Having a good content strategy is a vital key to any successful social media strategy. You may be connecting with the right people in the right places with the right message, but if you don’t have content they’re interested in, you’ll eventually fail (at least in engagement). No one communicates in a positive way with brands on social media just because they’re there. Nor do people care about your marketing messaging. They want to know what’s in it for them, and that’s usually great content.
Channel
What content works depends on the channel as well as the audience. What works on Facebook may not work on Twitter. If you use YouTube for video, how does that fit in with your other channels? What content are you going to provide on each of your channels and how does it all fit together? How can you re-use and distribute content without being too repetitive? Many of your customers may be connected to you in more than one place so you need to respect their needs as much as people who are only connected in one place.
Content Mix
Content that an audience wants to receive is not the same as content that might make them want to engage or have a conversation. Providing useful information may increase your readership but not your engagement. Having contests and using user generated content may increase your engagement but put off people who are looking for information and expertise. What content types to use will depend on your particular audience, your brand image, and the channel.
Language
Just because you use certain terms doesn’t mean that your audience uses the same terms. Most industries have acronyms and other technical terms that are used by professionals but may not be used by customers. To see what words and phrases your customers use, check out Google Analytics in your keywords report. Also try keyword analysis tools like Keyword Discovery or WordTracker or in Google Adwords.
More Info
Social Media Explorer has a nice article today that goes into more depth on these concepts and as well as how to implement a content strategy.
What’s your content strategy?
(image by austinevan)