7 Sure-Shot Tips to Energize Your Social Media Content Creation

Guest Author - October 5, 2021 - Leave your thoughts.

Social media is all fun and games until you actually begin creating real content – content that drives engagement. A strong social media presence can work wonders for your brand. The foundation towards building a strong brand on social media starts with creating consistently helpful content.

With social media, you have the potential of reaching 4.2 billion users worldwide. Yes, that’s how many people are on these platforms and the number is only growing. Social media marketing is increasingly popular and is almost at par with other digital marketing channels such as email marketing.

So how do you create content that is targeted and packs a punch? It definitely needs time and effort. You probably already have your hands full with other responsibilities and creating social media content may overwhelm you. There are ways to make social media content creation easier and more efficient.

Here are a few tips that will give your social media content and campaigns the boost that they need.

Social media today is all about visual content. The more engaging visual content you create, the more views and shares you are likely to get. According to a survey, 68% of users on social media prefer images over any other kind of content. Videos and images are also found to be the most valuable content to achieve social goals. (Remember, social media safety is also an important issue that users need to be aware of.)

Good visuals should always be aligned with your overall social media strategy and your brand image. Here are a few ways you can create stunning visual content that speaks for your brand.

• Avoid cramming images with too much information and give the elements some space to breathe
• Always stick to your brand guidelines when it comes to choosing color palettes
• Pick font styles and spacing in a way that enhances the image
• Avoid using stock images that are too generic/ commonly used
• Design in a way that the focus doesn't drift away from the subject
• Size your images to the right specifications/ aspect ratios for a given social media platform
• Don't over-edit your images. Make sure there's enough contrast for the image to look striking.

Apart from all these tips, what you need are the right tools to get the job done. Picmaker is an amazing tool with which you can create stunning graphics, blog banners, YouTube thumbnails, Facebook posts, Instagram posts and so much more. You don’t need graphic design or web design and development skills here. All you have to do is pick a suitable template from the library and customize it with your own images and text. You can also choose images from over 100 million high-quality pictures available on the platform.

The Picmaker platform also has a feature named MAD. The MAD button lets you customize with just a single click. It offers AI-powered suggestions on unique colors, fonts, images, and backgrounds that will make your content stand apart.

You also need to know which platforms are best for attracting an audience with your amazing graphics. Instagram, for instance, is an entirely image/ video-driven platform and it is being increasingly used by marketers and influencers to promote their brands today. So that might be a good place to create some eye-catching images for.

The customer support team is also an important criterion when it comes to choosing a platform like this. And Picmaker offers excellent customer support.

For other platforms like Facebook, though, you will need a mix of visual and text-based content.

Design your social media content in a way that just by scanning it, your target audience clicks through to your brand account. That is why every piece of social media content that you create should have a strategy and a clearly defined goal. The content you create for Facebook is not going to have the same impact on Instagram, or vice versa. You need to have a content structure in place for every social media channel you plan to target. Social Media Monitoring tool can be used to find out what types of content your audience likes best. It also lets you know when they are talking about something that is important for business purposes, so it's time well spent.

There are a few things that you might want to keep in mind when creating content for social media.

• Be careful about the length of your content. People on social media are not looking for long posts.
• Include images to draw attention to your content. Text alone can look monotonous and boring.
• Identify what your audience wants to see and make sure your content is relevant.
• Be consistent. Schedule your posts for different channels and create a content calendar to keep track.
• Create content that triggers emotional responses. The more humane and relatable the content is, the more engagement it drives.
• Add appropriate keywords and hashtags wherever appropriate to make your content appear in search results.

Content creation is a time and effort-intensive process that requires diligent planning and constant monitoring. If you are working with a content creation team, it becomes all the more important to ensure that everyone is on the same page. This is where you could really benefit from a content creation and workflow management software, like Narrato.

Narrato is a content creation and collaboration platform that lets you create, manage and collaborate on content projects. You can create and store all types of content on the platform from social media content to blog posts, video scripts, eBooks and more. You can even create specific templates for different content types to share clear content creation instructions and get structured content input. For instance, you can have a unified social content template and set different word or character limits for your Twitter and Facebook posts.

Narrato also makes it a breeze to manage your content and team with workflow automation options and content planning features like content calendar. You can assign tasks to team members and allow them to collaborate on the social content. For example - you can assign the same content task to the writer and graphics specialist, and they can work together on creating content. There is also a free image search tool that can help you find stock images relevant to your content.

When you are creating promotional, sales enablement, or some insightful content for social media, focus only on the positives.

Whether your business is about email lead generation software or eCommerce, you can share news and statistics from your industry that show your brand in a better light. For instance, Instagram recently announced that users can now upload 60-second videos on Reels. Now, if you are promoting a video-making app, this could be a great news item to share with your target audience and also promote what you are offering alongside it. You could make a short video sharing the news and add how users can make 60-sec videos for Instagram with your app.

