How often do you find yourself absentmindedly scrolling through Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram? Better yet, as you scroll do you notice how many posts you pass until you find the one, possibly two, which genuinely capture your attention?
These days, social media offers a multitude of posts varying in information and importance to our lives. According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information the average attention span is 8 seconds. That’s one second less than a goldfish. While this may seem like old news, as companies, organizations, and individuals who are trying to capture our audience’s attention, this statistic impacts the ways in which we approach telling the story of our brand or our clients brand.
We are all courageous storytellers. Stories capture the public’s imagination. Stories that have a human connection for our audience inspire a human interest. One way to approach creating engaging social media is to view it as an engaging story of your organization’s brand image.
With every story, you first have to take a few things into consideration.
1. Authentic Interest
Find the authentic interests of the visitors to your social media. Now, explore it. The good news is if they are liking your Facebook page or following you on Twitter you already have a head start.
But explore further. Go above and beyond. What else does your audience like? Which posts do they respond to the best on your page? What are some of the people who have liked your page sharing on their own?
As much as you are on an adventure to figure out what they like, your audience is on an adventure too. So don’t be afraid to give them something new. From celebrating a big holiday or event in your area to sharing handy resources, you invite your followers to further explore their interests.
2. Relative Content
Posting about cutting-edge insights a week or sometimes even days behind other voices in your industry removes value from your post. To viewers a delayed posting on a topic can feel like just another post about a topic they’ve already briefed themselves on.
By keeping up, posting, and following up with recent news, events, and innovations in your industry you set yourself apart from others. Instead of falling behind you are ahead of the game. In turn, you keep your audience ahead of the game too.
3. Timely Posting
Stay trendy with the best posting times. Keeping up with what days garner the most traffic and what time of day gets the most activity boosts the opportunity for maximum post reach and engagement. While it is good to adhere to popular hours of the day in which the most people are on Facebook, don’t forget to look at when your target audience is viewing your posts. Facebook’s local insights are an example of a great tool to use for this.
Your target audience won’t always be the same as someone else’s target audience. If you steal a peek at Facebook’s local insights, you can see popular hours and days when your target audience has the best chance of being reached. Intentionality behind your posting days and times boosts your opportunity of maximum outreach.
4. Visual Appeal
In the same way the authentic interests of your viewers adds value to your posts so do pictures. Visuals such as graph or scenic outlooks, perhaps even the occasional picture of a dog, are pleasing to the eye. Followers linger longer on an image in order to enjoy stimulating visual content. After all, isn’t the common idiom, a picture is worth a thousand words?
5. Invite Participation
Don’t just let your audience sit there twiddling their thumbs. Help them feel like they are a part of your organization and are able to add value to it. Whether you run a fun marketing campaign, spark a conversation, or use trivia to engage your audience, you are inviting them to have fun. This invitation, if they take you up on it, can lead to further engagement and personal investment.
Have a question about how to create engaging social media content? We help clients create engaging content. Give us a call or drop us a line.