Online content, whether posted on a website, a blog, or a social media platform, has unlimited potential for your brand. The power of social media platforms in particular is twofold:
- First, paid promotion can put your content in front of highly targeted demographics, allowing you to accurately track and measure ROI.
- Second, organic social media marketing can provide a different type of ROI, increasing our brands visibility, and providing the opportunity for customer interaction.
When consumers interact with and share content you’ve created, they become your advocates online, serving as a digital word of mouth that indirectly promotes you. Creating and posting highly shareable content can provide you with a wider, more natural reach than paid advertising alone.
Each post should be carefully curated or designed to appeal to your ideal customer, and launched with a call to action to kickstart conversation and sharing. Before posting content to social media or your blog, ask yourself:
Is this Content Relevant?
Your audience craves content that they can relate to, that they can click on to share and add a simple “This is me” or “So true!” comment to in the space of a few seconds. Content that is relevant to your audience will be easy to identify with, whether it is designed to commiserate with a certain type of feeling, provide a solution to a common problem, or inspire them.
Is there a Call to Action?
Even the best content can miss out on a share if the user doesn’t think about clicking that button. Don’t forget to encourage your viewers to share your content. Remind them to “Tag a friend this applies to!” or ask “How many of your friends can relate?”
Is the Content Right for the Platform?
Visual content works best for engagement, but posting an image that works well on Facebook doesn’t mean it will work as well on Instagram or twitter. Adapt your content to make it platform friendly, and don’t forget to follow best practices for image sizing or video length.
Is the Content Original?
While it’s easy to simply share a popular, trending meme, you can boost engagement and avoid boring your audience by adapting a popular topic to drive home a new point. Making shareable content requires being able to innovate and be creative, not just pass on whatever is the latest meme making the rounds.
When your audience is able to both recognizes and relate to your online posts, they’ll be swift to share your content to their own feeds. An active online presence not only can raise brand visibility, but can directly impact customer retention, leading to higher customer lifetime values. It’s a type of ROI that is trickier to measure, but is not any less important for your organization.