Making it Personal- Creating Effective Social Media Content
When it comes to effectively using Facebook, you can have the highest quality page in existence and the most effective audience targeting ever, but if the content you put in front of that audience isn’t up to standard, you might as well not bother with digital marketing at all. When implementing a digital marketing strategy, there is a golden rule that sits above all other tactics and that is ‘content is king’. There is no more important aspect to your strategy then you ensuring you are producing high-quality content that your audience will find interesting. The tactic of throwing endless amounts of content at readers and hoping that some of it will grab their attention was never a particularly effective method and, with Facebook changing their algorithm, this tactic has become even less effective.
Although it sounds a bit counter-intuitive with Facebook being a platform that is meant to bring everyone together, one of the main complaints that businesses and their clients have with Facebook marketing is that it has become too impersonal and so doesn’t create an impact on viewers and compel them to make purchases. This is because, with the barrage of advertisements and information being thrown at readers every time they go on to their feed, readers have become desensitised to these advertisements in the same way that people often ignore adverts on tv during the breaks of their favourite tv shows.
To counteract this, digital marketing has become far more than just displaying products in front of an audience. It has become an effort to create a meaningful relationship and following with your audience. One of the greatest examples of how, when done right, this technique is by far and away the best way to implement a digital marketing strategy is the success story of UK fitness apparel company Gym
shark. This start-up was founded by Ben Francis in his bedroom in 2012 aged just 19. Seven years later, Gymshark is predicted to be valued at between £300-400 million and is the fastest-growing company in the UK.
So how should you as a business owner go about making your business more personal?
-ask for feedback
-listen to user needs
-remember it takes time
The first step in making your content more personal is to recognise your target audience and use media that suits them. What is meant by this is that putting up funny videos, jokes and GIFs will work if you’re targeting teenagers on Instagram but isn’t really suitable if you are aiming to create a B2B relationship with a bank?
The next thing to ensure you are doing is creating a personality for your social media page. This links into the first point in that you need to make sure you are creating an appropriate personality for your audience. When done well, this personality can be a moneymaker in itself. Take for example social media guru, Gary Vaynerchuk. His Instagram currently has 7 million followers and most people did not initially find him to use his digital marketing or wine expertise. He has created a persona that people enjoy watching and believe in and that ha
s led to his huge following which in itself would make him an incredibly rich man even disregarding his large business empire
Nothing will make your followers feel more like being a part of your community then actually being a part of it. So, get them involved! If you have a follower who has been loyal to your business and has sent in content, use that content on your page. If they have posted something you believe is relevant and of good quality then share it to your businesses page. This is FREE CONTENT and will help build your business page community. You also often find that if a follower has posted relevant content they may well be willing to link to your page or website, creating a very valuable backlink which will improve the search engine optimisation (SEO) of your Facebook page and website.
When it comes to posting content effectively, it doesn’t end when you hit the post button and making your content live. A critical part of making your content and page more personal is ensuring that you interact with anyone who interacts with your posts. Do ever wonder why you sometimes get posts pop up on your Facebook feed that were put up by a page you follow a few months before? It is often because there have been relevant interactions in the comment section. By ensuring that you are responding to all comments you, not only make the people you’re responding to feel m
ore involved in the page, but you also create the opportunity for your post to be put up in front of their friends at another point even beyond the time that the content was posted.
The final part you need to be aware of is that you need to be patient. It will take time for you to build relationships with followers in the same way it does in the real world. Keep posting quality content and interacting with your followers and you will see results if you persist.