Social media posts form an integral part of a larger content marketing strategy and have one clear goal: to engage your audience without dropping the ball. As a brand, this means you have to create engaging content consistently – a task that even the best content marketing strategist will tell you is easier said than done.
Even with newer, feature-rich content marketing tools and platforms at your disposal, it can be a challenge to create content that is evergreen. To steer clear of the social media marketing version of a creative block, having a backup plan in place is essential. To help you with just this, here are 10 types of social media posts you can rely on in a pinch.
Publish bite-sized videos
Statistics prove that video is the key to content marketing. A video not only enjoys an incredibly high engagement rate, but is also a format that around 87% of marketing professionals lead with. In fact, a report by Optinmonster found that video marketers got 66% more qualified leads and achieved a 54% hike in brand awareness. So, if video isn’t a part of your content strategy already, invest in it. If you’re wondering how to create content for a video when you’re out of fresh ideas or facing a resource crunch, the answer is simple: repurpose older content.
Turn older content formats, such as infographics, a podcast, or a case study, into bite-sized videos. Snackable videos are enjoyable and serve as a welcome change for your target audience, while helping you continue to reap the benefits of content marketing. With the tools available online, creating and publishing short videos requires minimal effort and commitment.
Share UGC content
Content that attracts, engages and converts doesn’t always have to come from within the brand. Create interesting posts by seeing what your followers, customers and users have to say! Promoting user-generated content (UGC) is one the most important content marketing tips as it has the benefit of showing your audience that you listen and care about what they think. Moreover, UGC content can also work as testimonials, giving credibility to your presence within the industry.
Co-market with other brands
An exciting way to keep your audiences hooked to your brand’s social media feed is to co-market with other brands in the industry. Popular formats include webinars or promotions, which can offer immense value to consumers while being different from regular posts. For instance, a hat tip to another brand that meets your company values is a great way to create goodwill, both from your followers and the brand you mention. This can also give rise to other opportunities where cross-marketing is possible, and thus is an important part of a well-defined content marketing plan.
Run competitions
Contests and giveaways are incredible ways to boost engagement and interaction among your audiences, and are essential for effective inbound marketing. They allow you to offer value and can result in big gains. In fact, in a study conducted by Tailwind, over 90% of Instagram posts with over 1,000 comments were related to such competitions. Sweetening the pot is the fact that such posts don’t require much. All you have to do is highlight the product or service you wish to offer as a prize, state the terms and conditions, and set a deadline. FOMO takes care of the rest!
Take your audiences behind the scenes
BTS posts serve as a quick solution for engaging and fun content as they give audiences a fresh perspective into what your brand is all about. You can use such a post to highlight your team, share your origin story, showcase your workshop as well as other meaningful experiences to make your brand relatable. Some brands are even known to design entire BTS campaigns as part of promotional content.
Go live
Social media has now evolved to deliver an experience that puts audiences in direct contact with brands. Live video and its popularity is a testament to this trend. It is relatively easy to execute, being as simple as pushing a button. In fact, social media platforms like Instagram take it one step further and notify your audiences instantly when your brand is hosting live content. This translates into instant engagement and views, which can help you get messages across easily, and in a more interactive manner. Some brands even use live video to make announcements and set the stage for new releases or promotions. Add this to your content marketing mix to shake things up!
Engage and connect with audiences via AMAs
Better known as an ‘Ask Me Anything’ post, this content format works wonders for brands that have a well-known personality who endorses it or runs the brand. Giving audiences a chance to be interviewers, this can be a great way to interact first-hand with your customers and offer value to them. AMAs are popular on platforms like Twitter, Quora, and Reddit, as most of these platforms have a unique comment system that supports conversation and shareability.
Take part in a social media takeover
Another form of co-marketing, a social media takeover involves giving full access to another creative in the industry for a short time. During such a period, audiences experience your brand through a different lens. It is one of the easiest ways to inject a fresh dose of content into your feed and should be a part of your overall social media marketing strategy. Picking experts in your industry while doing this ensures that you cater to the right demographic and gain exposure effectively.
Make the most of the trending meme format
Memes are a good way to create shareable content, but the format isn’t something every brand can adopt. It is typically reserved for contemporary brands with a demographic that understands these references with ease. If your brand meets this requirement, using memes to get a message across makes for good use of resources. Trendy memes are also easy to produce as they follow a set visual format.
Ask audiences to tag-a-friend
A sure-fire to get engagement when you post something new is to have your audiences interact with your content. Among the common approaches is the ‘tag a friend’ post and many brands tie in rewards as added incentives. Use this to your advantage and proactively involve audiences to increase your digital reach.
From this list, it’s clear that there are quite a few types of social media posts that you can turn to at a moment’s notice. What’s more, they are intrinsically engaging with many requiring your audiences to participate as well. While this equates to instant results, you need a comprehensive social media marketing strategy to make progress and measure it over the long term. Here, brand image, voice, and style come into play and it often takes an expert approach to execute such a content marketing plan successfully.
At Edisol, we create tailored content that can boost your social media marketing efforts by focusing on the audience’s experience. Rather than just another content marketing agency, the brands we work with consider us a part of their larger team. To grow your business and create consistent content, get in touch with us today!
