When it comes to marketing your brand or your product, content plays the most crucial role. You need to have effective and involving content strategy for your product to get the attention it needs. With the growth in technology and the popularity of internet among the people of all age groups, social media has become one of the easiest ways to reach out to people. The biggest of brands advertise and market their product on social media platforms. The radical devotion of the masses to the digital services and social platforms aids in influencing their decisions about products of different brands.

Relevant, effective and good quality content should be the epicentre of any content strategy especially when it comes to social media. The ease of access and connectivity does make it easier to market your product on a social platform. But unless the content you use to market your brand doesn’t stand out there are minimal chances that it will get the required attention. There are way too many distractions and better content marketing strategies of lesser known brands that attract more public attention. The content of great quality reflects your brand and people identify your brand with it. Good quality content gives the customers a reason to be engaged and be loyal to your brand.

Considering the important of a good content strategy for social media platforms and campaigns you need to develop a framework for it. Planning helps in figuring out what to say and when to say it. It prevents you from falling into the trap of leaving your audience confused, and more often than not you end up losing them.

People seek their favourite brands on social media. They like, follow and share it on their social profiles to be updated about the latest developments, launches and discounts. Why are they attracted to that particular brand? Probably because it knows how to develop the appeal it needs to attract them, and one of the most successful ways of doing that is sharing great content about their brand on social platforms. Effective content marketing is one of the main reasons why they are more likely to spend money on buying something of that brand. Your brand might be much better than the ones that people usually choose over yours, but one of the reasons why you lag behind while they move ahead is a lack of effective content strategy on social media.

Good content strategy for social media will help you in establishing a good brand image, better brand results and strengthening your relationship with your audience. Here are a few tips to create an effective social media content strategy.

1. Know Your Voice

On social media, the only way for your to reach out to people is through what you say. They correlate each and every word you say with what brand you represent. Therefore, it is necessary to calculate your words and speak what represents your brand in the best manner possible. Everything you say must sound like the brand you are there to market.

Taking the example of Skittles, it puts up statuses on Facebook about how it is “Building a shipyard for its gravy boats” and “Putting last touches on a new Skittles flavour”. These status updates get more than 1,000 likes and comments.

“Skittles” is a brand of fruit-flavoured chewy candies. If we analyse the reason for the success of these updates, then we’ll get to know that the writing is in resonance with the brand: Colourful, exciting and playful. These regular updates make you want to look forward to the next one. No wonder the brand is such a success!

2. Know the right time

If you misjudge the aptness of time to say what you think you must say, you miss a great opportunity. Knowing what to say and when to say it is a major part of the content strategy for social media. You have to be sure about the relevance of content to where people live and the season too. If you talk about Santa Claus in the month of January, people couldn’t care less but there are many who have their eyes set on post-Christmas sales.

If you are aiming for Christmas, then make sure you don’t just wish your audience but also let them know what you have in store for them during this special holiday season. It can be a shopping bonanza or a discount for a limited period. At least, smart brands like the Banana Republic do it.

3. Know Your Audience

You market your product on social platforms and get likes and followers in return that is a good thing right? But why do they like or follow you? Because you are giving them something, they want or like. Thus, it becomes your responsibility to deliver your promises. It is therefore very important to know what kind of audience you are there to attract. If you say your product is for them, then make sure you deliver it to them.

Taking the example of SKYY Vodka, it used Twitter to tell its audience in the most friendly, fun and interactive way that it had created the ultimate Bloody Mary for all its vegan drinkers. And because it said what it delivered it got the responses it expected.

Another brand Grey Goose updates regular posts on Facebook, but they aren’t as appealing because they are like a dictation. Instead of talking “to the audience” it just talks “at them.” Maybe that’s the reason it doesn’t get the likes and comments one would expect.

One thing to remember while creating your strategy is to tell the audience how your services will be important or useful for them. Make sure your content helps the audience in relating your service, product or brand with their day to day lives.

SingTel is a Singapore-based telecommunication company. To represent its relation to the everyday lives of its customers, it teamed together with Gordon Ramsay, a celebrity chef to create videos that featured local chefs and Gordon Ramsay cooking food of the local cuisine. It celebrated the local culture of Singapore, and the strategy was a great way to attract more customers.

4. Offer Solutions

One of the greatest advantages of social media platforms is the easiness with which you can interact with your audience. Direct interaction with their favourite brands earns a lot of loyalty points from them. The audience knows that they are buying something from your brand, if an issue occurs you will be there to sort it out. After sales services and the policy of a brand to offer solutions and solve their customers’ problems prevent them from switching to brands that do not have direct interaction with their customers.

If you cannot discuss the problems on a social platform on an individual basis, you can at least direct the customer about what to do and where to go next. You can give tools to them so that they can sort out the problems themselves. This practice helps in building strong customer relationships and gaining their trust and loyalty.

5. Boost Your Content

If you have effective content to support your cause but it is failing to get the attention it should then you should consider boosting it. You can do this by choosing paid promotion of your best content. It is a brilliant way to reach out to the audience and serve them the best of what you have in store for them. Paid promotion is always a great propeller in increasing your sales and your audience market. It helps you earn a lot of likes and followers on social platforms, and more of that means more popularity.

If you have a new product that you need to launch, then you can convert the most interesting facts and features about it into pictures and posts for discussion, that is also a great way to get publicity. Always remember that visual aspect of content strategy is the best way to attract more and more people, unlike posts or updates that only have text. If you have no pictures, then make sure the content speaks for itself.

6. Honesty is ALWAYS the best policy

When you are launching your product on a social platform, you are marketing it through your words. To create an effective content strategy for social campaigns doesn’t imply that you should lie just to make the content look good and attractive. The audience might take you at your words for the first time, but you can’t fool them twice.

Creating good content is all about realising the intent of your brand. Keep it simple and honest. If it’s good even simple content, garner a lot of attention. It’s the personality and the point of view that engages the audience.

Pretending your brand or product is something that it’s not will only take you so far. You will lose the little customer base that you have.

As long as the content strategy you create revolves around something that is fun, imaginative and honest you can be sure of getting the success you seek. Only when people lie for the brand for its honesty of delivering what it promises then they suggest it to their social circle of friends and family. And that is precisely the mark of a successful content strategy on a social platform.

In this world that is subject to changes especially when it comes to the social media environment, content strategies for social media are here to stay. It is, therefore, essential to think of creative and out of the box content strategies to be a successful and stand out in an ever increasing crowd.

Still not sure how to do it? Why not get in touch?