Why should you learn how to create content for social media?
Well, the answer to that is simple: it is really difficult to get your content noticed on social media. Almost any business with an online presence is on social media competing for the attention of the same consumers.
Probably, that’s why the average engagement rate for Instagram posts of business accounts is only 1.49%. This means that less than 2 out of a hundred followers actually like, share, or comment on these posts.
Image via Hootsuite
So, what can you do to improve your engagement rates?
You can learn how to create content for social media that works for your audience. In this post, we will discuss some of the most effective tips to create successful social media content. Use this to create a winning social media marketing and content strategy.
Ready to get started?
Keep reading.
Table of Contents
13 Tips to Create Social Media Content that Works
Here are some of the best tips on how to create social media content to engage your audience.
1. Keep Your Audience in Mind
The first thing that any expert will give you on how to create content for social media is to keep your audience in mind while creating content.
Social media content should be targeted at a specific audience that best matches your target customers. So, you need to first understand your target audience and then create content that will resonate with them.
Need an example?
Let’s take the example of skincare brand Olay. The target customers, in this case, are primarily women with good disposable income to be able to afford premium skincare. If you look at the brand’s Instagram page, you will find that all of their content, from images to memes, is targeted at women.
Here’s a recent post that is informative and useful for women who care about their skin.
Image via Instagram
Pro Tip: Use social media analytics to get data on your existing audience preferences and then create content that they like more.
2. Jump on a Latest Social Media Trend
The second tip on how to create content for social media has to be leveraging social media trends.
At any point in time, some types of content will be popular on a social media platform. It can be in the form of a social media challenge, a new filter, a specific type of video, etc.
All you need to do is stay active on your social media platform of choice and keep an eye out for what’s trending. Follow popular brand and influencer accounts in your niche, look out for the latest hashtags, etc.
Next, you need to choose which of these trends you can leverage for your brand. More often than not, any latest social media trend would have a specific hashtag associated with it, so don’t forget to use that.
If you jump on the latest social media trends, you will have a higher chance of reaching more people as everyone would be following that trend. This can help you build brand awareness and get more followers.
Do you need proof?
Check out this example.
This influencer, for example, tried the latest Aurora filter trend that is going viral on Instagram and got ~8x more views than her current follower count.
Image via Instagram
That’s the beauty of going with the social media trends: your video might just get viral
Pro Tip: Actively watch social media for the latest trends and adopt those to get more views for your content.
3. Support a Cause
This is an evergreen tactic on how to create content for social media, that never fails and should be a part of your social media strategy.
What does it entail?
Support a social cause that you feel deeply about and show your support on social media. People connect with brands that support social causes more than they would with any other brand.
Also, keep your target audience in mind when selecting your causes. For example, if your target audience is women, you may want to support women’s empowerment or any cause that they can relate to.
The best example of this is the beauty brand Dove. which has long been associated with social causes that empower women. Most of its social media content is around shattering traditional beauty standards.
The brand’s latest campaign is against the use of retouching tools and filters that people use to make their pictures beautiful. As part of this, the brand urged its users to share their pictures without any filters and shared those on its Instagram page.
Here’s an example:
Image via Instagram
Pro Tip: You can also use a cause-based campaign to get free user-generated content that you can share from your social media accounts.
4. Trigger an Emotion
Do you want to learn how to create content for social media?
The simplest way is to create content that evokes an emotion in your audience.
There, we said it. The best way to create social media content that engages your audience is to use emotions to your advantage.
People love social media content that makes them laugh, cry, think, or feel something, anything. Moreover, they will connect to your brand more if you regularly create content that touches them in some way.
But, how exactly do you create content that triggers an emotion?
Here are a few tips to get you started:
- Use visuals that portray an emotion
- Tell a touching story
- Choose themes or topics that your audience can relate to
- Create humorous content to make them laugh
- Write intriguing titles
Still not enough?
Let’s look at an example to understand what emotional content looks like and why it works.
Coca-Cola posted this emotional, yet motivational, video in the middle of the global COVID-19 pandemic to give people hope. The content was well-timed as almost everyone was losing hope and people needed something like this to give them hope.
Image via YouTube
Now, that is the kind of content that people remember. And, even if it's subconscious, they connect with brands that make them feel positive.
Pro Tip: Be aware of the latest happenings in the world to create current, relevant content that triggers an emotion in your audience.
5. Create Polls, Quizzes, and Contests
The goal of most social media content is to engage the audience. And, there’s nothing more engaging than a good old-fashioned contest, poll, or quiz.
Let’s discuss each one by one and understand what makes them so engaging.
Contests and giveaways work for the simple reason that these offer some free reward or a gift. All a user has to do is participate, for a chance to win that reward. This is a simple promotional tactic that has been there for ages and is still relevant.
