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THE TOP 12 TYPES OF SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT TO CREATE - Coggle Diagram
THE TOP 12 TYPES OF SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT TO CREATE
Written posts, blogs, articles, guides, and more
How to produce: Look at trending searches. This will give you insight into the questions people want answers to, which can spark ideas about what to write.
Best platforms: Linkedln and Facebook are perfect for these types of content, especially when it comes to articles that are 1,500 words or longer. Twitter is also a great bet, but the limited character count , you can only include a link and small quote, which can drive traffic to your website.
Disadvantages: There is a lot of blog content, so competition is thick and need a lot of creativity to create new topic ideas. Writing also takes a lot of time to generate content ideas, especially if you're explaining complicated concepts.
Pro Tip: Your content calendar is a framework for the ongoing story you wan to tell about your business and what content to share.
Advantages: These articles demonstrate your company's expertise, which can help build your credibility and reputation.
Electronic books (eBooks)
Disadvantages: Not everyone wants to read the whole eBook, and they take a lot of time to produce and find content that will appeal to your target audience. While they can help generate lads, people don't always actually read them.
How to produce: An eBook is basically several blog posts compiled together as chapters from the same category. You'll want to choose your best content or even hire a professional writer with experience writing eBooks.
Advantages: An eBook tends to be longer and more detailed than blog posts, which helps showcase your industry expertise.
Best platforms: User come to Linkedln to connect with colleagues and learn relevant information about their job or other interest, which makes it an ideal network to share an eBook. Facebook and Twitter are secondary options.
Links to external content
Disadvantages: When you link to content that you haven't created, you're effectively opening a door to another business's social media experience. Readers may even find the other source more informative than your page. Content curation is good digital marketing strategy to use on social networks, but it also time consuming. It is important to check your social analytics to be sure that curated content is engaging and effective, and not to stop your own content creation process.
How to create: Research different blogs using keywords similar to those on your website. Keywords are words or phrases commonly searched on the internet. Make sure to read every post and click around on the website, too. This will ensure you don't share an article on social media accounts from a site that could negatively represent your brand's views.
Best platforms: Linkedln and Facebook are great marketing tools for any type of written content, even if it's just links to the content. Twitter is a secondary option.
Advantages: If you don't have time to finish a blog post or your writer is on vacation , you can always link to relevant articles, resources, and websites from other sources that you trust. Industry leaders are also excellent resources for content.
Images: Good images or video definitely increase engagement, and they endear your brand to customers. They can also keep customers from quickly swiping past your post and missing your message.
Disadvantage: Image-focused platforms like Instagram have a lot of competition. If you want quality beyond a smartphone's capabilities, a professional camera and editing software can cost a lot and be very time consuming to use.
How to produce: Pictures and images are some of the easiest content to create. It's as simple as grabbing your smartphone or camera and snapping a picture.
Advantages: Visuals content is much more digestible and engaging than long-form blogs and articles. Smartphone cameras are sophisticated enough to take stunning pictures, and apps help you quickly edit them, add filters to them, and more.
Best platforms: Images work well on every platform, but Instagram and Pinterest are by far the best networks for pictures. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Snapchat are image to a blog post can also help improve engagement and clicks.
A few tops for image posting on social media:
Get Stellar art for your social media campaigns, Avoid images with too much copy on them, Use more photos with faces in them.
Videos: With the advent of smartphone cameras, it's never been easier to hit record. Facebook's algorithm prioritizes it, and it can be a fun way to show off your wares. Plus, as livestreaming has hit the mainstream, consumer expectations for social video has shifted. Videos that feel rougher around the edges can feel more native to social platforms. Give it a shot and include them in your content strategies!
Disadvantages: It's inexpensive to make quick videos, but costs escalate if you want a high production level.
How to produce: Similar to images, video production has a range of difficulty. Where you decided to land on that spectrum will dedicate whether you need specialized skills and equipment.
Advantages: Capturing videos is easy and convenient and they're more engaging than pictures. How-to guides, video tours, and product updates an demonstrations all make for great video content that can both drive traffic to your website and increase sales.
Best platforms: YouTube is the king of video content, but videos also perform well on Facebook. For shorter videos, Instagram is the best option, even above YouTube.
