Information provided in this blog was curated from HubSpot Blog, Semrush Blog and Hootsuite.
What is content creation?
If you’re just starting out, you may always hear the words “content creation,” but what exactly does it mean and why is it important? Content creation is the development of multiple forms of visual and written media (pictures, blogs, videos, infographics, etc.) that will attract your target audience. In simple words, content creation is inbound marketing. With every form of content that is created, the information extends out to your followers, subscribers, customers, potential buyers, and beyond. Content can create brand awareness and recognition and build relationships.
Research & Planning
Before you begin spiraling into the thought of what content you should create, begin making a social media content plan to get a better idea of your audience. This first step will save you a headache and give you real parameters you can follow.
Learn key features of your audience: This can include their age, gender, interests, jobs, and such. This can give you a better image of who you are communicating with.
Create Goals: What are your goals? Do you want to attract viewers to your website? Are you wanting to create brand awareness? Do you want to make sales?
Perform a competitive analysis: Check in on your competition and see what they are doing that’s making them so successful. Now, don’t copy exactly what they do but use it as inspiration for your own content and ideas.
Know your networks: “People use different social networks to accomplish different goals, and their behavior can vary significantly among social platforms” (Hootsuite). To illustrate some differences, Facebook has the largest audience, Instagram is very visual and has a higher rate of female users, X (formerly Twitter) consists of short and straight-to-the-point content, LinkedIn features business professionals and TikTok consists of many users under 25 years old.
Collect Content: You may already have some content and not even realize it. Feel free to repurpose old blogs, pictures, and videos and adjust them to fit your current target audience.
Make a Content Plan: You don’t have to be an expert to plan and design your daily content but sit down and take the time to develop a month’s worth of content to allow time to gain new content for the future. Also, reach out to your former followers or customers! They may be willing to send raw images or videos of something they gained from you and that alone makes great content.
7 Keys to Successful Content
Regardless of what form of media you create and where you plan to publish it, the following seven points are key to successful content marketing.
Engaging: If a viewer is not engaged by your content, they will scroll on to the next thing. Engaging content can involve visuals, storytelling, interactive elements, etc. The goal is to draw your viewer’s attention.
Valuable: Maybe you want to post a how-to video that your viewer can follow along with, or you post educational facts and knowledge.
Audience-Centric: Know your audience on each platform so you can adjust your content. If you’re posting a video on TikTok, do something that is trending to catch the younger viewers' attention.
Clear & Concise: Your posts don’t always have to sound corporate and serious so keep it simple! But be sure you state the point of the content, spell correctly, and avoid jargon.
Credible: Make your content human. Viewers want to connect with you and adding credibility will build trust. Consider using data to back up accusations, partner with other credible businesses/people, etc.
Unique: So much easier said than done, right? Be true to the brand but also think outside of the box. Offer something different.
Actionable: Your content can say “Buy Now!” “Share for a chance to…” Actionable words and phrases can help engage your viewers and help spread the message.
Content Ideas
So, you’ve done the research and the planning and understand what your content needs to be successful. Now, what kind of content do you make? Listed are a few popular content ideas to get you started but don’t be limited by this list.
How-To: Viewers are always curious about the creation process and allowing them to have a sneak peek into the making will grab their attention.
Participate in a trend: TikTok practically has a new trend every week so participating in some will get the attention of younger viewers.
Giveaways/Contests: Everybody loves the chance to win something. It doesn’t even have to be something you need to make. Partner up with other businesses to put together an attractive package.
Behind-the-Scenes: Viewers love connecting to businesses and behind-the-scenes videos humanize you. They get a chance to see the real side of things instead of the perfect images or perfect videos.
Seasonal Content: The holidays are a great time to promote new products, new videos, etc. You are creating content that is getting people in the holiday spirit!
Product Spotlights: This is your chance to convince a viewer why your product/item is so great and why they need it.
For more great content ideas, check out these creative options at CoSchedule Blog.
Now Let’s Create Great Content!
Building the Perfect Post
Begin by writing a catchy headline or caption. Try to make your caption clear and intriguing. The caption can be educational, a fact, or a question, and it can spark curiosity or express a sense of urgency like “last one!” “don’t miss out!”
Emojis and special characters are eye-catching. They are playful, add personality, and can make you more relatable. “Recent data shows that adding emojis can significantly increase audience engagement” (Hootsuite). For example, pointing finger emojis can lead the viewer's eye to a link or a thumbs-up emoji can illustrate to like a post.
Begin or end the content with a call to action. Examples of a call to action can be “click here to see why” “share now for the chance to enter” “vote your favorite here,” etc. Call-to-action statements build participation among your viewers.
Tagging or mentions built attraction. When you tag or mention a business, an influencer, an organization, or anyone in general, that content will now show up on their feed for their viewers to see. So, not only are you creating content for your own viewers but now you can double your reach of viewers from a simple tag. You don’t necessarily have to create a partnership and work together on anything specific. You can tag or mention someone in your content as a simple thank you for their support or for sharing your content.
Hashtags are combined words or phrases written after the pound (#) symbol. Hashtags can be anything relatable to your content or words and or phrases that are currently trending. As soon as your content is posted, the hashtags can instantly be searched by anyone and your content will appear. Hashtags allow your content to be more discoverable and can make your content trendier.
Visuals are important no matter what source you use to publish your content. Every form of social media is very visual and just like your catchy headline or caption, images need to be just as visually engaging. “Statistically, visual posts get consistently more clicks, shares, and comments than posts with text only” (Hootsuite). Visuals can include images, memes, videos, histograms, etc. Any sort of attention-grabbing visual.
Image Courtesy of Wix. Spread the word.
Lastly, Let's Get Your Posts Seen!
Because you may be new to creating and posting content, you’ll notice that you won’t be easily seen right away. Therefore, your goal is to entice a viewer to see your content and you may ask “How do I do this?” and the answer is PROMOTING! This ties in with the research you did in the beginning where you learned your target audience, understood the different networks, and such. Here are some helpful beginning steps to promoting your content.
Email Marketing- If you have an email viewers can subscribe to, start collecting those emails so that they will always be informed or newly released content.
Paid Promotion- You can pay for a source to promote your content. For example, Facebook allows you to select the content you want to promote, decide your budget, and choose the number of days you want the ad to run. Facebook also allows you to personalize the target audience of viewers or you can choose keywords for what type of audience you want. It is user-friendly, takes away the stress of doing it all yourself and you’ll receive a final report on how your ad did.
Partnership- You can partner with influencers or newsletters to feature your content and spread the word.
Organic Posts- These are content posts that you create to promote yourself. This can be done through images, videos, etc.
Repurpose- Don’t think you can only use your content once. Change it up, update it, or be a part of a trend. Recycle and reuse.
Good Luck!
Content creation can take a lot of time, a lot of work, and a lot of research but it can truly pay off. Over time, with some practice, you’ll have a better understanding of what your target audience enjoys and reacts to. This will give you a competitive advantage and help grow your audience, which is the goal, right?
Resources
Create engaging and effective social media content. (2023, May 16). HootSuite. https://help.hootsuite.com/hc/en-us/articles/4403597090459-Create-engaging-and-effective-social-media-content#training-and-certification-0-7
Perco, A. (2023, July 20). Content Creation: What It Is & How to Do It in 2023 [Tips + Tools]. Semrush Blog. https://www.semrush.com/blog/content-creation/
Perricone, C. (2023, July 3). The Ultimate Guide to Content Creation. HubSpot. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/content-creation
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