Facebook
"Likes," Google + 1 ups, Twitter followers are only worthwhile when
they yield engagement. The initial engagement involves you and your immediate
readers, people you make contact with or who make contact with you. But the real
impact of social media is the multiplier effect. That is, when your readers
take your content and shares it with their friends, followers and connections. The
real trick, as heavy-hitters like TechCrunch and Mashable very well know, is
creating content that is so valuable, accessible and enjoyable that your
readers choose to re-post it and share it across various mediums and
platforms.
While many marketing types view content curation as the practice of packaging a broad range of issue-specific content, organic reader-driven, content
curation is often more valuable.
Know your audience:
The starting point of all communications is to think about the people who will
read it. What are their interests? What does the majority of your audience have
in common? What type of content, in what form, and on what channel would they
find most useful? If you were them, what content would you choose to share with
your network? Why? What do they want to achieve?
Content. Content. And Content.
As everyone
keeps telling you, content marketing is the next big thing or the next better
thing. But too often content is immediately generated around what you
want your readers to buy or do as opposed to fresh, accessible content they
want to consume, know, or understand better.
I am not saying that a direct
call-to-action is not an appropriate element of your overall content strategy,
but it will be ignored and may alienate your reader if
it is not accompanied by value-driven content. First ask, what is your
objective? Do you want to sell a product or build a
relationship? If your answer is the former, then ask who would you be more likely to make a purchase from? A stranger or someone you
trust and who understands your needs?
Timing.
Automation
is a great tool, but you can’t rely entirely upon
them. Not only does it make real-time engagement more difficult, it prevents you from capitalizing on the organic ebb and flow of various channels.
Do you know the peak hours for Pinterest users? Is that the
same as Twitter? Do people log in more frequently to Facebook on the weekend or
through the work week, after hours or during work hours? And for what purpose?
Most people use Facebook during
the week and often times after work with Thursday being the peak day of the
week. But the same is not the case for Twitter. And the truth is
they are often less interested in branded messaging during those times but more
likely to respond to geographically-specific display ads. Think for a second,
it is Thursday evening and you are considering going out for a meal, and a Groupon
deal to a local restaurant is on the side of the screen, are you more likely to
click on it? But let’s say you are considering purchasing a car, wouldn’t you
be more likely to peruse a digital showroom on the weekend? Or what about a
home improvement project?
Timing is critical in the digital space as we are trying to
create relationships and connections at the right time, and not simply
contribute to the white noise that pervades far too many consumer
experiences.
Headlines that pop.
Generally
speaking 8 out of 10 will read the headline while only 2 out of 10 will fully
read the first paragraph. While a good Twitter headline differs from a good
headline on a website or social bookmarking site, there are some general rules.
- Be simple and direct.
- Clever is good but only when it is appropriate.
- Use puns with caution.
- Use the active voice at all times.
- Try to include keywords that work well with Search Engines.
- Don’t get weighted down with numbers.
- Don’t capitalize every word.
- And try not to use colons and semicolons as they are notoriously unreliably translated on social bookmarking sites.
Consider the channel.
Quite simply, social media channels
are the same in a very broad way – they are virtual town halls in some
respects, but they are different in very specific ways. They are only useful
when you understand that. For instance, Pinterest is almost entirely visual
where Twitter until recently was entirely character-driven…