Video Stories
Disadvantages: The fear of missing out can be powerful motivator, but their short life expectancy also means that some users might not engage with them.
How to produce: The option produce image or video stories is in each social media network's app. High-quality productions is not needed, making them easy for any business to create.
Advantages: Stories are images and short videos that last 24 hours before disappearing for good. They're available on Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat. Keep users updated about events, offers, r other announcements or give them a behind the scenes glimpse of your business. The possibilities are truly endless!
Best platforms: Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat have popularized this content type and remain the best options.
Live Videos
How to produce: Like stories, social media platforms that support live content make the option readily accessible and convenient to users. They'll show a preview of what your audience will see, which gives you the opportunity to make sure everything looks good before you go live.
Best platforms: Facebook Live is the most popular livestreaming social media network. Smaller platforms like Periscope are also viable, but it may be harder to draw as large of an audience.
Disadvantages: First you need something to stream, such as an event. Then you need someone to operate the smartphone or other device and talk. The WIFI connection is also important. If your connection is bad, the video ay need to repeatedly stop and buffer, which can result in poor quality.
Pro tips: If you've worked hard to create great images or video for your social media posts, make sure they look good on mobile devices. Almost 3/4 of the global population uses mobile phone, and nearly 80% of time on social media is spent on a mobile device.
Advantages: Live videos are a great medium to bring events to audience that aren't physically able to attend. Unlike stories, which are gone after 34 hours, you can still watch livestreams later.
Stay inspired: Keep a list of brands or organizations whose social media imagery you love, and check in with them from time to time for more content ideas.
Infographics
Disadvantages: Creating infographics requires both copy and graphics, which means you may need multiple people working together to create them. They also require a fair amount of creativity and research.
How to produce: First you need to create an outline for your infographic. Once the outline is done, your writer and graphic designer can begin creating the individual parts and piecing them together.
Advantages: Infographics use visuals to support explanations, statistics, and other written concepts. They are especially impactful for conveying complex ideas.
Best platforms: Facebooks and LinkedIn are both excellent options for infographics. Twitter is an alternative choice.
Testimonials and views
Disadvantages: Encouraging customers to offer their testimonials isn't always easy. Also, this is the only content type that isn't really in your control. With reviews, there's no guarantee that they'll be positive.
How to produce: Contact past customers and ask if they'll offer up a testimonial. It's bad practice to incentivize people to review your business, however, as this can come across as dishonest and review sites like Yelp may punish you for it.
Advantages: People trust the opinions and experiences of other more than what a business says, which is why testimonials and reviews are so valuable.
Best platforms: Testimonial and reviews work well on Facebook and LinkedIn. Facebook even has built-in star ratings on business pages.
Announcements
Disadvantages: Carefully plan out the length of time that's appropriate to begin building buzz. Launch the announcement too early and you might not gain any traction.
How to produce: It's often best to trickle out information slowly. Think of announcements as a bunch of little teases leading up to big news.
Advantages: Getting the word out about new product, events, livestreams, and other noteworthy things can help build hype and alert people about what's happening with your business. Audiences love having the inside scoop on their favorite stores and brands!
Best platforms: Announcements can be made on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and even through social messaging through social media tools as long as you adhere to the best practices of that network.
Contests
Advantages: Because people like to win, social media contests are engaging and fun to host.
Disadvantages: You need a prize, which costs money. And if the process to enter participation may be low.
Advantages: Because people like to win, social media contests are engaging and fun to host.
How to produce: Think of a prize that your audience will be interested in winning. Ideally, this will be related to your business, but this isn't mandatory. Then create will run as well as rules for entering.
Best platforms: Contests can really be run on any social media platforms, but don't overdo it on more professional platforms like LinkedIn.
Holidays
Disadvantages: There are only so many holidays in the year, and major ones like Christmas create lots of competition because many other small business create festive content, too.
How to produce: Think about how you can use the holiday to enhance your content. What questions does your audience have around this time, and how can your content solve those challenges?
Advantages: Many users love holiday-themed content, and it's easy for business like yours to piggyback on themes, traditions, and other holiday specific concepts.
Best platforms: Any social media network can host a little holiday cheer.