x
When we love something and we are given a platform on which to share it (social media), then we tell a brand story and share a brand message better than the brand ever can.
One example is Fit Bit. Why?
Because people all over the world are loving their fitness gains using this tech device that measures all manner of things from your daily steps to your sleep patterns. And what do we do when we get our results?
We share them Because the device asks you to. Right there on your smart phone. It offers a Facebook share button Or a Tweet button. And because we love to, we share! Because who can resist clicking on a button, right?
I referenced this statistic from Curalate (an analytics company for Pinterest and Instagram) in my session on creating visual content. Curalate reported that up to 85% of content on Pinterest is shared by users and not brands.
What does this mean? Users are sharing content from your website to sites like Pinterest whether you are actively involved or not.
And in some cases, your fans and brand advocates are not only sharing content for you but they are often creating and sharing content about your brand. If you want to learn more about how to inspire your fans to create and share content for you, there are some great case examples in this article that I wrote for Social Media Examiner.
Social Media is awesome. Especially when you build platforms on which you can encourage your community to create and share content. Which brings me to #2:
An over-riding message from the conference was that content is still important – but not any content”¦.
Quality content.
Consumers are so overwhelmed with information on any newsfeed that they are filtering out the noise. And unless you catch their attention in authentic and engaging ways”¦ and with quality content, your message will get filtered out too. Here is what the speakers had to say:
Remember this: Reach will get eyeballs on any content – (whether that content is good or bad), but unless your content catches the attention of those eyeballs, your message will be lost and you will miss out on engagement and results.
We should stop publishing bad stuff and that we should all stop focusing on reach and focus on the conversation and comments that our blogs are generating – and stop publishing “bad stuff”Â. Reach may put eyeballs on your content but if your content is “bad stuff”Â, People will just let it pass on by the newsfeed.
Refer to two important ways to create quality content:
1 They Ask, You Answer
2 Insource your content
“They ask, you answer” is simple. Answer the problems of your ideal audience. Insourcing requires tapping into the wonderful knowledge of the people in your business when creating content.
Involve your team. Everyone is a content creator. You just have to find out what type of content they are best suited to.Is there someone who knows video? An employee who is truly engaging on Facebook? A staff member who can provide tips by audio? Someone who loves writing? Find their strengths and INVOLVE them. You don’t have to outsource your content when you “insource”Â. Quality content might be sitting right under your nose!
Infographics, when done right, can bring quality traffic and engagement for a business. Obviously, I am a huge fan of infographics as we create them for bloggers and businesses, but even simple checklists, mini-infographics and snackable, shareable graphics can all serve a similar purpose.
The key to a great infographic or snackable graphic? Embed them into blog posts. Have them “shareable” from your home base or website, with social sharing buttons so that your community can share the graphics to the platforms they like to hang out on – be it Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, or Google+.
I was also completely honored to present on visual content at the conference – in a session titled “How to Create Visual Content that People Love to Share”.
Canva’s “summary” of my session at Social Media Marketing World sums up the essential qualities of great visual content.Catching attention, and enticing action or sharing with your visual content is one thing, but inspiring advocacy from your fans is the ultimate form of marketing.
Having your community do your marketing for you because they believe in what you believe (or at least they believe in what your products and services can do for them) is the real kicker. When they use visuals, it can really take off. And how can you create visuals in a productive way? Batch them!
Start making your images snackable.
Why? Because users are overwhelmed with information – they are filtering out all the noise. Snackable, easily processed images work well as we need to provide bite-sized (pun intended) pieces of content that people can consume.
HOT TIP: Think about the time of day you are posting – mornings and evenings we tend to be on mobile devices so punchy images that stand alone will do well.
But during the day (when we are often on desktops or laptops) try embedding images into longer pieces of content. Think about how visuals will be consumed and serve it up in the way that your community likes to consume it. And who can go past Anne McColl’s wonderful session “sketch notes”. Here are her hugely creative takeaways from my session:
This one is simple. We need to stop thinking about B2B and B2C and take our content and our message back to what it is really about. Connections. People.
Kim gave some great advice about managing time on Twitter and other platforms – automating is ok for things like evergreen content, but always respond in real time, in real person.
People connect with People. Be human – even if you are a brand.
Are you remembering to be human?
pssst: if you want to know how I created this image, then be sure to check out #7.
Remember this often quoted phrase: Content is King? Well, content needs a house in which to reside. And you should own that house. Your primary platform (blog, podcast, web show) should be your primary focus.
Another important type of “real estate” is email. Andrea Vahl reminded us, that no matter what, we don’t own our social media presence, but we do own our email list. She reminded us to stop whining about Facebook reach and use contests to grow our list:
#6 Podcasting is exploding
It is said that the power of podcasting based on experience with the Social Media Marketing Podcast and the Social Media Marketing Industry. Here is one of the big reasons why we should get excited. Podcasting is coming to cars. Apple Car Play is going to be one of the biggest shifts we will see to how we consume content. Many of the big car brands have deals with Apple to instal this new system into cars – giving us instant access to everything from Google Maps to Podcasts to Pandora…perhaps providing a real threat to traditional radio and placing a huge opportunity into the hands of everyday businesses.
BMW, Ford, Mazda and Chevrolet are all on board. Will you be with your own podcast? Because here’s the thing:
You do the math!
#7 Everyone is a Mobile Publisher with a Smart Phone in their Pocket
This is perhaps the biggest “wow” for me because I literally watched it unfold….. A tool that created quite a bit of buzz I've talked about a number of tools, including WordSwag (along with Canva and Picmonkey for desktop, Over App and Instagram on mobile, and Snagit (for creating screenshots). Here is WordSwag on Instagram:
WordSwag allows you to publish great images on your smartphone – making everyone a publisher of gorgeous content
What’s so great about WordSwag? It allows users to become mobile content creators. Here’s the thing – your audience, your community are armed with smartphones and they are creating content on-the-go. And so can you! Think of the potential. You may have spotted a few Word Swag images throughout this post.
Here is one that was created in just 2 minutes after watching Jadah Sellner from Simple Green Smoothies present on the Instagram Panel. Created in real time and then easily posted to Facebook and Twitter during the session.
To see so many marketers, speakers, influencers, bloggers using a tool to create real-time content during conference sessions made me think about the shifts we have seen in the last 2 years – before tools like Canva and WordSwag, we could not have created such professional looking content so easily.
The potential for businesses and brands to create content is massive. And it doesn’t just stop with brands. As per #1 in this post – everyone can be a content creator – even your fans or followers. Empower them – encourage them to create content about your brand. Involve them in your story.
Build platforms that can contribute to, and invite them in. Because never before have we seen such potential for creating quality visual content (refer to #3 in this post if you need a little reminder about why this is important).
Chuck Reynolds
Contributor