Even when you are not promoting your brand, just share things that are feel-good. People come to social media to consume content that's not only useful and educational but also has a fun, surprise element to it.

For example, if you are a career counselor you can share a brief story of someone who built a career from scratch and how everyone can do it with a little help. Or as a fitness trainer, you can share stats on how many of your clients have achieved their target weight in the past three months. In other words, share stories and facts that give your audience hope.

Positive news or stories reinforce people’s trust in your brand.

User-generated content helps increase the volume of your overall content. It is content that your customers or followers have created. It could be a review of your product or an unboxing video or images of something they have created with your help. Such content can have a better impact on your audience as they see a fellow buyer share vital information. It builds trust and connects better with your audience.

User-generated content can help increase your audience's level of trust in your brand. The audience may not always be ready to accept what you have to say about your brand, but when a user has good things to say about you, it feels more authentic.

So you could ask your users to create content that you can share. You could ask them to write a quick review or take a picture of how they are using your product. If you are promoting organic beauty products brand on social media, for instance, you could ask some of your users to share a “before-and-after” picture. By sharing these pictures on your social media accounts, you can actually show your audience how your customers have benefited from using your products.

Positive reviews influence people’s purchase decisions or their impression of a brand. 92% of customers trust peer recommendations when making a purchase. So you have all the more reason to share user-generated content often.

Stay abreast of the latest social media trends.

To stay on top of social media trends, you have to be actively involved on the platforms you wish to work on. Follow your competitors or other social accounts that share similar content as yours. Look at comments, captions, hashtags, and more. It tells you what people are talking about.

Platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok are the places where trends catch on really quick. Spending some time on these platforms could give you valuable insight.

Apart from social media trends, platforms also keep introducing new features and functionalities frequently. To be able to make the best use of these new features, you have to stay updated. There are several ways you can keep up with social media news and updates. There are social media news sites like Mashable and Social Media Examiner. There are also some popular social media news channels on YouTube, such as Social Media Agency and Ignite. Following these news sites and channels will help you stay informed.

Another thing that social media users truly appreciate these days, is brands understanding their social responsibility and standing up for social causes. In the past few years, we have seen several campaigns that fought social injustice and inequity. From the Black Lives Matter campaign to the Pride Month campaigns to the #MeToo movement, even the most popular brands have ensured that they show solidarity with the people.

Sharing an example from Destination British Columbia’s Instagram account here. Their Instagram page, hellobc, started a campaign #exploreBClater during the Covid-19 pandemic last year. The page promotes tourism in British Columbia and normally uses the hashtag #exploreBC. But to create awareness about the pandemic and to encourage them to stay home and stay safe, they tweaked their usual campaign a little to make a big impact.

Following their footsteps, many other Instagram users also joined the campaign sharing their old travel photos from BC with the hashtag #exploreBClater. This is a perfect example of how a brand can fulfill its social responsibility simply through social media content.

Whenever you are creating content, irrespective of the platform, it is extremely important to provide value for your audience. Even in the case of social media content, your content has to be valuable (better if actionable). Yes, you are there to promote your brand or products. But your brand will gain more credibility when you start sharing valuable content.

Your audience certainly is searching for answers and solutions to their pain points.

Go through the comments on your posts as well as on posts shared by your competitors. Look at product reviews shared by users and find out what everyone is talking about. If you can find some relevant, genuine questions worth answering, you could create social media content around those topics. Create infographics that share step-by-step instructions or create a how-to video.

Source: American Heart Association

Take this infographic created by the American Heart Association, for example. This directly targets questions that their audience may have about cardiovascular health and home workouts to maintain a healthy heart, without any equipment. This clear and concise infographic could very well serve as a social media post on its own.

Picmaker has several templates that you can use to create knowledge-sharing content.

Bonus tip - Drive engagement by participating in conversations

Just posting content on social media and waiting for your business or brand to take off may not get you results. No matter how good or valuable your content may be, it might get crowded out by the deluge of information being shared every second on social media. You need to make sure that you don’t just create high-quality social media content but also interact with your audience.

Interacting with your audience through comments or direct messages helps build a connection with your brand. Being responsive on social media adds a more personal touch to the content that you post. Responding with genuine and unique responses, and not just a standard response to every comment, will help build your audience’s trust in your brand.

Social media gives your brand the power to reach out and connect with millions of users worldwide. A well-planned and streamlined social media content creation strategy can make this process a lot easier. Try out new media, experiment with your content, and use the right tools to maximize the impact of your content. Grow your social media presence with these tips and you will see your content delivering results.

Author bio:

Neelam Goswami is a Content Writer at Godot Media, a leading content writing services agency. Her areas of interest include digital and content marketing. She is also an amateur artist and loves to spend time on creative work.