socialmediastoris

How To Craft a Successful Social Media Content Strategy

The evolution of social media has given brands the opportunity to connect with their audience like never before.

For us, this means the ability to further our brand presence and voice, drive sales, and direct traffic all through utilizing our social media channels as an extension of our site.

Building a successful social media content strategy is more than just posting on every platform—it’s all about determining which platforms align best with your business.

There are so many different channels out there and more constantly popping up. (Seriously, it’s exhausting!)

Test what platform works best for you

My advice is to test out each platform and make it your goal to find a select group of social media channels that will really make an impact for your brand and drive ROI.

Take TikTok, for example. It’s one of the newest channels with huge potential for reach.

But when we tested it out as a new channel for AppSumo, it didn’t give us the ROI we hoped for. Because our audience demographic didn’t align as well on TikTok as it does on other channels like our Facebook Group, we decided our time was better spent focusing our efforts elsewhere.

And it was the right decision.

Here’s a graph of our Facebook Group engagement based on Posts, Comments, and Reactions from Jan. 1, 2020, to Dec. 8, 2020. During that same time, we saw a 19.72% increase in our number of total members.

Example of progress from social media content strategy

It’s so important to set realistic content goals for your brand, figure out what the top priority is, and understand how your social media content strategy can help you reach those goals.

We set specific quarterly goals.

Whether you want to convert customers to buyers, drive brand awareness, or increase community engagement, the strategy you implement should be focused on those goals you set for yourself.

I found that when I focused on working towards a specific goal, I saw a noticeable improvement in our overall social media.

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach and each social media platform you use may have a different goal.

Finding a social media content strategy that works best for your brand takes time, iteration, and patience. Consistency really is key when growing your social media presence!

Dive deeper into goals and metrics:

Know Your Audience and Conduct Research

Have a good understanding of who your target audience is when outlining your social media strategy. I find it helpful to do some research on your followers when determining what type of content will resonate best with them.

For example, in looking at AppSumo’s Facebook and Instagram data, I found that the majority of our audience is male and in the 25-44 age range. This is incredibly helpful when planning content out and trying to reach new target audiences.

By understanding our audience demographics, it helps us to determine which platforms we want to focus on.

Based on this data, we prioritize Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube in our social media efforts.

Think quality over quantity when you’re determining which platforms you want to utilize for your brand.

Demographics can help form a social media content strategy.

You also can use Agorapulse reports also to find out:

Where your fans are located
If your audience concentrated in a city or region
How old your fans are (the age brackets they fall into)

Example of demographics from Agorapulse’s reports

Dive deeper into research:

Know Your Competitors

In regards to the competition, I always suggest taking a look at what at least three competitors are doing on social media—this provides a great baseline for what works, what doesn’t, and which areas you can provide more value in than the competition.

To get started, find businesses that are in a similar industry, offer similar services, or what similar to what you aspire to be, and start your research from there.

What to look out for

Try to answer a few key questions:

What platforms are they using?
What type of content are they posting—videos, links, educational, photos, etc.?
How often are they posting?
What is their social media goal?
What are their strengths and weaknesses?

Once you have a good understanding of how your competitors are using social media, you can use this information to build out your own strategy.

Identify the gaps in their social media presence and use this to your advantage.

When you have this information under your belt, it’s easy to find ways in which you can improve and stand out among the competition.

We noticed that our competitors weren’t using video to promote their products and services. We decided to test this as a content strategy and saw a noticeable improvement in this metric.

Take a look at these results after we started creating daily videos:

Know your monthly gained subscribers to help form a winning social media content strategy.

When to Post

Consistency is key in regards to your social media presence.

When planning out content, I always do some platform-specific research to determine the best days and time to help maximize our reach with each time we publish.

At AppSumo, we make note of popular days and times, and schedule our most important content around them.

I also use a content calendar to help execute our social strategy.

It’s an easy way to help me plan, create, and manage all of our content in one place.

