Quality content is the key to any social media marketing strategy. The content you post across your social channels is a direct reflection of your business’s tone and purpose.
How you interact with your followers on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram is ultimately an extension of your customer service. Consistently posting social media content that is helpful and entertaining for users demonstrates an active interest in your followers.
As a result, high-quality content can help you establish an online reputation that is professional, accurate, and engaging for your target audience.
Although generating quality content can be time consuming, there are proven tips you can use across your social media platforms that will help you drive traffic, increase conversions, and promote brand exposure.
What determines the quality of social media content?
Whether you’re writing website copy, Twitter posts, or Facebook captions, the same factors determine the quality of your social media content.
By focusing your content marketing strategy on key performance metrics, you can decrease your ad spend and improve your social media ROI.
What makes good social media content?
Good social media content generates results. Thus, data is your ultimate guide for creating content that performs best.
Review the performance metrics of old content across your social channels. During this review, analyze four factors:
- Your content should engage your audience. If your target audience isn’t liking, sharing, and reposting your content, then you’re not creating engaging posts.
- Posts that engage your followers create a spike in traffic.
- Click-through rate. Analyze which posts have the highest CTR. Quality content generates conversions.
- Marketing goal. At the end of the day, your content should promote your marketing objective. In general, follow the 80-20 rule. Eighty percent of your social media posts should provide users with helpful and engaging content. Twenty percent of your post should pitch sales.
Identifying high-performing posts can help you create similar content that your target audience will enjoy.
What type of social media content converts best?
User-centered content converts best. This means creating content that provides your followers with something they need or want. Content that entertains, educates, or inspires has the user in mind.
For example, how-to posts convert well because they provide users with a solution. Explaining the problem first and the product second will guide users down the purchase funnel.
Visuals are another great way to engage your audience and drive conversions. According to the Visual Teaching Alliance, the brain processes visual information 60,000 times faster than textual information.
Be creative with how you communicate and interact with your target audience. Images, infographics, and short clips are more likely to catch users’ eyes than long blocks of text.
What is user-generated content on social media?
User-generated content is content created by someone outside of your brand. Influencers, followers, and industry experts are all great sources for user-generated content.
Some common forms of user-generated content include story contests, reviews and testimonials, and live streaming videos. These types of posts are great ways to engage your audience. They invite your followers to directly interact with your brand and share content.
When reposting user-generated content, be sure to tag the original user. This is a simple way to increase exposure and engagement.
Tips for creating quality social media marketing posts
Creating high-quality content across numerous social media platforms can be overwhelming. However, with the right tips and tricks, you can develop a content marketing strategy that generates conversions, exposure, and brand loyalty.
How do you make effective social media marketing posts?
First, establish your social media marketing objective. Is your goal to increase brand awareness? Drive traffic? Generate leads?
Different marketing objectives require different forms of content. For example, if your goal is to spread brand awareness, you may be more inclined to create a story contest on Instagram to increase your reach and shared content. On the other hand, if your goal is to drive traffic, creating a how-to blog post can be a great way to increase site visitors.
Outlining your marketing goals will help you create a social media strategy that is both focused and effective.
Next, consider your target audience. Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook have their own analytics tools that provide useful statistics on your follower base. Collecting data on user demographics can help you create highly curated content that is more likely to engage your customers.
Finally, target your users’ emotions. Research studies found that marketing campaigns that triggered viewers’ emotions performed twice as well as campaigns with rational content.
In fact, users are more likely to base their decisions off emotions rather than facts. As a result, appeal to your target audience’s pathos to generate clicks.
How do you engage with social media posts?
Social media is oversaturated with content. You want your followers to stop scrolling and read your post. One way to engage users is by developing a unique voice.
Create a tone that reflects your business and shape your posts around that style. This will not only help you stand out among the hundreds of other posts but will also help you develop brand recognition.
Another way to engage with social media posts is by interacting directly with your followers. Try to respond to comments consistently. This level of steady interaction with your followers demonstrates your interest in them, making your customers more likely to trust your brand.
You can also repost content from experts within your industry to engage with social media posts. Sharing articles, TED Talks, YouTube videos, or other social media posts that relate to your business is a great way to network and expand your reach.
How do you get your customers to create social media content that would be of value to you?
Testimonials and reviews are a great way to establish brand loyalty and encourage customers to create valuable content.
One way to encourage an increase in testimonials is through review contests. Ask your followers to pick their favorite product from your company and create a review on their social media accounts.
Advertise a free sample kit for the user with the most likes and reposts. This will help increase engagement and reach, as your current followers share user-generated content about your brand to their friends and family.
