The Biggest Mistake Content Marketers Make on Social Media
We all know content marketing is a growing industry. But you might be surprised by how quickly it’s growing: 60% of B2B small businesses plan on increasing their content marketing budget over the next 12 months.
But while everyone is excited to jump on the content bandwagon, not everyone invests in a content marketing plan - only 48% of businesses have a defined content strategy.
The attitude towards content marketing seems to be “build it and they will come.” But it’s likely “they” will not come, unless you tell them about it.
An effective content strategy should include targeted social media promotion, so your content gets in front of people who want to see it.
But how, exactly, do you pull off a successful social media campaign for content?
Use paid social
According to experts, “effective social media engagement is no longer free. To guarantee visibility and reach, you’re going to have to pay to play.”
Of course non-paid social media engagement will likely be brands’ bread and butter for a long time, because people use social media to be social with people and brands they care about.
That said, using paid promotion and social advertising can get your content in front of a new, relevant audience, which can be valuable for building brand awareness and getting your content noticed.
Choose your goals
Now you need to define the goals you want to achieve by promoting your content via social.
Your goals could be brand awareness, page views or lead generation, for example. Once you’ve chosen your goals, let them define how you approach promotion.
For example, if you want to achieve greater brand awareness, then you might target users who express interest in your business niche and meet the general age range of your typical customer.
But if your goal is to get in front of potential clients, then you want to target specific people or businesses.
Define your audience
Since paid social promotion targets specific users, you need to define who exactly you want to see your content.
By previously defining your goals, you likely narrowed down your audience as well. Think about the age, gender, interests, affiliations, location, and connections of your ideal audience before you begin promotion.
Once you’ve narrowed down your audience, you should also have more information about which platforms will be most effective for promotion. Keep in mind that not every platform has the same options for targeting.
Use images and effective copy
The headlines and copy you use in a promoted post can make a huge difference in the post’s success - for example tweets with more adverbs and verbs get more click throughs than those with nouns and adjectives.
Do a bit of research to see which types of copy are most effective on the platforms you’re targeting.
You should also try to use relevant and unique images. Facebook post with images get 54% like more like and 104% more comments, while tweets with images get 5x the engagement and 2.5x the retweet rate.
Source: http://www.brandwatch.com