ow much time do you spend to prepare the content you intend to publish on social media? And to design nice graphics? These are two very important questions you probably ask yourself a lot if you work in marketing. Why? Because nowadays only attractive content can really make a difference for your audience. Usually, the post “lives” about 2 hours (it means that for 2 hours it is shown to the right group of recipients, later it’s “covered up” by other content displayed in their newsfeeds). That’s why it’s worth asking yourself: what should you remember of before you hit “Publish”? First of all, pay attention to these six questions that should be verified when creating content for your purposes:
#1 Did you choose the proper format of the post?
This is an extremely important question, which will determine the level of engagement of your target group. In turn, the organic reach of the post depends on the number of reactions to what you’ve published, and thus how many people found it interesting enough to share further. That’s why it’s worth considering the purpose of publishing the content. If it is to increase the user engagement (and thus increase the reach), the post should contain an interactive question and be presented in an attractive form. Surveys, GIFs, videos or infographics will work well. The less standard form of the post – the better. It’s also good to post about the topics that are close to your target group’s interests and make sure what you post is always high-quality.
#2 Will the post be displayed on the right social channel?
Choosing the right content for a specific social media channel and the audience is very important. Other features characterize active Facebook users, other Instagram, or YouTube ones. It is up to the social media manager to use the potential of a given platform. If the goal is to display video – it will be much more effective to upload it on the platform, not to share it through an external link. Interestingly enough, videos are the most catchy, shared and commented types of content, so it may be worth to post them in all your channels. But, it’s worth to remember that YouTube was created to share and store such content. Thanks to many functionalities, users of the site can search for certain videos they are interested in at any time.
#3 Did you choose the specific time of the publication well?
The above-mentioned question is connected to another essential one: when to publish content in order to reach the widest audience possible? Fortunately, most of the information necessary to answer this question can be found in statistics, available on most social media platforms from the administration panel.
Facebook actually knows a lot about its users. Many of the stored data is used to help business profiles to target posts and ads more effectively. Therefore, when running marketing campaigns across social media, we can also get details about the target group (mostly demographic data, such as gender, the origin of users, as well as the hours when they are the most active). Thanks to this, you can publish a post at times when there is the highest chance that it will reach a wider audience. It’s worth remembering that the competition is not sleeping and probably the most convenient posting hours may overlap. It is worth paying attention to this and not forget about monitoring the activity of rivals.
#4 Does the post meet the requirements of the strategy and will help to achieve the set goals?
Even the most engaging post won’t contribute to your sales and marketing efforts if it has nothing to do with your overall strategy and goals. Therefore, before the first post is published, you should consider what are the KIPs (Key Performance Indicators) you want to keep an eye on. They should be easily measurable, quite ambitious, but also possible to achieve. In addition, clearly formulated content plan, as an element of your marketing strategy, will allow you to adapt all posts to a specific vision and expected outcomes.
#5 Is the post compliant with the regulations of the selected social networking site?
This point is often overlooked by marketers, especially in smaller companies. Most of the time it doesn’t happen because of ignorance or being in a rush, but rather because of being unaware of such rules. It often happens on Facebook, where marketers use different competitions to attract users. But actually, it’s not allowed to publish contests use private profiles to promote the competition content. This means that you can’t ask people taking part in the competition to share the content, like your profile or a post. It’s also forbidden to require users to mark their friends in the comments. Seemingly, this is a way to quickly increase the number of people following the profile, but fans gained in this way won’t add any long-term value for the brand, and may even negatively affect its image. Warning! Each competition should contain properly formulated, in accordance with law, regulations.
#6 Is the language correct?
The most important and often overlooked point that affects the overall image of the brand is the correct grammar, spelling and punctuation. The way in which the brand communicates with its recipients can either strengthen its authority or harm its image, so it’s definitely worth double-checking your content in order to be perceived as professional and trustworthy.