Another way to incentivize valuable user-generated content is through feature posts across your social channels. Tag some of your loyal customers in your Facebook or Instagram posts. This will directly involve your followers in a conversation and encourage them to comment on the post.
How to deal with conflict on social media
Facebook alone has 2.8 billion active users each month. That amount of traffic can be both a good and bad thing for your business.
When it comes to promoting your brand and expanding your reach, that number is great. But when it comes to conflict resolution, that number can make monitoring hate speech and negativity a huge challenge.
While most businesses outline and plan their content creation strategy, many companies forget to establish a procedure for managing social media conflicts. However, formulating and reviewing a conflict management plan with your marketing team can help you avoid problems down the road.
How do you deal with negative comments on social media?
First and foremost, avoid ignoring negative comments. Both response time and acknowledgement matter. A slow response time can lead to additional negative customer service reviews.
Replying to all comments, whether they’re positive or negative, will help your brand. Handling negative comments on your social media platforms will demonstrate your company’s commitment to customer service.
In general, it’s a good idea to adopt the “customer is always right” mindset when writing your response. Focus on the resolution rather than re-evaluating the conflict itself. Start by sending an apology and offering a solution.
It’s easy to let emotions get mixed into responses. However, continue to stay positive and professional throughout your reply.
To avoid drawing attention to one negative comment, you can privately message the customer. This will allow you to manage the conflict one-on-one.
How can you challenge harmful social media habits?
One way to challenge harmful social media habits is by establishing a positive presence across your social channels.
Avoid posting controversial messages. Create posts that spread positivity. This will not only help your marketing team challenge detrimental social media habits but will also help your content strategy overall.
Researchers found that positive tweets are favorited five more times than negative or neutral tweets.
Likewise, ask loyal followers to post positive content. This is a great way to engage your audience, combat negative comments, and encourage social networking.
How can negative comments on social media damage your business’s reputation?
With multiple users reading the same comment at once, bad press on social media can quickly go viral. One negative comment can spiral into a chain of negative publicity for your business.
Bad customer reviews, controversial posts, and complaints can tarnish your online presence and cause loyal customers to unfollow your business and stop buying your products.
However, by consistently reviewing all your social media accounts and staying on top of the comments, you can maintain a positive online reputation.
How to create a call to action for your social media content
A call to action (CTA) is a crucial aspect of your social media posts. It communicates your marketing objective and invites users to complete the next step.
Effective calls to action can drive traffic and conversions, ultimately improving your social media ads.
Why should you include a call to action on social media?
Calls to action help point users to your desired marketing goal. They are your secret weapon when it comes to increasing sales, driving traffic, or generating leads.
Without a direct call to action, your readers may not know what to do next. As a result, calls to action eliminate ambiguity and encourage clicks, conversions, and content sharing.
How do you make a call to action on Instagram?
Effective calls to action are brief, direct, and composed of strong verbs. Rather than simply writing, “Click here,” use specific language to express your goal. For example, if you are trying to promote your ebook, you can create a call to action that says, “Download a free chapter today.”
Likewise, create a sense of urgency. Put an expiration date on the CTA. This will prompt users to act fast when they come across your promotion.
It’s also important to communicate a clear need. Explicitly describe how users will benefit from your call to action. When users understand this, they will be more likely to follow through with the CTA.
Like any other form of content writing, always check your CTA for writing errors before adding it to your social media accounts.
Finally, after editing and revising your CTA, place it at the end of your post. When writing content for any social channel, your CTA should conclude, not start, your post.
The first portion of your blog post, tweet, or Facebook post should provide users with helpful or entertaining information. You can then follow this with a call to action.
How often should you use calls to action on social media?
In general, every social media post you create should have some form of a CTA. Posts with CTAs perform better and experience increased conversions.
In fact, emails with a CTA increased sales by 1,617 percent and clicks by 371 percent according to a study conducted by WordStream. Likewise, AdRoll found that adding CTAs to Facebook posts increased click-through rates by 285 percent.
As a result, including calls to action can significantly help and improve your social media strategy.
Conclusion and additional resources
The quality of your social media content matters. High-quality content has the potential to drive traffic, increase conversions, and spread brand awareness.
You can improve your social media posts by reviewing analytics, sharing user-generated content, and consistently interacting with your target audience. Outlining a clear marketing strategy and developing a distinct voice across your social platforms will also help you post effective content.
At Elite Editing, we have professional social media writers and editors who can generate quality content for your company’s social media accounts. Get a free quote today and improve your content strategy!
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