Maximize interactions between social media & content marketing

social_media_marketing_banner Social media market and content marketing have been two different entities but is it possible that they may be a perfect pair? Unfortunately, many companies approach both as if one has nothing to do with the other. The simple truth is that social media marketing cannot function without the others content. If you have no content, you have nothing to share, tweet or post. Without valuable content, you cannot drive engagement on social media. It would be reasonable to say that content serves as the core of any successful social media marketing campaign. In this article I am going to discuss some tips on how to maximize the interaction between social media and content marketing.

Unlike traditional content marketing, content within the scope of social media marketing must serve specific purposes. In order for it to be effective, content for social media marketing must be designed to fit the constraints of specific platforms and, also, must be set up to either generate discussions or provide an open dialogue for current customers. The tips below will help you through the process of bringing your social media and content marketing together.

Test your content for effectiveness with your target audience. Simply publishing content on social media and hoping it works is not an effective plan. Testing a variety of content and messages across different networks can help you to determine which type of content resonates best with your audience. If you only publish one piece of content and you do not receive the response you expected, you may never know exactly what was wrong with it. A randomized experiment with two variants (A/B testing) can give you the insight you need to determine how to best connect with specific audiences. Using programs like GetResponse can help businesses test what works when contacting customers through email. Optimizely can aid companies with A/B testing of its website pages.

Customize your content for specific social media networks. Your audience should be able to choose from a range of different social media networks. Whether it’s Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest, each social media network has its unique audience and features. Ignoring these distinctive differences is the equivalent of a disaster in terms of social media marketing. Taking the time to ensure that the content you publish on each platform and is optimized for that specific channel will give you a far greater chance to connect with your audience. They are also more likely to frequent that platform. For instance, while Twitter has a strict 140-character limit and requires brief but powerful content, content on Facebook is far more flexible. You wouldn’t want to promote a law firm on Instagram or Pinterest.  These sites typically requires the inclusion of a photo or video in order to gain traction with audiences.

Ask your audience for what they want. Take the time to ask your followers and fans for recommendations regarding the types of content that interests them. There are also tools you can use to influence and determine the types of content most likely to gain traction in your social media marketing, such as Hootsuite, which can  generate a digital map of the types of topics that your followers and fans are discussing.

Don’t rely on standard strategies. In a perfect world basic search engine optimization efforts would be enough for all of your marketing needs and best of all it’s free. Unfortunately these systems aren’t perfect and sometimes you have to pay for an increase in site traffic. This could be the social media fix for some users.

social_media_marketing_planSocial media provides a place for giving your content its own voice. With careful planning, you can merge content marketing and social media together to create a highly effective social media marketing campaign.

On April 29, 2015, posted in: Blog, Business by

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