You’ve read it over and over again: content is king. You also know that to engage your audience, you’ve got to post high-quality content that not only grabs their attention but also adds value. So you sit down in front of your computer, and you’re stumped. You feel like you don’t know where to start or that you don’t have anything to add or you’re just completely overwhelmed. Sound familiar?
Producing content for posts, tweets and updates across all of your social media platforms can be daunting. That’s why it’s a good idea to have a grab bag of ideas to pull from when nothing new is coming easily to mind.
Unique Content
What’s something you can offer that no one else can? You have a unique perspective on your business and on your industry. Put your knowledge and perspective to work toward creating great content that’s packed full of usefulness for your friends, fans and followers.
Solutions
What problem have you recently solved? Didn’t you learn something new just the other day? If it’s new and useful to you, chances are it’s new and useful to others. Share a succinct version of your solution or what you learned as a tweet or LinkedIn update.
News
Write about new products and services, a new location, awards or other nods you’ve received for your work, just-finished projects, new clients.
Sales & Promotions
Let your customers know how they can save money on your products and services. This type of content is a great way to help your audience.
Industry Authority
See what people you respect are writing about and weigh in with your experience and your perspective.
Brainstorm
Come up with additional content that’s one-of-a-kind to your business with your team members. For example, say you run a manufacturing business. Perhaps you tweet a picture of your production line. Or maybe you have a catering business. You could show before and after shots of your spread before an event and the empty serving dishes after guests have demolished your delectable noshes. Do you own an online boutique? Your team could dream up ideas like putting together a slideshow of this season’s top-selling frocks. Or help your customers by putting together the perfect outfit, accessories and all, with selections from your inventory.
NB: You’ll want to test which of these content ideas works best for your audience. There isn’t a one-content-fits-all solution. Some of these might work well for your audience; some may not. You’ll need to adjust as you go and as you grow.
Conversation
Social media was never meant to be a one-way megaphone. It’s about conversation. And a great way add value to your followers is by participating in conversations. This means that you’ve got to take the time to read what others are writing. Let me say that again: you’ve got to take the time to read, really read, what others are writing.
Focus on your niche and then own the conversation in that area. Pick a topic that plenty of people, preferably influencers you wish to connect with and other potential business contacts, are talking about and then jump in the communicative fray.
Like, comment and share posts, tweets and updates from influencers and others you see who are providing quality content.
Curation
You’ve no doubt been reading a lot about content curation and you were, again no doubt, grateful to find out that you don’t have to write something new for every post, update or tweet. But you’ll want to make sure that you’re doing content curation correctly and efficiently.
You can think about curation as benefitting you in two additional ways: community and authority. Firstly, community is about mutual support, and a good community member is an active community member. If you come read something you like, online or off, you can share it by turning it into a post that you share, mentioning the author and offering a bit of commentary. Participating in community in this way is a great way of networking, of getting in front of other people and getting attention through other people’s audiences. Also, be sure to like and comment regularly.
Content curation also helps you build authority for your brand. If you curate high-quality content, it shows that you know what you’re talking about and that you’ve got your finger on the pulse of your industry. You know who to pay attention to, you’re on top of new research, and you’re aware of current trends. If you curate content correctly, your audience will be coming to you for answers.
How much should you curate versus create? Follow the 70-30 rule. That’s 70% curated content, and 30% branded, promotional content. You don’t want to drive fans and followers away by hitting them over the head with how great your company is, but you don’t want to let them forget either.
And whatever you post, be sure to keep it in your brand voice. What you share is a representation of you. This representation comes through not only in what you say but also how you say it.
However you produce it, content that shines requires time, commitment and strategy. If you’re willing to apply all three, neither you nor your audience will be disappointed. Then you can sit back, put on your shades and enjoy the bright light of brilliant content.
Contact Filament for more ideas about putting together a shiny social media strategy, content strategy or overall content marketing strategy.
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