Tools We Use

We wouldn’t call ourselves AppSumo (where I work) if we didn’t namedrop some of the awesome tools we use for social media.

Along with the free linked tools, here are some personal favorites for my day-to-day work:

Agorapulse. This one’s an awesome way to manage your social media and schedule it in a clean way. I don’t have to dig through comments because the Social Inbox lets me filter through important messages. Plus, Agorapulse’s one-click reports are super-helpful for me to track metrics.
Canva. Canva is a powerhouse. This one’s great for inspiration and a lifesaver when creating graphics that don’t require a ton of graphic design skills. I like to incorporate these graphics into our Instagram when I can.
Crello. An AppSumo Partner, Crello is a great alternative to Canva and helpful for ideas. I use it to create graphics for Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. It’s got awesome animations and requires no design skill.
Figma. I use this to create templates for things like our Instagram stories (blog shares, deal shares, etc.). It’s also great for quick and on-the-fly design edits for graphics.
Brand24. An internal marketing team fave, for sure. This one’s great for filtering all AppSumo content on the web. It shows you all mentions of specific keywords on your social media channels, even when you weren’t tagged.

Engage with Your Audience and Grow Your Following

Now that you’ve built out your content strategy, the goal is to continue to grow your following. (You’re not out of the woods yet!)

How often to post

The most important thing to remember when trying to grow your social media is to maintain a minimum number of posts per week based on days when your users are most active!

At AppSumo, we post about six days per week with a minimum of 2-3 posts a day.

How to create content for engagement

My advice is to create content that allows your audience to engage directly. I found that when I utilized interactive content, such as polls, we had significantly higher engagement.

Take a look at some of our recent polls, which directly ask our audience what types of content they would like to see more of. This is a super-easy way to promote engagement and actually get feedback directly from your audience.

Here’s us getting the conversation started:

The audience engagement doesn’t end with the content itself! Engage with them in the comment section, posts you are tagged in, and through direct messages.

One fun way to engage your audience is by creating a hashtag specific to your brand. That way, users can share the love when they post about your brand or products.

At AppSumo, we have a few: #AppSumo, #TacoToolsday, and #6FigureSumoling. This is a great way to get your followers talking about your brand and to see what is being said about your products, even when they don’t specifically @ you!

Dive deeper into engagement:

Check Analytics and Audit

Time to talk numbers.

No strategy would be complete without understanding which analytics are important for your brand.

Understanding what your audience likes will lead to more engagement, followers, and a cohesive feed! It seems simple, but creating content your audience actually wants to see can do so much for your social media strategy.

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For example, on Instagram, I dive into our insights and take note of what content has the highest ‘Reach,’ ‘Shares,’ ‘Saves,’ and ‘Comments. These metrics are really great indicators of which content has performed well based on what our audience likes. That also gives it a boost with the algorithm and helps it reach a bigger audience:

To make the most of these analytics, I dive into our insights weekly. This helps me optimize our content and understand what works for the future!

In Conclusion

Building a successful social media content strategy takes time, but all the effort is worth it when you establish an audience that actually wants to connect and engage with you. That sort of reward will build upon itself tenfold!

Remember that consistency is key when trying to grow your social media presence. You should also keep in mind that finding the right strategy for your brand involves a bit of trial and error. (Trust us—we’ve had our share of hiccups at AppSumo. It’s all part of the learning process.) Set specific but realistic goals for your social media content strategy, listen to your audience, and the growth will follow.

Now get on that social media success track! Till next time!

By: Bronte Mojdehi

Get started on saving time and energy on your own social media management! Check out our free trial of Agorapulse to help you schedule, track, and measure all your social media efforts.

