Creating content for your brand each month can start to feel more like routine work than creative expression. Instead of going through the motions of write-send-post-repeat, consider it an opportunity to improve your skills as a content creator. Here are ten tips to keep in mind to keep your content shareable and most importantly, memorable.
1. Evoke Emotion
Put yourself in the place of your audience and think back on the last post, picture, meme, or article you shared. Why did you do it? Most likely, because you felt a strong emotion about the content that you wanted others to feel with you. So, when creating your own content, try to make people passionate about it and they will share their investment with others.
2. Tell a Story
Try to start a conversation, not just between your page and your viewers, but between the viewers themselves. You don’t need to spark controversy‑ just asking a question or encouraging people to share their opinions will drive engagement and give you a clearer idea of your audience makeup. By listening to their feedback, you can inform future content that will be more relevant and give them a better user experience. Win win.
3. Have the Right Title
It’s time to think back to your high school poetry class because you have a lot to do and little space to do it in. You must accurately preview the content and its value, and promise a positive experience for engaging with it. Top tips: Be concise, put keywords at the beginning or end of a title for more punch, and try using lists to highlight easy-to-consume content.
4. Make it Aesthetically Pleasing
People spend an average of 2.5 seconds with a piece of content on desktop and 1.7 seconds on mobile. That’s all the time your content has to make an impression, so vital that your post be eye-catching and dominate more of a user’s screen, if possible. A striking image can mean the difference between getting a user to engage with your brand, and having them continue to scroll.
5. Make the Jump into Video
Video is the ultimate storytelling tool as it offers eye-catching content with an unparalleled ability to provoke emotion. Depending on your brand, videos don’t necessarily need to be highly-produced polished products. A simple Instagram Story or Facebook Live video can bring a genuine, organic feel to your content and help you stand out amidst the buzz of the internet.
6. Keep it Topical
While evergreen content is great, when you’re on social media it’s important to be part of the conversation, and that’s always changing. Be proactive. This doesn’t have to take a lot of time— 10 minutes of checking Twitter and Facebook each day will let you know what people are talking about and see if there’s room to connect.
7. Use Accessible Language
I cannot stress this point enough. No matter how sophisticated or specialized your brand is, using excessive jargon or unnecessary elevated language will minimize your audience. Trust that your content will prove your expertise and remember that language is a tool for communication. Let it bring you to your audience, not divide you from them.
8. Make Sharing Simple
This may seem fairly obvious, but that’s what makes it easy to forget. Include any buttons or links you need for users to share your content at both the beginning and end of it to make the process easy as possible. And keep in mind, there’s no harm in asking. If you want people to share your content, and a call to action asking them to do so!
9. Post Consistently
Posting content on a regular schedule keeps you present in the minds of your audience and can help set an expectation or routine that works to strengthen your relationship with them. Also, look at when your audience is online and post at those times to lead to more engagement. Making the effort to be present with your audience goes a long way.
10. As Always, Keep it Real
If you do not have good content, no number of tips will make a difference. Social media users have been trained to spot inauthentic content and you must establish trust and credibility with your audience to earn their attention. Be authentic, be active, be honest.
A lot of what these tips boil down to is ‘Show your human side.’ This can be a difficult balance to strike while still trying to create or maintain your brand’s image, but remember that your goal on social media is to form a relationship with your audience. Let people get to know your brand, your voice, and what you stand for. Before long, you are sure to see that the effort you put into creating quality, engaging content pays off and that the passion you have for your brand deserves to be shared.