends too. Instagram has remained popular for sharing images. The content here has to be short and precise. Develop content that is in the form of simple pointers and put it on posters.
This will be a great way to share content on the image-specific platform like Instagram. Blog posts could easily be shared on Facebook and Twitter. Insert some images in the blog. It will make the content lucid and self-explanatory. For video content, most business owners prefer YouTube. The users here become the subscribers of the channel if they find your videos engaging and effective. Videos could also be shared on other social media platforms.
Content Marketing and Social Media Working Hand in Hand
Both promote each other
Between content marketing and social media, the obvious relationship is that you can use social media as a platform to promote your content. Whether your content is in the form of an article, blog post, infographics, you can share it on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn for the audience to go through it. There is a wide reach of the content. In addition to those who visit your site, there will be more viewers visiting the social media page.
Moreover, it has been observed that people who visit the website are far lesser than those who visit the social media page. Another benefit is that you can re-share your content on social media as many people don’t go through it in the first go. There are several tools available through which you can schedule the retweets on Twitter or the number of times the post needs to be shared on Facebook. Even there is an option of pre-selecting the date and time. This also helps in keeping the social channels constantly updated with content in an autopilot mode.
Get feedback
Sharing content on social media comes with the option of receiving feedback. The content can be shared by using the content title as a description of it. The number of clicks generated will determine how popular the content is with the audience. The title used to describe the content shall be the best representation of what the content is all about.
You can also ask questions like “Did it surprise you?” or “What is the most interesting thing about the content?. This would encourage more participation from the audience. The comments that would be shared will not only increase the engagement with the audience but will provide resourceful feedback. Employ this feedback to further improve your content and provide the audience with tailor-made, more informative content.
Inputs on which topic to cover next
Once you have effectively engaged your audience on social media, they would be ready to share their inputs as to what topics they would prefer next. Receive queries from them as to what they think about the content and about your industry. This would provide you with ideas that could be incorporated into future content. All the future posts shall have the content which the audience expects from you.
Moreover, you can also show them that you are willing to listen to what they have to say. For the growth of the business, it is important to provide the audience with the information that they find useful. This would ensure that they keep coming back to you for more information. Engaging content keeps the audience interested. Create content based on the feedback received as this would attract more audience. Also, when the audience finds some piece of information valuable, they share it on their social media page. Hence this gives your content a wider audience and also increases the visibility of your business.
Share something unique
The content on social media can be posted in various different forms. One of the ways is to post content in the form of videos. The audiovisual part of the content is very appealing to the audience. Videos that last for a shorter duration and contain information in a crisp format are much preferred by the audience.
One of the most widely used platforms for posting videos is YouTube. For a large part of the audience to view it, share the video on various other social media pages. This will enhance the visibility of the content. Moreover, this would be an entirely different way to represent the content. Another unique way to present content is in the form of slides. These slides could be shared on Slideshare and on social media pages.
Infographics are also a way to represent data in pictorial form. It has been observed that people remember content more when it is aided with pictures. Adding pictures to your blog posts also makes them interesting. Instead of spending time reading the stats and data, pictorial representation makes it easy to analyze the data. Creating posters and posting them in the form of images is also an effective way to present content. These images contain information in short one to two-line sentences. Hence reading them requires relatively lesser efforts as compared to that of a blog post.
Create headlines that can be shared directly
Think of a time when you have shared some content on your social media page. Haven’t you put the same heading as that of the content? It is often observed that very few people go in for different titles when they share the content on social media. The most important part attached to social media is that your content will be shared and re-shared again and again if the users find the information useful.
This will expose your brand to millions of people who, at a later stage, may become your clients. But for this, you need a highly effective headline. What implies here is that the headlines should be shareable on social media and, at the same time, also generate curiosity amongst the audience. Also, there has been a trend where people share more negative news than positive ones. Even at times, the negative news helps the brand develop trust.
Any guess how?
This actually shows the audience that the business owners are not afraid of facts and figures, and they unnecessarily do not meddle with it. Honesty, when represented in the uncovered form, is highly appreciated by the audience.
Read More: How can Content Marketing Improve your SEO?