Caitlin Bacher

How To Quickly Create Social Media Content Most entrepreneurs spend WAY too much time creating content for social media. As a result, they avoid it entirely…leading to days or weeks without a single post. This is costing you traffic, leads, and customers…but it doesn’t have to be this way! In this video, you’ll learn my secret to quickly creating high-converting content on social media If you to learn EVEN MORE about how you can save time on social media, make sure to download your FREE copy of The Social Media Roadmap. FREE – THE FACEBOOK GROUP HOST ROADMAP: http://caitlinbacher.com/host-roadmap-3 JOIN THE #SOCIALBOSS FACEBOOK GROUP: http://caitlinbacher.com/fb-group TWEET THIS VIDEO: SUBSCRIBE FOR MORE VIDEOS: http://youtube.com/caitlinbacher SAY HEY ON SOCIAL MEDIA! Instagram: http://instagram.com/caitlinbacher Facebook: http://facebook.com/caitlinbacher Twitter: http://twitter.com/caitlinbacher Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/caitlinbacher Snapchat: https://www.snapchat.com/add/caitlinb…

Key Elements of Effective Social Media Videos

Video is all the rage today. It’s due to its effectiveness in driving reach and engagement. In fact, most social media platforms have started to give video content more visibility in feeds.

The introduction of Reels and IGTV on Instagram and Facebook Watch is a testament to the fact that the appeal for videos has only increased over the years.

About 85% of internet users in the US watched online videos in 2018, and a majority of internet users say that the trend of watching more online videos will continue, even after the COVID-19 outbreak ends.

With so much video content being uploaded by the minute — over 500 hours on YouTube in 2019 — it’s going to be difficult to stand out from the crowd.

To do so, you need to create stellar videos. How can you do so? You need to understand the key elements of a social media video. What are these key elements, you ask? Let’s take a look at them.

Main Elements of a Social Media Video

Here are the main elements of a social media video that can help improve engagement.

1. The Social Platform

When you’re creating any video for social media, it’s important to know which platform you’re creating it for. Why?Because each social platform has different audiences, and what may appeal to users on one platform might not on another.

TikTok and Instagram are platforms where you’d typically have millennials or Gen Z. On the other hand, on Facebook and Twitter, you can find a wider user base. So, it’s crucial to tailor your videos for each of these platforms.

Similarly, what may work on all of these platforms may not work on LinkedIn at all as it’s a professional social networking platform. And that’s not all. Each platform also has a different set of video formats that work the best on them.

Facebook vs. Instagram video formats

For instance, if you’re uploading a video to Facebook, you’d likely upload a landscape version of the video for Facebook Watch. On the other hand, if you’re creating one for Instagram, options like Reels, Stories, and IGTV prefer portrait modes.

Resizing your videos can be challenging. However, by using tools like Boosted, you can simplify this task as the tool will automatically size all the videos you create based on the dimensions that work best on the social platform of your choice.

Pro Tip: It’s equally important that you upload your videos directly to the platform instead of sharing them from one platform to another.

2. Video Length

The length of the video is an important parameter that you need to be mindful of. While scrolling through feeds, users may not devote a lot of time to your video unless it catches their attention.

That’s why you need to ensure that the most impactful parts of your video are right at the beginning. The idea is to hook the user to your video so that they watch the rest of it.

But wait, there’s more.

The platforms that you upload your videos to impact the video length as well. For instance, if you’re uploading a video to Instagram, you’ll be faced with multiple options.

How long should Instagram videos be?

If you’re posting a video on Instagram Stories, the maximum length per Story is 15 seconds. On the other hand, if you’re uploading it to Reels, the video needs to be 30 seconds long. However, IGTV videos can be as long as 60 minutes.

So, while developing your video, make sure that you know where you’re going to post it so that you can drive social engagement through it.

3. Video Graphics

The graphics that you use in your videos are equally important.These visuals can help you captivate the attention of your audience. That’s why you need to do everything that you can to ensure that they appear exactly like you want them to.

With nearly 70% of YouTube watch time coming from mobile devices, it’s clear that you need to design your videos for mobile devices.But how?For starters, you should try to use simple video graphics that can be easily viewed on mobile devices. Also, you need to ensure that the various elements within your video are spaced well enough for the viewers to be able to distinguish them.

