What type of content should you post on your social? You might be promoting something or simply populating your social media accounts. This corner is an excellent question to ask and a smart way to start giving your audience what they want.
Understand your audience
Let me first start with this point. It’s not about the actual like logistics of the content. The first point to consider is everything you post should be valuable to your audience. A lot of people actually miss that part. These are the social media pages where the posts are more like ads. They get no engagement, Likes, or comments.
The content you create, whether it’s a video, blog post, or whatever you enjoy making, every single piece has to be valuable for your audience, for your community.
Who’s your audience and community?
Who is it that you’re talking to, and why? Who are you targeting? Who are the segments or groups of people (there can be more than one) that your product or service is helping?
Being able to answer these questions, to identify your ideal target market, is the foundation and the salt.
If you don’t know who your ideal target market is, then you are not going to know what kind of content to create for that perfect target. Your might even turn off your audience and community.
There’s bound to be a disconnect if you can’t define them, and you don’t want that.
First, you should understand your target market.
That’s how you can plan content that will be valuable and attractive to your ideal target market.
Types of content you can do on social media
Facebook Live videos
Facebook Live and Instagram Live are fantastic because they get priority in the Facebook and Instagram feeds and algorithms. So, if you do a Live event, you get better visibility and distribution across all of your clients, your Facebook or your Instagram.
Videos
Create and post videos that support your community and provide valuable content. I do a lot of videos, so check those out in my Facebook. According to a study, video gets more than twice as much engagement on social compared to other types of content.
Blog posts
Blog posts are another type of content that is valuable to your audience. You should post your blogs on social, whether it’s published on your site, or posted as a full-length note on Facebook. Plus, there’s lots of opportunity for great content.
I take my videos and get them transcribed, and have my team create a blog post around that video. It’s very easy to do, you just need to edit it lightly.
Images
Quote images are a big hit with audiences, so I use a lot of these. If you go to my social media, I take quotes out of my blogs and have my team create quote images that I post several times a day, typically.
Lifestyle images are very popular on Instagram. If you have a lifestyle brand with a physical product, or you simply want to highlight something from the personal or professional sides of your life, those are really great to post.
A note on content length
Keep your videos short, especially if you’re just getting started. But once you’ve established a connection, your audience expects longer, meatier content.
- If they haven’t heard of you yet, your brand is new, or you’ve just joined the community, keep it short.
- If you’ve already engaged with your audience before, if they’ve liked or commented on your published content, and they know a lot about you and your brand, make it longer.
For example, I keep my initial videos — the ones I show to communities who haven’t heard of me — short at 3 to 5 minutes.
For those who already know me and may have expressed interest in seeing more of my content, I go longer. These videos are 30 to 45 minutes long and are related to a specific topic. They’re usually done to highlight my digital courses and webinars.
In both instances, I think of my audience and what they would like from me. It all comes back to them.. So, like we asked in the beginning, who is your audience and what do they want?