Before we begin the Content Creation & Planning guide I want you to understand that this isn't going to work for you if you think this is a short term or quick fix strategy. It's simply not. With anything worth doing its about putting the work in and setting goals for the long term.
Ability: Beginner
You'll need to understand before we begin that the long term plan is to be consistent with social and content throughout your whole business lifetime not just the next 90 days. There is no silver bullet. You need to build and nurture your audience.
It's also important to note that when creating content it's very easy to share offers, promotions and sell - don't do this... The best marketing doesn't feel like marketing, it feels like great content that the audience is consuming for free.
If you are always selling on social media people will soon get turned off and stop enjoying the experience and switch you off i.e unfollow or stop engaging.
The key to getting consistent with your posting strategy is to use a content planning tool that helps you to schedule content digitally to your social media channels. Our team prefer ContentCal for its ease of use and AgoraPulse for its advanced features.
I say a content calendar is your best friend! That's because a calendar get's you organised and you know what's happening and when.
So how do you come up with a never ending stream of content ideas? Because, let's face it, we intend to post everyday but ideas do run out. Things are also changing daily so tactics that worked last year won't necessarily this.
The first action point is to do some research.
Research: Ask yourself these questions...
What content do my audience / community want to see?
What content is your audience hungry for?
How do I solve their problems or relate to them?
Tip: Look outside your own industry for inspiration
The second point is to profile your customer.
Understanding your customer types is really important because these are the people you are talking to. What problems to they have? What content do they like? What do they enjoy? What age, race, sex and more are they? Build a picture of every possible customer, this will help with almost every element of your marketing strategy.
Tools:
A great tool for researching questions that your customers are asking is:
You are able to make a list of questions from this research and answer them via blogs, articles of video!
Planning Content Around Awareness Days & Special Events.
Recommended resources:
- Twitter Marketing Calendar
- Days of the year
- Promo by Slidely
- Create and Plan Group
- The Social Media Planner
Look out for # associated with these events. & Join the conversation.
When you have some ideas for content, make a shortlist for content you will create and the potential dates you will share them - The Social Media Planner is a great and guided place to do this.
What type of content could we create?
Tip: Think like a creator or publisher.
Not selling.. Proving value, education or entertainment, solving a problem. Thinking long term and putting the customer at the centre of your conversation.
What types of content can you create? Here's a few and then when you get into the individual networks you can even more types of content because Instagram stories have amazing features as do facebook group posts and more:
Video
Live stream
Stories
Whitepaper
Blog
Graphic
Gif & Giphy channel
Animation
Text Update
Podcast / Audio
One way to maximise your content is use a blog or video and from 1 great idea create multiple social media content assets.
An example:
1 Video
5 image Stills for social
2 Gifs
Blog with video embedded
Shared text updates
Live Video
IGTV
Story
See how you can make one quality piece of content and make many more from it?
Tools for creating social media content
Giphy - Gif Creator
Canva
Adobe Spark
Bitsmash
Wordswag
iMovie
Ripple
Biteable
THIS LIST COULD GET LONG! Do look in the app store or Google to find the most suitable for you.
'To ensure optimal posting times: testing is your other best friend!'
Creating and starting conversations.
Instead of just being a bystander or just posting content, start talking to people and building relationships on social media, you could:
- Comment on trending and relevant posts.
- Join Twitter Chats.
- Ask your audience.
How to measure the effectiveness of your content.
This is why setting a goal at at the outset is so important: Success is based upon reaching the goal you set.- For some it's sales for others research.
- Reach
- Brand Awareness
- Engagement
- Clicks
- Sales
- Follower Growth
- Increase website traffic
- Social Media Mentions
- User generated content
- Leads
- Shared
- Conversions
- Increase subscribers
Tools for tracking and measuring social media content effectiveness
Many scheduling tools have analytics built in which makes it easy to pull off reports about Reach, clicks, shares and so on here are few to look at.
- Google Analytics
- Facebook Pixel (great for tracking and funnels)
- Buzz Sumo (tracking web content shares)
- ShareIQ (Visual content tracking and performance)
- Meltwater Social Media Monitoring
- So many tools!
Hopefully this short guide will help you to fill the gaps! When you have your content plan filled up, schedule out via your fave scheduling tool! Good luck and remember.. a morning well spent, brings a week of content!
