Getting Started With Social Media Content: Essential Tips for Beginners

Social media has been unstoppable since then, with present-day businesses creating and recreating such benchmarks almost daily. No wonder, following some social media content best practices, industry leaders have gained a foothold that’s not easy to shake. It sure sounds pretty overwhelming. So, let’s look into some statistical data to understand how social media has penetrated the real world to create a virtual one of its own. 

As per research by Kepios, approximately 4.65 billion people use social media as of April 2022. That is somewhere around 60% of the total world population. So, from the way these virtual platforms are being embraced in real life, we can safely say that barely any aspect of living remains untouched by social media. From a marketing perspective, this is nothing short of a powerhouse potential you can explore and utilize for brand upliftment. 

But, if you are hoping for some overnight hits, you might be at the wrong place. It is always consistency and adaptability that pays off, especially on social media. Read on to learn what a social media presence means, its importance and use for all businesses, and things to keep in mind when creating social media content.

What Is a Social Media Presence?

Undoubtedly, social media has penetrated people’s lives across all ages, from schoolgoers to octogenarians. Every successful business and individual has tried to reach out to their targeted audience base to increase their reach. Without exception, people in the digital age rely more on social media than on any other platform to tap into information, connect with friends and family, and even create content of their own.

In such a scenario, all brands need to stay connected with their target audience digitally. Accordingly, a social media presence can be roughly summed up as a collection of activities and events that any business or entity undertakes on social media to stay connected and engaged with its target audience.

How well the audience receives this presence is dependent on the social media content strategy you employ. But it is not just the frequency of posts, but also the quality of the content that defines the success of your campaign.

Do All Businesses Need a Social Media Presence?

A 2020 research suggests as much as 42% of people use social media and rely on it to understand a brand, product, or service before deciding on the final purchase. Social media is the go-to place for almost half of the users willing to connect with a brand they like and purchase from. Users also often follow businesses and brands to stay updated on what’s new in the market.

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With social media use on such a rise, we might as well risk asking, “If your business isn’t on social media, does it even exist? So, the answer to whether social media is a necessity for all businesses is a big “Yes.” Your brand’s social media presence can prove to be quite the key when it comes to creating a connection based on trust and reliability with your audience.

Today, a business with the most reliable social media presence is often one that is revered as an industry leader. If you are planning to start a business, it will pay off to have a solid social media content strategy in place. Or else you might entirely lose out on a huge chunk of your audience base.

How Do Businesses Use Social Media?

There is no one best answer to this. Each business is different, operating in its own capacity with its defined resources. Nevertheless, what we can look out for when understanding a business’ social media uses is knowing the industry they operate in and the niche they serve. 

First, as a business, you must keep a tab on the available social media tools you can utilize. Some examples include: 

• Microblogging
• Social communities
• Location-wise services
• Private networks and groups
• Podcasts
• Video sharing platforms
• Job networking

These are just a few of the many things you can include in your social media content planner. A Smart Insights-Clutch partnered study suggests that 52% of businesses surveyed agreed that special media impacted sales positively.

Then, of course, engaging content has been prominent among industry leaders and authorities when propagating brand expansion and growth on social media. Some other social media content parameters paying off in the short and long run that top brands can swear by include: 

• The originality of the content
• Adaptability
• Improvisation
• Rebranding
• Use of engagement metrics

To gain a better perspective on how you can make your social media content rock for business success, below is a detailed guide.

7 Tips for Making Your Social Media Content Rock?

We hope you know we are getting into deep waters here. Social media is a new-age marketing platform that is both dynamic and volatile. Let’s check out some social media best practices to create and share high-quality and valuable content.

1. Narrow down your audience base

This is one of the most important tips for creating social media content. Hitting the bull’s eye starts with knowing where you need to aim and target. It is thus crucial to know who you want to connect with and promote to. 

Knowing who you aim to connect with allows you to tailor your social media content strategy around their needs, demands, desires, and future expectations. Consider the following factors to identify your target audience base:

• Age and location
• Language spoken
• Ethnic and cultural background
• Income and spending range
• Product choices
• Preferred services
• Activities they do when free
• Profession/career inclination

To better identify and reach out to your desired target audience, you can take the help of social media analytics. You also need to define your product/service’s value and work on a target statement that clearly reflects it. 