Want to know the best part?
Social media contests can also help you grow your follower base and reach more people. All you have to do is ask participants to tag their friends and follow your account to participate.
Polls work on the concept of social validation. People like to take polls to see whether their opinion conforms with the general majority or differs. It’s just about curiosity to see whether they fit in or stand out.
You can use the polls sticker in Instagram Stories or the equivalent in other platforms to create polls for your audience.
Quizzes, on the other hand, work because it tests participants’ knowledge on a subject. Multiple choice questions are easy enough to answer and the desire to prove themselves knowledgeable is what makes quizzes appeal to most users.
Overall, all three of these work well as social media content that engages most types of audiences. So, incorporate these in your social media strategy to create content for social media that is fun and engaging.
Pro Tip: Make sure you keep the topics for quizzes and polls relevant to your brand or products.
6. Share User-Generated Content
User-generated content is free, authentic, and relatable, which makes it a must-have part of your social media strategy. It is also one of the best content marketing tactics as it gets you good, authentic content without spending time on content creation.
You don’t always have to create content for social media yourself. In fact, it is actually a good practice to use UGC from time to time as it makes your users feel special when you repost their content or mention them in your posts.
One of the best ways to get user-generated content is to ask your customers or followers to tag your brand when they share a post where they are using your products. You can, then, select some of these posts and repost them on your account and mention the user’s name.
Another great way to get UGC is to start a hashtag campaign and ask your followers to share relevant posts by using a specific hashtag. In the Dove example above, #RealBeauty and #DoveSelfEsteemProject are such campaign hashtags.
Image via Instagram
So, run UGC campaigns to get social content for free, while also keeping your followers engaged.
Pro Tip: Create a relevant and easy-to-remember hashtag for your UGC hashtag campaigns.
7. Collaborate with Influencers for Social Media Marketing
If you want to create social media content that helps you build brand awareness and engage your target audience, then you should collaborate with influencers. This is another necessary addition to your social media marketing strategy.
Influencers are not only experts in their respective fields but usually have a loyal following. Moreover, they are sort of experts at creating social media content that their audience loves.
So, if you collaborate with an influencer to create branded social media content for you, they can produce good results. First, it will help you reach their audience, in addition to yours. Second, you will get high-quality social media content that you can later repurpose and reuse.
Create a successful influencer marketing strategy before you start an influencer campaign to improve your chances of success.
Pro Tip: Use an influencer post for your brand for your social media ads to save time designing it yourself, while still getting good results.
8. Maintain a Consistent Brand Voice
One of the most important tips on how to create social media content that works is to maintain a consistent brand image and voice.
Your social media content, across all platforms, represents your brand and should be in accordance with your company or brand values and image. So, find your brand voice and stick to it, across all your social platforms.
What exactly is a brand voice?
A brand voice is the personality and values of your brand/company infused in your content. It is made of small things like tone, choice of topics, colors used, and more.
Your brand’s tone could be formal/informal, serious/humorous, etc. Combine that with different brand elements like brand colors, font, etc. and you get a distinct brand voice or image.
Choose a mix of these brand elements and consistently use these for all your brand’s content and communications.
Pro Tip: Choose a tone that would resonate with your target audience and is apt for your industry, otherwise it could backfire.
9. Leverage Video Content
Video content in one of the most engaging types of content and currently dominates the social media landscape.
It has become increasingly popular as most social channels provide numerous options to post video content. From IGTV videos to stories, the options are numerous.
But, what kind of videos should you create?
Again, there are simply a lot of options to choose from. Here are some popular types of videos that you can try:
- Tutorials
- How-to videos
- Funny or entertaining videos
- Customer testimonials
- Animation
- Social media challenges
- Videos showing products in use
- Unboxing and review videos
These are the most popular types of videos on social media today. Experiment with one or more of these and see what works for your audience. If you are not yet leveraging videos then it’s high time that you incorporate these into your social media marketing strategy.
Pro Tip: You can collaborate with influencers to create unboxing and review videos to reach and engage more people.
10. Use Humor
Using humor is another great way to engage your audience on social media and essential for your social media strategy. People come to social media to get entertained and consume some great content.
If you can make your audience smile, they would want to consume more of your content and will follow your brand on social media.
How can you create good humorous content?
Luckily for you, there are tons of options there. In fact, you can even look at your social media feeds for inspiration as social media is full of such content.
Some most popular options include memes, comics, gifs, funny videos, jokes, etc.
Charmin, for example, is one brand that consistently uses humor in its social media content. The best part is that their brand of humor matches their business (a toilet paper manufacturer).
Here’s an example:
Image via Twitter
Pro Tip:Keep away from political or religious humor as that can cause controversy and even damage your reputation.