The same applies to video thumbnails. When you create them using a tool like Canva, make sure that you check how they will look on smaller screens. In addition, mobile devices may not always be connected to WiFi. Many users may be using data to browse the internet and watch videos.

However, while people are on the move, data speeds might fluctuate. As a result, they may not be able to stream videos at the speeds that they would typically get over WiFi.

If your video file size is large, it’s likely that the video may not load well. When this happens, your viewers may move on to the next post. After all, no one likes to wait a long time for videos to load.

How can you avoid this?

You can create videos that have smaller sizes. This will make it easier for the viewers to stream them.

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To ensure that all of these things are taken into consideration while creating videos, ensure that your content marketing strategy outlines the steps needed to be taken for mobile devices.

4. Video Sound

As mentioned above, most people watch videos on mobile devices. And when they do, it’s highly likely that they will be on the move or in public places too. In such a situation, not everyone uses earphones to watch the videos.

As a result, people tend to watch videos without sound. In fact, a survey found that 69% of consumers in the US watch videos on mobile devices without sound in public places. But here’s the thing — 25% of them even watch them without sound when they’re in private places.

So, if you want your video to appeal to this huge chunk of your audience, you need to ensure that it gives the same effect without audio. While you’re designing the video, try adding subtitles or text to get the message across without any sound.

Pro Tip: Before you upload the video, go through it without the audio. Try to see if it’s still equally engaging. If so, you can go ahead and upload it.

Final Thoughts

Creating social media videos can help increase your reach and drive engagement. However, to craft videos that can do so effectively, it’s critical to understand the key elements of these videos and use them to your advantage.

You need to design your videos based on the platform and also change the dimensions accordingly. Also, it’s equally important to decide on the video’s length as it’s dictated by the format in which you’re going to upload it.What’s more?

The video graphics need to be designed for mobile devices, as most videos are watched using mobile devices.Finally, a huge number of people watch videos without sound. So, you must ensure that the videos appear equally engaging without it too.

By: Shane Barker

Market & Hustle

Grow your business with a FREE Social Media Strategy Template: 🌟 DOWNLOAD HERE: https://bit.ly/3iYW53i Join Market & Hustle Academy Today at: 🚀 https://bit.ly/34SzdPh Subscribe to Market & Hustle on YouTube: 🚀 http://bit.ly/2NFjub1

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Is Your Social Media Content Attracting Leads? 4 Ways to Bolster Your Strategy

Digital marketers often identify social media as one of the best forms of content marketing, but it can often feel like we’re just going through the motions. If the social media content isn’t attracting leads, what good is it? It’s likely you just need a quick boost in strategy to make sure your content is appealing to your target audience and getting inbound requests and messages.

In fact, 90 percent of social media users have used the platform to communicate directly with a business before. So if none of your customers or followers are reaching out to you, it’s a telltale sign that something should be changed. Ideally, you’ll post a picture or video with a robust caption that offers value and the floodgates will open: direct messages, likes, comments and queries should start coming (or even just trickling at first) in, proving that your content struck a chord and inspired action. Not there yet? Here are four ways to bolster your strategy to attract those leads.

1. Focus your content on interesting stories

How much does your content dive into stories? They don’t have to be your personal stories. Stories of past clients, stories of other inspiring entrepreneurs or even folklore stories can be used to establish your point. Stories of other people who just went for it and found massive success are powerful too. It helps readers or viewers imagine themselves in the shoes of the story’s protagonist. These stories can be shared in captions or in the post itself through videos.

Lenney Leong is the founder of Get Customers. He’s had success creating video content around stories, with over 7.2 million views and counting. He advised me to make sure you engage from the start. A long, roundabout story will do little to draw viewers in. “Set the stage for the story from the first sentence, or by the title of the video,” Leong noted. “Be straightforward so people know they should stay engaged throughout the storytelling and know what to expect.” Leong has garnered many inbound conversations as a result of this storytelling. And it’s worth noting that videos perform best on Instagram, seeing 49 percent higher interactions.