Remember, unless you set a value for your business, even the best quality content might take a hit when garnering user attention. But just be cautious of overvaluation, too, so you hit the right balance between your goals and what your users want.

2. Have accurate goals

Setting definite goals is a crucial step to ensuring your social media content aligns with your audience. It helps you identify what aims you precisely want to achieve for your business, and also lays the groundwork for your social media content strategy.

Start with clear goals you want to meet in set time frames, spanning varied aspects of inclusive social media growth for your business. Some desirable goals to set for social media accomplishment are:

• Audience growth
• Strengthened brand-customer relationship
• Lead generation to drive sales
• Offering innovative insights on existing ideas, products, and services
• Addressing pain points of the audience base
• Improving social media reach

3. Prepare a social media content planner

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A well-thought-out content calendar guides you on the types of content you need to post, goals you need to achieve, frequency of posts, and other growth metrics. You can make a defining and result-oriented social media content planner with the help of the following factors:

• Know the content consumption patterns of your target audience. These patterns can differ based on the ease of device use, the popularity of social media channels for the niche, and similar factors.
  
• Ditch conventions when choosing a social media channel. While initially channels like Facebook were considered suitable for generic posts, platforms like LinkedIn were taken up more for conveying B2B messages. 

However, this divide is blurring fast. For instance, although unconventional, Pinterest is one of the most commonly used social media channels, with huge popularity among creators and users. It keeps readers visually entertained and engaged.

• Include topics and ideas in line with search trends that are popular in your industry. Your timing is crucial when aiming to nail audience attention with topics.
  
• Create a periodic publishing plan spanning a week, a month, a quarter, or even larger durations. This would streamline the social media content writing and publishing process, and also establish a sense of brand consistency.
  
• Use automation in posting content, so you don’t miss out on any part of strategy execution.

4. Engage meaningfully

Irrespective of how valuable your content is, it might miss out on securing a place in your audience’s minds if it lacks the necessary engagement factor. So, meaningful engagement is how you enrich the audience with a sense of inclusion that the human mind seeks.

Striking a relatable conversation with your audience and following through to the end can be a great way to do so. Other ways to improve value-based engagement include introducing posts of readers’ interest, asking for feedback, addressing pain points, conducting polls, sending prompt responses, appreciating customer actions, etc.

5. Enhance your brand’s personality

Creating your brand’s personality can be quite crucial to establishing your identity. Along with the business’s name and logo, some aspects that help create brand personality include consistent visuals, color combinations, and optimizing images, among others. It is also crucial that your team is thorough with your style guide. Creating a brand personality and consistently adhering to it is a key social media content best practice.

6. Use influencer partnership

Social media’s widespread use globally has led to the rise of influencers in almost all fields of user interest. The name is self-explanatory, and these personalities command a massive following across platforms, which can be tapped into for creating social media content that actually converts.

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Tying up with influencers in your niche can be an authentic source of social proof. Plus, the vast network of new users it exposes your business to helps expand your social media reach as well.

7. Use thought leadership for authority and reliability

One of the sure-shot ways to earn the trust of your target audience is to practice thought leadership content. Make sure the content relates to your business niche and addresses your audience’s interests and pain points. Posting content with innovative, groundbreaking ideas and solutions is among the proven ways to propagate thought leadership and earn authority.

It is essential to keep your social media content strategy value-oriented, aesthetically rich, and primarily aimed at serving the audience. And, of course, measuring your strategy with the right social media metrics can lend insight into whether they are being fruitful enough.

Key Takeaways

• Social media content requires consistency. 
• The industry-wide penetration of social media usage means businesses absolutely need to include it in their content strategies.
• A combination of social media tools, platforms, and content types can be included in a winning strategy. 
• Audience identification is the key to nailing your social media content strategy. 
• Social media best practices like influencer partnership and thought leadership can help you widen your reach.

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