How Content Marketing and Social Media Work Together

While social media and content marketing could appear to be two separate things, in reality, they are in fact a team. Brands can maximize a robust piece of content, such as a white paper or blog post, by sharing smaller snippets of it on their social media channels.

A strategy can help you focus and optimize your efforts to extract the greatest value from each piece of content. It also helps you avoid wasting time on vanity metrics and determine what matters to your business, like branding awareness or traffic to your website.

1. Identify Your Audience

Social media marketing is a great tool to build relationships with potential customers. However, before you can develop the right content for your audience, you need to understand who they are. This will help you create strategies that are more likely to meet your objectives and improve in your company's bottom line.

The best place to start is by monitoring who follows your business on social media and who interacts with your posts. What are their interests and what do they want? What kinds of information do they look for and what content marketing is their reason? This information can help you identify similar users on other social media platforms.

You can also gain insight into your audience by studying the content of companies in your field. what content marketing kinds of posts are they creating and sharing? What kind of content is generating results for them? This will give you ideas on how to create your own content.

Additionally, you can contact your audience on social media to see what they would like to hear from you. ModCloth, for example often asks its customers to send in photos of themselves wearing its products. Then, it posts these photos on its social media channels. This makes the brand feel closer to its followers which can increase engagement.

Once you've identified your audience and created a strategy then you can begin creating and sharing content. Be sure to track your metrics however, only those that are tied to your KPIs and SMART goals (which you defined in step 1). Keep in mind that not every piece of content will work flawlessly right away If you're constant and remain on track with your plan, you'll soon see the results you're after.

2. Create a Strategy

In order to see growth from social media, you must have a plan. You won't gain new followers, or convince them to visit or even convert to your website by simply posting Content Marketing on Social media without a plan or strategy. Develop a written strategy for content that you and your team will be able to follow. This will help you set SMART goals, develop and share content regularly, and measure your results.

To develop your social media content marketing strategy Begin with your buyer personas for social media (or fictional representations of your ideal customers). From there, think about the types of content that they like and the formats that work best on each platform. For instance, Instagram and TikTok are great platforms for visual content, such as photos or short videos however, Twitter is more suited to content that is text-based and includes links.

Think about how you can utilize each platform in a unique way to promote your brand. Instagram is a great platform for fashion brands who are looking to showcase their unique products and designs. Similarly, Stumptown Coffee Roasters uses their Facebook page to highlight events and locations across the country.

Include call-to-actions within your posts to encourage your audience's interaction. For instance, if you're running an announcement or giveaway ask your followers to leave comments, tag their friends, or share the post.

Keep in mind that social media can be an excellent platform to display customer reviews and testimonials. They can be extremely effective in gaining the trust of your audience, especially when they are from social media users that use or recommend your product or service.

3. Create Content

In order to effectively promote your business on social media, you need to create content that reaches your intended audience. This can be achieved through a number of methods such as blogging, videos as well as podcasts, infographics, and podcasts. Additionally, it's important to consider the type of content your audience wants to see and share. Research shows that promotional and informational content score lower on social media than personal and clearly enjoyable content.

Once you have a clear understanding of your target market and goals for marketing, you can begin planning the kinds of content you want to create. You should aim to combine informative, entertaining or educational posts with promotional posts. This will increase the chances of your audience becoming a customer by enhancing their engagement with your business.

One method of creating content is to speak with experts in your field. This is a great way to get an understanding of the most recent trends and strategies in your particular field, and it also gives you the chance to market your business by sharing the content on the interviewed individuals' own social networks.

Other types of content include industry news tips, tricks, and hacks. You should consider including images in your posts. It has been proven more effective in attracting attention and boosting engagement.

It's also crucial to monitor the performance of your content and make any necessary adjustments. If a particular type of content is not performing well you might need to alter its topic or angle.

4. Share Your Content

If you've devised a strategy and crafted interesting content, it's essential to share it on social media. This is a great opportunity to increase your reach and draw in new customers. Keep your updates short, and use appealing headlines. Don't forget to post different types of content - pictures, videos, text, and links are all good alternatives.

It's also an excellent idea to get people interested in your content by posting it on various platforms at different times of the day. This will ensure that your content is seen by the greatest number of people.

You may also want to think about partnering with influencers, or even launching contests. This can be an excellent way to generate publicity and traffic for your business.

When your audience has begun to perceive your site as a reliable source of information, they'll be more likely to engage with your content and ultimately become customers. It is important to place more emphasis on quality than quantity when it is time to start implementing content marketing.

It's important to note that if you're employing a pillar approach to content marketing, it is a good idea to post links to your lengthy content on social media. This will give your followers a preview of what's coming and encourage them to follow the link to read the full article or blog.

It's often difficult to determine why a specific piece of content is more popular than other content. It's nevertheless worth studying the psychology behind sharing to discover what drives people to share certain types of content. This will help you develop a more effective marketing strategy in the near future.

5. Track Your Results

It is crucial to keep track of the results once you have created your content and then shared it. You'll be able tell if your strategy has worked or if you need to tweak it. For instance, you might notice that one kind of content is performing better than the other, or that certain platforms are delivering more engagement than other platforms. You can utilize tools such as Mention and Hootsuite to track your social media engagement and see how your content is performing.

It is also important to remember that just because your content is performing well doesn't necessarily mean that you should continue sharing it across all platforms. It is important to tailor each platform's b2b content marketing to its audience and the best practices. You can avoid annoying your audience by not overdoing it.

When analyzing your results, be sure to review all the metrics that matter to you and your team. Choose metrics that are in line with your SMART objectives as well as KPIs. Make sure you differentiate these metrics for each of the social media platforms you use.

It is possible to integrate content marketing and social media successfully if you have the right strategy and techniques. This will help you to increase brand recognition, drive visitors to your site, increase leads, boost sales, establish authority, and much more. Read this guide from DemandJump for more details on how you can implement a an effective strategy for content marketing. It includes examples, tips and more from companies just like you that beat the algorithms and won in content marketing. Sign up today to receive your copy!