Social Media Success Recipe - Part 2 - Content, Content, Content!

We looked at developing an effective social media strategy in part one of our Recipe for Success, now here's part two with the most important section... creating social content.

Select your content wisely

It sounds a little corny but we really do believe when it comes to social media, content is king (or Queen!). The key to a successful, active social media presence is effective content but how do we achieve this?

Your content needs to be...

Unique

You need to give consumers insights that they can't get from you anywhere else other than your social channels. Think about what unique aspect of your product or service attracts your target audience and generate content ideas around that. Be transparent; let your customers in and give them some insight into your brand.

Useful

Always ask whether the content actually benefits users... social media users want information broken-down into simple, easy-to-read, to-the-point content. Questions to think about are 'what do my users really want to know?' 'Why is this content relevant to users?'

Engaging

Before you post check that the content engages users by asking questions or having encouraging calls-to-action. Also, engage with like-minded brands and companies, sharing information from them that may be useful to your fans. Building relationships with other influencers on social will impact your presence positively and help you to generate content.

Balanced

The ratio we advise clients for topical to brand posts is 60:40. We created this figure based on our experience of managing brand pages on social. The key reason for being active on social media is to engage and communicate with users. The topical posts encourage interaction and as long as this content is relevant and useful, when users receive the brand posts they love to engage with them. If you're stuck for topical content look at awareness days, national holidays and events that are relevant to your brand. We have a full list of them here for 2013-2014.

All images were created by A Beautiful Mess app... it's beautiful! Read Katie's blog post here

In part three's Recipe for Social Media Success we'll be talking about how to increase engagement levels (the key social media stat) and how to organise your social media content.

Jane x