How to Create Engaging Social Media Content

Being on social media guarantees a huge audience. According to We are Social, over 3.8 billion people have social media accounts. This kind of massive audience comes with unlimited possibilities. But it is also fraught with problems. 

Chief amongst them is how to tell your story (or your business’s story) and get heard amidst the noise. On Twitter alone, over 600 million tweets are sent daily, according to Internet Live Statistics. What are the odds that your tweets or your company’s tweets would be heard? 

If you’re thinking Facebook is easier, wrong. Every day, over 1500 posts are eligible to appear in a user’s feed. 

The point is, it is an uphill task to get yourself seen by your customers, let alone being able to connect with them. Social media has created a lot of opportunities for interaction, but being recognized is also a key challenge to overcome. 

But if you know what to do, it’s very possible. Here are our CMX Chat tips on how to create engaging social media content. 

Use Hashtags

Hashtags are popular. Hashtags have engagements. Hashtags help to boost your business.

For instance, #mondaymotivation helps you share weekly inspirational quotes, and so on. 

Learning how to use hashtags is also very important. The hashtags you use must be guided by the interests of your target customers. This guarantees engagement with your audience.

Host Contests 

To get your customers moving, there’s nothing like a contest. This is because competition is a drive present in all humans, and you can use this to your advantage when creating social media content. 

Different social media platforms each have their rules for contests, so be sure to follow them. Generally, your contests shouldn’t involve portraying the social media platform as a sponsor. This is highly frowned upon. 

The style of your contest is totally up to you. Get creative with it. A surefire way to get engagements is to encourage the creation of user generated content (UGC). You can do this by giving your customers a theme and have them create UGCs that fit that theme. 

All they have to do then is to tag you to enter the contest.  😊

Post about current events

Doing this shows your audience that you care about the same things they care about. It also helps make your business come across as one with a personality, and not just one interested in taking their money. 

Doing this is very simple. For instance, say a huge event is going on and the anchor makes a joke, you can repost the joke or even get a short video of the moment to repost on your social media pages. 

This will definitely get your customers talking about the event, and also about you!

Tag Influencers that your target market listens to

To get into the hearts and discussions of your target market, it is good sense to show that you respect their top influencers. 

For instance, if you are a brand built around teaching people how to become better at their writing and using it to earn on the web, then Tim Denning is definitely someone you want to reference.  

Use quotes from these influencers in your posts and also tag them for maximum effect. You’ll be surprised at the results.

Use Visual content more often

There is a tendency to think of content as just text. This would be very limiting for your business. Adding a picture or two into your social media content would do wonders for your engagement levels. 

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Scientifically, it’s worth 60,000 words. This is because our brains process images 60,000 times faster than it processes text. 

Use this to your advantage. Write a short and sweet post, then attach a relevant picture to it. You can go one step further by using infographics. 

This helps you combine the key points of your text posts with images, and this will help more of your audience remember the information.

Post content asking for feedback

Social media has made communication with brands easier. Leverage this; show your fans and customers that you value their input in your company by asking for feedback about your services and the overall customer experience. 

You can do this by using polls and surveys. This gives your customers a platform to air their views about your company, and it can help you serve them better. 

Ensure you respond to their questions or observations, and note down recurring suggestions. 

Create content that shows vulnerability

Humans are vulnerable. It’s what we do. So, strip down the business persona and let your customers see the people behind your brand. 

Regularly post behind the scenes photos and company stories to help them understand your company better. This will drive up your engagement levels as your customers will realise there are humans behind the brand that works so tirelessly to serve them.

Use Humor strategically

Laughter is said to be the best medicine. Use it. You don’t have to be very serious all the time, posting content about your business. Sometimes, post a joke or a funny picture. 

It could also be a funny behind the scenes moment at your company or an awkward moment. Anything that will help you create humor should be used, such as asking silly questions, etc. 

This will help you create a closer bond with your customers!

Always share valuable, original content

If content is king, then there are many pretend kings on the internet. A lot of content is just repacked and regurgitated. As a result, valuable and original content is enough to stand you apart from your competitors. 

For each post on your social media content calendar, ensure you do your due diligence with regards to research, always aiming for a new angle on your topics. 

Bottomline

Becoming a brand that is both seen and heard on social media is challenging, but not impossible. However, it becomes nigh on impossible if you have no idea how to handle the creation of your social media posts. 

Here’s the trick; realise that social media platforms are made for connection between humans. So, connect to your customers in a real, human way and watch your engagements soar. 

Following this guide from our writers chat on how to create engaging social media content is a great start.