In today’s digital age, social media is at the forefront of most businesses’ marketing plans. Companies use this indispensable tool to connect with their audience, build their brand, and promote their products or services. While that may seem straightforward, developing the content for your social channels may not always be so cut and dry.
To stand out in the ever-expanding sea of social profiles, you need to set some guidelines that will help you craft engaging, relevant, and authentic content that resonates with your target audience.
In this blog post, we’ll explore some essential best practices for writing business social media content.
1. Know Your Audience
Before you begin brainstorming social media content, you should have an in-depth understanding of who your target audience is.
- What does your ideal client look like?
- What are their pain points?
- What questions do you think they may have about your industry?
- What social media platforms will they look for you on?
You likely already have developed an in-depth buyer persona for your business, but if you have not, this is the perfect time to start. Knowing your audience and what they are looking for will help you create content tailored to their needs, specific interests, and concerns.
2. Set Clear Objectives
Now that you understand your audience and what they are looking for, let’s dive into what you want to achieve with your social media content. Some high-level ideas of what you might be looking to accomplish are:
- Increase brand awareness
- Drive traffic to your website
- Generate leads or boost sales
When creating these objectives, ensure that you aim for SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound). SMART goals will allow you to have attainable objectives for your content and give you a tailored direction to take your message.
3. Consistency Is Key
We now have established goals for reaching our target audience and hitting our business objectives. Next, we need to develop a clear brand voice. You will maintain this voice across all social channels—as well as you should remain consistent with the visual look and feel. This consistency provides a sense of familiarity and authenticity to your brand.
Another important part of consistency is sharing posts frequently. You can use platforms such as Sprout Social to schedule your posts. Scheduling content allows you to have regular posting and to build a content calendar that flows with your business—from holidays to sales. You can share timely content in a way that makes the most sense for your company.
4. Easy On The Eyes
Another thing to consider when developing your social media content is what type of posts usually catch your eye. Aim to share posts with visual appeal—either an eye-catching graphic, photo, or video.
Social media is a visual platform, and your profiles should reflect that. At GreenMellen, we suggest using high-quality images of your team or business frequently. We also encourage using graphics to share information about your services or products.
If you do not currently have those assets available, we highly recommend investing the money into a professional photographer who can capture the essence of your business. A picture truly is worth a thousand words.
5. Add Value
The ultimate goal for the content you are posting (or at least one bucket of it) should be adding value. Valuable content can take many different forms consisting of:
- Blog posts
- Podcasts
- Infographics
- Q & As
- Videos
- Sale offers
The main things a consumer looks for when they adventure to your profile—meaning the content you are sharing is intentionally meeting the needs of your audience. This approach not only establishes you as an industry expert but also helps to keep your followers engaged.
6. Encourage Engagement
Speaking of engagement, this is also something your content should be actively pursuing. You will see more traffic to your page when you are producing content that is thought-provoking and encourages people to comment, like, share, etc. Some forms of content you can share to boost engagement are:
- Polls
- Asking questions
- Discussion prompts
Engagement is a two-way street on social media, and you should actively respond to comments and messages to maintain the relationship. By engaging with your audience, you will build a sense of community, trust, and value.
7. Ever Evolving
Similar to the fact that the digital space is ever-evolving, that is also the case with social media trends. And I do not just mean trending hashtags or dances—I mean the platform updates that regularly occur on social media.
For example, when Instagram introduced Reels, it opened the door to a brand new type of content on Instagram. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn are constantly launching new updates, and by exploring those, you may find that one of them helps you to better connect with your target audience. Don’t be afraid to adapt and experiment with these new changes.
8. Test And Test Again
While we are on the topic of experimenting and adapting, you should be testing your content consistently to see what performs best. A few different ways you can test your content performance are:
- Posting at different times
- Posting on different days
- Posting different types of content (eg. evergreen content buckets)
- Posting with different calls to action
By trying out different things, you will identify what works best for your specific audience. Use each time you test something as an opportunity to refine your data until you can nail down a plan of action.
9. Over Analyze
You’ve probably never heard someone say it is a good thing to overanalyze—but social media is the outlier in that equation. Each platform gives you access to detailed data analytics.
When we talk about monitoring trends to see what performs well, those statistics will be easiest to follow along with when using data analytics. For most platforms, you will be able to review these metrics:
- Reach
- Engagement
- Click-through-rate
- Profile followers
Use these metrics to help determine the effectiveness of your social media content. The best kind of improvements to your planning are the data-driven ones!
10. Be Authentically You
You probably saw the word authentic in this blog a few times already (4 times to be exact, if you count that last one). There is a reason for that! In the age of social media, editing, and fake accounts, your business must be authentically yours.
Be genuine and transparent, and show that you are human in your content. A few ways to do that is with team introductions to show the faces behind the brand, behind-the-scenes clips, and share stories about why you do what you do.
When you make your brand approachable and trustworthy, you build a sense of community and continue to expand your audience. Creating a sense of connection for your consumers with your brand.
#ThatsAllFolks
So there you have it—creating social media content for your business requires careful planning and commitment to be successful.
By taking the time to understand your audience, setting clear objectives, maintaining consistency, and ensuring you deliver valuable content, you can create content that encourages engagement and deeply resonates with your audience.
By staying updated with trends, closely monitoring analytics, and being authentically you, you will build a strong and loyal online community. Keep these best practices in mind, and you can unlock the full potential of social media for your business.
Have more questions about social media or want to hand the reins over to an expert in the field?
