Boring content is just not an option. People are busy and inundated with content, and they want information, inspiration, and entertainment; they want to do business with companies they can trust; they want to see a personal benefit; and they want all of this as fast as possible without having to dredge it out of lengthy text.
Content is still a "king", but content must be delivered in ways that engage the reader immediately and keep that reader engaged and able to absorb quickly. Here are 5 things that you should be doing if you want your content read, enjoyed, and shared.
1. Social Media is Not the Place for Long Posts
Save the long posts for your blogs. The point of social media is to grab attention and to give the reader a great experience. You can always link back to your blog or website with a great compelling teaser, such as a catchy phrase, an offer of a discount, or some type of freebie. An essential of writing good content for social media is keep it short and keep it interesting or fun.
2. Curate Content
You may not be able to come up with great funny or inspirational stuff, but you can share funny and inspirational stuff that you find elsewhere. You can have a quote of the day or a joke of the day. If they are really great, your followers will look for them every day, and then they will share them. Spreading your brand is not all about you; it’s about what your followers like to see.
3. Use Lots of Media
There are so many great tools - there is just no excuse anymore not to have photos, infographics, slide shares, short videos - all made by you without design or coding skills. And, interactive media is absolutely the best.
When your followers can participate by taking a fun quiz or survey, they’ll take it and send it on. Your brand gets spread.
Now that Twitter allows photos, take advantage and post one with each tweet.
Check out some of the sites where you can create your media, surveys, and polls - they are easy to use.
4. Show Yourself Personally[/b]
People want to purchase from businesses they trust and from business owners they "know". To establish relationships and trust, you have to become human to your followers on social media.
Did your office get a new puppy mascot? Show him off.
Does your business support a cause? Post pictures of the latest event in which you and your team participated. Ask your followers to participate too. The owner of Headbands of Hope donates a headband to a child with cancer for every headband purchased, along with $1 to cancer research. She has built a multi-million dollar business, and people feel good about buying from her.
5. Ask Your Followers Questions[/b]
This invites your followers to join in conversations and creates a feeling that you care about their opinions and views. ModClothing does a great job of this. They post pictures of items they are thinking of carrying and ask followers to vote yea or nay. [/b]
You can have a contest to name that new puppy mascot you just got;
You can ask for pictures of your customers using your product and then post them, recognizing those customers as valuable to you. And what customer is not going to share a photo of them that you have posted on your Facebook page?
Remember this. Social media is for the following purposes:[/b]
Spreading your brand by posting content that is engaging enough to be shared
Establishing relationships with your customers
Becoming someone your followers can trust
If you focus on your customers and these purposes instead of selling something, you will eventually sell a lot of [/b]"[/b]somethings[/b]"[/b].[/b]