11. Connect with Your Audience
This tip on how to create content for social media is not so much about content itself, but about connecting with your audience.
Social media is not just a marketing tool, but also a way for brands to connect with their customers in a real way. So, apart from your regular social media content, you should also use social media to connect with your audience.
How can you do that?
You can start a live video to show some behind-the-scenes footage from your office or simply talk to your followers.
Another great idea is to host a Q&A or get to know session with the brand’s owner or key executives. This also helps put a face to your brand/company and makes it easier for people to connect with it.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many brands took to social media to share messages of hope or simply to express their sadness over the global crisis. Messages like these show your audience that you are not just a faceless, emotionless business, but actually a team of people who care.
This company went a step further and wrote a heartfelt letter to their customers/audience seeking advice and sharing their struggles amid the pandemic.
Image via Instagram
Pro Tip: Find different ways to connect with your audience and make sure that your message is genuine and on point.
12. Share Inspirational Content
This tip on how to create content for social media is actually a spin-off of our earlier tip on triggering your audience’s emotions. However, this is too important to not be mentioned separately.
Did you know that most people who are on social media follow one inspirational quotes page or the other?
Why do you think that is?
Well, probably because we all like to wake up to an inspirational quote or message to keep our spirits high. Irrespective of what’s happening in the world or on social media, such inspirational content always puts a smile on our faces.
That’s probably why such content works so well, especially on social media.
We are not suggesting that you convert your brand’s page into an inspirational quotes page, but creating inspirational content from time to time does work.
If nothing else, you can always add some positivity to your social media content, just like Starbucks does in its Instagram posts. Here’s a recent example:
Image via Instagram
Pro Tip: Use bright colors and positive imagery to your posts to further enhance their positive effect on your audience.
13. Post Product Pictures
When we talk about how to create social media content, we can’t ignore posts with product images. After all, the end goal for all businesses is to generate more revenue and social media is just another channel for that.
Given the visual nature of social media platforms, it is very easy to showcase your products and make your feed a virtual product catalog. You can still incorporate a lot of the social media marketing tactics mentioned above, while actually selling your products through social media.
Here’s a brilliant example of one such post. The post basically shows a product picture, but the caption is about Mother’s Day. Moreover, the caption also encourages people to tag a mom, thus boosting engagement rates as well.
Image via Instagram
That’s not just a well-rounded post, but also a brilliant Mother’s Day marketing idea.
Pro Tip: Use high-quality images, preferably shot in a solid colored background to make your products pop.
FAQs
Q1. How do you create social media content?
A. Social media content should be precise, fun, engaging, and targeted at a specific audience. Here’s a quick review of our top tips on how to create content for social media:
- Keep Your Audience in Mind
- Jump on a Latest Social Media Trend
- Support a Cause
- Trigger an Emotion
- Create Polls, Quizzes, and Contests
- Share User-Generated Content
- Collaborate with Influencers
- Maintain a Consistent Brand Voice
- Leverage Video Content
- Use Humor
- Connect with Your Audience
- Share Inspirational Content
- Post Product Pictures
Q2. What type of content is best for social media?
A. In general, visual content works best for social media. Videos are especially gaining popularity on social media platforms. Humorous content like memes, gifs, etc. is also quite popular.
Q3. How do you create content for beginners?
A. When creating content for beginners, make sure that you explain each concept clearly and use a language that is easy to understand. Give lots of examples to make and explain your points.
Q4. Who is a social media content creator?
A. Anyone who creates and posts content for a specific audience on social media is a content creator. However, in marketing terms, the term “creator” is usually used for social media influencers.
Q5. What makes a content creator successful?
A. If a content creator can understand their audience and create content that resonates with them, then they are successful. Once you build enough influence, you can even collaborate with brands and earn money from it.
Q6. What are the types of content on social media?
A. Social media platforms provide numerous opportunities to post different types of content like posts, stories, IGTV videos, live videos, etc.
Q7. What are the different types of social media posts?
A. The three most common types of social media posts are image posts, video posts, and carousel posts.
Q8. What kind of content works on Instagram?
A. The short answer is visual content. It is a visual platform and high-quality visuals are what work best on Instagram. Instagram Stories, specifically, are gaining popularity and you should leverage them if you’re not already doing so.
Q9. What type of content is best for Facebook?
A. In general, videos perform better on Facebook than any other type of post. Videos have and will continue to dominate the platform in the near future.
Q10. How do you make good twitter content?
A. Post about the latest happenings in the word or recent topics in a precise manner and you should be good.
Conclusion
These are some of the best tips on how to create content for social media, for any business. Hopefully, these will help you create engaging and successful social media content.
Have any questions about how to create content for social media? Feel free to leave a comment.
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