“Begin with the end in mind.” – Covey
That Covey statement is something we take to heart at Pink Jacket. And when you talk about content creation, our strategy starts with “the end in mind”. Not only does your social media content need a thoughtful strategy, but all the other channels and media you use to tell your story should follow that same path. Here are 5 important tactics to reverse engineer your content strategy:
#5 PICK ONE THING AND DO IT WELL
Look at your marketing and promotional calendar and pick one main theme per period. If your first quarter of the year focuses on a specific promotion or goal, make that the most-thoughtfully planned, honed-in theme for content that quarter. Perhaps you also have secondary goals or promotions each month – if so, plan those out in your content calendar too but understand timing and tactics.
Your brands core values and core purpose should make your customers feel a certain way and focusing on defining how you do that through content reinforces your mission. SocialMediaToday has some great advice on how to do just that.
#4 BUILDING ONE VOICE – ACROSS MULTIPLE CHANNELS
Your brand should be easily recognized across each channel you use – email marketing, each social channel, promotional pieces, website, loyalty apps, paid advertising. Building that personality and using the right medium for each channel.
When you think about each channel you use, the plan should include how that content is created and sent out. Short-form video is not going anywhere, but that should not be the only creative you use to tell your story. Forbes recently published Five Insights Into The Popularity Of Short-Form Video Content and it gives some useful tips, however every single thing you create and share with your audience should have a strong, loud voice for your brand and serve a purpose.
#3 KNOW WHAT SIDE YOUR BREAD IS BUTTERED
Do you look at your analytics and data each month to determine what content creation tactics worked best for you? What gave you the most reach, engagement, and shares? People are bombarded with so much content every day, if you can create content that your audience sees value in, you get more engagement.
Think of it this way – social channels serve content based on the user’s behaviors, keywords, and engagement level. The user is saying, “What’s in it for me?” each time they live online and consume content. How can you bring value to your audience – even aside from the product itself – and bring them something that makes them want to interact with your brand?
According to Search Engine Journal,
> 55% of people learn about brands from social media.
> The average internet user spends 397 minutes per day online, with much of that on social media sites.
> 7% of people make purchases based on online or social media advertisements.
Before you can develop an effective content strategy, you need to understand your current KPIs.
#2 HOW DO I DEFINE SUCCESS?
What key performance indicators (KPIs) should you be monitoring to define success? Perhaps your goal is ENGAGEMENT for your main content theme. The KPIs you’ll want to analyze would be likes, shares, comments, tags – those actions taken can build a baseline for how you’d define success.
Here’s some inspiration from Search Engine Journal on 17 social media campaigns that brought value to their audiences and were highly successful.
Pink Jacket was especially fond of this example;
One of the reasons these campaigns work is because, “It taps into a simple truth: People love tasty foods and the kind of foods that remind them of their childhood, comfort food, or food that reminds them of an experience,” according to Frank Cooper, BuzzFeed’s chief marketing officer.
But more importantly, Tasty and Proper Tasty have exploded on Facebook because the content is tailor-made for that platform.”
#1 TIMING. TRENDS. THE HOOK.
Your content approach needs to align with what is working NOW for each channel. As an example, Instagram announced they are going to focus more on traditional photo posts inside their app in 2023. According to The Verge, “Even Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, now believes that the platform put a lopsided emphasis on videos and Reels last year — and traditional photo posts were worse off because of it. In one of the answers from his weekly Q&A with users today, he acknowledged, “I think we were overfocused on video in 2022 and pushed ranking too far and basically showed too many videos and not enough photos.” Mosseri said that Instagram has since worked behind the scenes to restore a more even balance, and internal metrics show that it’s working.”
So, your content creation needs to consider how that story will be told through each medium, with the same loud voice, and still build the audience value and engagement on every channel.
Timing is huge – social trends change rapidly, and you want to take advantage of potential easy layups. Every social media channel has tools to help guide you into what is currently trending. A good example is TikTok’s Ad Library and Creative Center.
#TikTokMadeMeBuyIt is a high reach trending hashtag currently. So, if you wanted to build a campaign around this trend, how could you align your creative and hook to match this trend?
Being quick, nimble, and collecting an abundant, variety of assets for content creation means you’re able to move when those new trends come your way.
At Pink Jacket, our team works alongside yours to develop an execution strategy for your content marketing. If you’re interested in learning more about our digital marketing services, try us on at [email protected].
