Content marketing has become an important aspect of the overall marketing strategy.
In fact, no business strategy is complete without a strong content marketing plan. People of the digital era are always on the lookout for information. We don’t buy a product/offer before doing a thorough research. One of the interesting transitions from the customers’ end is that they strongly resist the traditional hard selling approach. This is where content marketing plays a key role!
One of the most important factors of content marketing is reaching out to a diverse audience based on geography, age, interests etc.
But that is easier said than done. Well, the best channel to market your content is through social media marketing. With
However, there are certain practices that will make your social media marketing strategy top-notch.
One such practice is to keep your social media platforms active. It doesn’t mean you have to bombard your followers with content all day long. That will only help to reduce your brand reliability. But disappearing from their feed for a long time will also not help your brand. The right strategy is to ensure that you keep your presence consistent with regular, informative content in order to cement your brand’s image in the audience’s mind.
One of the key challenges here is creating regular new content to engage with the audience. Contrary to what many people believe, content marketing is not at all easy. It takes a lot of time, effort and creativity to create a content that appeals to the audience. So creating a new campaign every day can be challenging. This will also cause content redundancy at some point in time.
The best way to address both the challenges of keeping social media activity and generate content is to repurpose the content.
Statistics show that people who update older posts are 74% more likely to get strong results. So creating a content and leaving it behind forever is not the best of ideas.
Let me explain the concept clearly. Everyone would have that 2 -3 blogs that brought more traffic to your website than all others combined. Finding that one or two blogs is the initial step.
Once we identify the top blogs that have generated more traffic, we can use the below techniques to market them again to the audience; only in a different way this time.
#1. Create snippets from top blogs
This is the most effective and easiest way to get amazing results from social media.
Once you identify your top performing blogs, create small snippets with content that is associated with the blog. It can be one of the following:
- A small infographic of the blog
- A quote from the blog
- A concept from the blog
- A different title that is interesting and catchy
- Interesting statistics
- Client quotes from the blog
From one blog, it is easy to create 20+ snippets with all the above ideas. The next step is to publish this in social media along with the blog link. It is as simple as that yet very effective. This will generate more traffic to your business with minimum effort and also increase your audience reach.
#2. Change the content format
Suppose your blog is of 1000 words. Now some people may not have the time to sit and read 1000 words. Some people simply might not be interested. While we can hope that the former category may come back to read it when their time allows (chances are simply near-zero), we need to find another way to woo the other category. This is where content repurposing comes into play.
You can convert your blog into another format that suits the audience who are not keen on reading 1000 words.
One of the most powerful content format today is video content.
According to this survey, Internet Video Traffic will be over 80% of all consumer internet traffic in the next 4 years. That is a staggering number.
Create a 1 minute or 2-minute video of your blog with interesting visual aesthetics and you will see magnificent results.
#3. Optimize content for each platform
Another important thing is, Social media platform is very different than normal website platform. Also, each social media platform has its own customizations and best practices. So update your content to suit each platform to gain maximum results.
Suppose your business is running 3 major social media platforms: Facebook, LinkedIn Instagram, and Twitter. Let’s see how you can optimize the content to maximize the output:
- Facebook: With nothing such as character restriction, you can even write a short story along with your blog post. Whatever you write, make sure it is not more than 2 paragraphs and also ensure readability by splitting your content into small paragraphs. Adding a relevant image/multiple images will increase the engagement rate as well.
- LinkedIn: LinkedIn is viewed as a professional networking site and hence the language you use for your content should be more professional than other platforms. Keeping it short and simple will prove to be sensible.
- Instagram: There are people who just bombard their description box with hashtags that is difficult to even comprehend. This will not only hinder the desired result but also will tarnish your brand reputation. The message should be simple, understandable with proper hashtags at the proper place.
- Twitter: Since Twitter is one platform that comes with character restriction, it is important to get really precise and crisp with your message. Use no more than 4-5 hashtags. The image will surely boost your engagement rate and also give the link to your blog.
The title plays a key role in catching the readers’ attention and also in the
For example, instead of saying “ 5 ways to reduce hair fall” try using “ This method can reduce hair fall in 5 days” the latter might earn you more engagement because it is talking about how soon you will see results rather than what needs to be done.
You might have already worked on your keyword analysis while creating the blog initially. Now all you need to do is, incorporate them into your social media posts as well. For instance, if your main focus keyword is hair fall remedies, include “hair fall remedies” in the social media post also. You can also use your website’s homepage keywords in the post.
Tagging also plays a crucial role. Needless to say, it is important to have the link to log along with the post. Also, if you can have specific influencers tagged on your posts, their likes and shares will give your post a big boost.
Hashtags are one thing that most people use the wrong way including brands. Hashtags are basically a way to discover similar posts and categorize a post. For example, your brand is a pet care and you want pet owners to discover you, use the most used/searched hashtags like #petcare #petowners etc. What is #petspleasecomeandfindus doing in your description box? You can’t make each word in your description a hashtag because that’s not how it works. You can also use your focus keyword as a hashtag.
Every social media platform has a set of rules and best practices, adhering to which you will be able to reap maximum benefits.
You can also follow various social media marketing trends to keep up with the industry and the competition.
If there is a trend happening about one of your blog posts, leverage it to the maximum extent by including those hashtags. You don’t have to create new content for it. Any blogs that you have written with a similar message could be shared again with slight modifications or new formats. Keep track of the trends and use it to your advantage!
Also having a thorough understanding of the do’s and don’ts of each platform will help you increase your returns. Finding out what appeals the audience, how long they spent time on that particular platform, and what kinds of content are trending in the platform will help you optimize your blog in a similar way.
Conclusion
Content marketing and social media marketing go hand-in-hand. Both complement each other. Good content is essential for your social media to thrive and social media will increase the content’s reach.
Repurposed content can be a great way to drive traffic and increase business through social media. It takes only one-fourth of the time to create a fresh content and produce similar results. However, one should not overdo repurposing as the users might get bored of the same content popping on their news feed every day. Use it wisely and it is guaranteed to give you great benefits.
