10 Tips to Create GREAT Social Media Content (& Win Over Your Customers).

The past few weeks, we talked about:

Week 1: Where your customers (probably are)

Week 2:  Starting with a strategy

Week 3: Measurement and Metrics

Let’s move on to content. Why is it so important?

Statistics indicate that 57% (B2C) and 43% (B2B) businesses have acquired a customer from their company blog.

Using your blog, you can:

• showcase you/your business as the industry expert
• help build relationships
• keep your business top-of-mind
• provide incentives to increase sales
• spread your business through pass-along (send-t0-a-friend)

and much more.

You are your own editor. You can publish what you like, as often as you’d like.

You can publish once a week, once a month, once a quarter. It all depends on what you have to say, and when the appropriate time is to share the information.

Here are 10 tips for creating great content:

1. Give more than you receive. Write information your readers will find useful.
2. Don’t actively pitch business all the time.
3. Have a strong call-to-action: What do you want readers to do? Ask them to write back with their suggestions or tips to make your business work more efficiently for them.
4. Whenever possible, customize and personalize.
5. Keep copy brief.
6. Connect emotionally and justify logically.
7. Craft a killer headline/opening.
8. Write a good “story”.
9. Write informally.
10. Be relevant.
    and an extra important tip:
11. Test and measure (keep doing what’s working, discard what isn’t).

Some topics you can cover:

• Share stories about your business. (Latest launches, successes).
• What trends are happening, and what’s coming next.
• Cite statistics that your readers will find interesting.
• Provide how-to tutorials or tips and tricks.
• Answer frequently asked questions (FAQ).
• Have a guest blogger answer questions from their industry/perspective.

And remember that while content is KING, usability is QUEEN.

Think about how your readers are accessing the information. Is it user-friendly in the platform they are connecting with?

Ideally, you want to publish once and distribute to many, but if you’re disseminating it to all your Social Media accounts, be conscious of the needs of each platform:

Twitter only allows for a maximum of 140 characters. Ensure your URL is not cut-off or that directs your customers to click on too many links to get to the content.

LinkedIn: This is predominantly a place to connect with your business friends. Ensure the content you are publishing isn’t too often and is relevant to what they want to read about.

Make sure you keep the content relevant and usable.

Do you have any additional tips? We’re happy to share them (and credit you!) at our seminars/conferences.

Next week: Some examples of who is using Social Media RIGHT.