2. Do a poll asking what type of content people want most

Instagram has many interactive features in its Story functionality. Use them! If you feel like you’re unsure what your followers really care about, utilize the poll to see for sure. It’s possible you’ve been creating content for something they’re peripherally interested in, but they are really curious about how you created your product’s landing page or how you scaled your company one year in. Instagram influencers and bloggers swear by the functionality, especially because it can have surprising results. You may think your followers want one type of content when really they want another.

Be open to what you haven’t yet considered. In addition to the polls (where followers can choose one of two options), also use the “Question and Answer” functionality so people can submit, in their own words, what they most want you to talk about.

3. Host a Q & A on Facebook or Instagram Live

While using the story functionalities is a great way to glean some initial insights, it also depends on what your viewers are doing when they flip through your story and if they currently have the time, interest, or energy to engage. “Another great way to bolster your content strategy is to host a Q&A on Facebook or Instagram live,” says Sarah Lefebvre, CEO of Localiz. “Followers may be more likely to submit questions if you’re going to answer in real-time, and you can tell by the questions or engagement that you’re getting as you navigate different topics what is resonating the most.”

Even better — since only a fraction of your audience will tune in for the live, you can use the answers you gave and strategies you talked about in future posts. Save the video, take notes, and convert into posts of their own. Now that you know for sure it’s something people are interested in!

4. Make sure you have a call to action in every post

Finally, it sounds so simple but is often overlooked. Make sure there’s a call to action in every single post! It doesn’t have to be the same every time, but use something like, “Message me if you’re interested,” or “Follow me for more content like this.” Even asking viewers to comment with a watermelon emoji if they are also looking forward to summer drives engagement and lets you know who is paying attention to your posts.

Without a call to action, people simply don’t know how to engage. Be clear, state what you’re looking for, and give plenty of direction to viewers and followers — all of which leads to a direct message conversation or whichever KPI matters most to your business.

By: Jennifer Spencer / Entrepreneur Leadership Network VIP

8 Social Media Engagement Hacks // Social Media Engagement Ideas // Social Media Engagement Strategy. Wondering how to boost your engagement on social media without ads? Struggling with low engagement on social media and low reach after the new Facebook algorithm? Looking for social media hacks and social media engagement hacks to boost your business? Want MORE people to see your social media posts?

In this video, I’ll show you 8 Social Media Engagement Hacks to help you boost your social media engagement, get more people to see your social media posts, and get more organic engagement on social media for your business. Here’s What You’ll Learn In This Video: How to use Social Media Engagement Hacks to boost your visibility How to Get More Comments On Your Social Media Posts How to Get More Likes on your social media posts How to use Facebook Group How to Get more followers on social media Other Videos You Might Like: How to Create Custom Audiences in Pinterest Promoted Pins https://youtu.be/-lOPemBgQco =====Want more Marketing insights and strategies? Connect with us for more free content, resources, and training==== http://MarketingSolved.com http://facebook.com/mrktgsolved http://facebook.com/groups/marketings… http://pinterest.com/katherinesulli http://twitter.com/mrktgsolved http://twitter.com/mrskatsulli http://instagram.com/marketingsolved

Test what platform works best for you

Set realistic social media content goals

Know Your Audience and Conduct Research

Know Your Competitors

What to look out for

When to Post

Tools We Use

Engage with Your Audience and Grow Your Following

How often to post

How to create content for engagement

Check Analytics and Audit

In Conclusion

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Main Elements of a Social Media Video

1. The Social Platform

2. Video Length

How long should Instagram videos be?

3. Video Graphics

4. Video Sound

Final Thoughts

How We Help:

Information:

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The 4 Best Practices of Healthcare Social Media Marketing for 2020

How to Build a Content Calendar (Plus a Free Template)

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1. Focus your content on interesting stories

2. Do a poll asking what type of content people want most

3. Host a Q & A on Facebook or Instagram Live

4. Make sure you have a call to action in every post

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