Social media is the perfect way to market any product and service. It is a pretty conventional idea nowadays, and there are only so many companies, who do not use social media influencers to market their products. Most popular brands are either using celebrities or social media celebrities to promote themselves to their target audiences. Many new brands are using these social media influencers to find their market and establish their monopoly.
What’s the deal with social influencers?
So, who are these social influencers? How can you become one? How can brands find you and approach you to endorse their products? Building an active social media profile is an investment that can get your career as an influencer a long way. You need a neat profile that conveys what your followers want to know. You have to remember, social media is a competitive world. If you do not deliver what your followers want, your competition will.
You need to grab the attention of your followers with new and exciting posts. Here are six different types of social media content you need to rely on.
UGC or user-generated content
User-generated content is what we see on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook campaigns that involve quizzes, creative competitions and forum discussions. GoPro is indeed a pro at creating user-generated content. You will find tons of UGC on their Instagram profile in the form of impressive pictures and videos.
Another way of using UGC is to use the same user-created content, but with retouches. You can do this for images, text content and videos as well. With the right kind of editing permissions, you will find it easier to use follower content. It not only saves you a lot of content creation time and effort, but it also makes your followers feel important and loved.
Live streams
Live streams are there everywhere. They are on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Forget teenage musicians, and even NASA is doing live streams from the ISS. It is cool. It is trending. It is very profitable.
Live streams can get about 400% more viewership and engagement than your regular social media posts. Facebook Live is a strong lead generating machine. Instagram live is the perfect way to launch new products and services. YouTube live allows you to program your exciting life and feature the products in the video.
Livestreams are a brilliant way to convey new ideas on almost every platform. You can even do Q&A sessions as a part of your live stream to engage more people and generate more UGC.
Webinars
Well, most of us find the topic of webinars extremely trite. However, webinars are like the Joe Pesci of social media. They are omnipresent, active and incredibly dynamic. They can attract a high number of views depending on the topic and the groups.
You may want to invite your social media followers to your webinars. You can host your webinars on YouTube or Facebook. You can even get followers to sign up for your exciting webinars by offering lucrative incentives. If you have a webinar, always share the recorded version on YouTube, Facebook, and Vimeo. Urge your followers to sign-up for the same.
Guides
Most people who are online right now are looking for answers on Google. People are always looking forward to knowing something new. Studies show that social media influencer profiles that post a lot of informative content or “guide” content get more engagement from their followers.
It can be a makeup guide, cooking guide or a social media marketing guide. You just need to find the best original content and start writing about it. Feature your product and get more people to talk about it on your wall. Share it on multiple social media platforms to attract more organic traffic.
Most social media influencers already have guides. If you have a few guides that pertain to the current products and services, go ahead and share them with your users. Do not cover your wall with guides, or your profile may appear too predictable and pedantic to all users. Mix things up a little. Conduct A/B tests and find out what works best for each social media platform.
Infographics
Infographics are the rage right now! Almost all social media platforms have confirmed that infographics are currently the most shared content. People love infographics so much that they pay more importance to infographics data as compared to white papers and presentations.
Infographics are attractive, compact and easy to share. It can compress data from hundreds of presentations and articles into one image file that is visually appealing and informative at the same time. They follow the same principle as kid’s picture books.
The concept of data sharing via Infographics is quite simple – share infographics via your social profile and the social world will acknowledge. Many tools allow the compression of data and information from articles and presentations into Infographics.
Interactive content
Where would social media marketing be without interactive content? Interactive content includes posts that respond to user interaction. They can answer via text, video, audio, animation or games. Tech-savvy companies and even social media influencers are coming up with such content that can engage with their users.
It dramatically emphasizes the UX, and that is what makes interactive content so great for users of all age. Possibly, the purest and most effective form of social media content that influencers use is quizzes. From Buzzfeed to The Chronicle, everyone is relying on questionnaires to create a stir. In fact, in 2013, the most attractive content of The New York Times was a quiz!
The kind of content people prefer is changing with time. As social influencers, it is your responsibility to find out what your user demographic wants to see. While urban millennial followers might wish to more suave and interactive content, much older shoppers might want to stick to old text formats. Unless you take a step outside your current comfort zone, you will never be able to find the real secret of building a dedicated followership on social media. Always be open to ideas and suggestions. Run tests and analyze your data before you can zero in on an effective strategy.
