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Social media has become a very visual, dynamic platform. The old days of relying on text-heavy blogs to convey your brand message are over. What started with Pinterest, Tumblr and Instagram has now influenced the direction of every social platform. Every great story now deserves a strong visual element as well. As a result, you’ll need to think outside the box when it comes to social media content if you want to reach your audience. Here are a few ideas to get you started.
#1: Embed multimedia content into all posts or updates
This idea is one of the easiest ones to implement. As a rule of thumb, every form of text-based content should also be accompanied by an image, video, infographic or GIF. For example, consider the average blog post. It needs to include, as a minimum, one high-resolution image. And not just some silly stock image, either. There are so many places these days to get professional-quality images, that your blog post shouldn’t have to rely on ClipArt-style images.
And the same goes for your Twitter content. Every tweet should include some form of multimedia content. Sometimes, Twitter does this for you. For example, if you include a link to a story, Twitter will auto-generate the hero image for the article. And the updated version of Twitter now makes it very easy to include all kinds of multimedia content, including an extensive collection of reaction GIFs.
#2: Embrace all forms of video (both short-form and long-form)
At one time, your only option for using video as a brand was YouTube. But now every social platform has a video option. Most notably, live streaming has really taken off. Periscope was the first to explode in popularity, but now both Facebook and Instagram have their own versions, where you can go live with just the tap of a button. And don’t forget about Instagram Stories, which allows you to add very brief video clips as part of an overall story. While it takes more time and effort to create video content, the reward and payoff is greater engagement.
#3: Experiment with mobile-centric content
You also have to be thinking in terms of creating content for mobile devices. Most likely, people will be interacting with your brand on their smartphone or tablet, so it is definitely worth the effort to experiment with content that is mobile-centric. One great example here is the podcast. It’s now as easy to download a podcast as it is a song. And many people love to listen to podcasts on the go. You have a lot of options here, and even some of the biggest brands – such as Sephora and GE – now have popular podcasts for mobile users.
#4: Integrate social media into your offline events
Many people still think of online and offline as two completely different experiences. But there are ways to combine them seamlessly. If you are doing live events, for example, there are great ways to add a social media layer to the experience. What about adding an Instagram photo booth for participants? Or doing a live stream of the event on Facebook? Or creating a live “Twitter wall” where people can see real-time content being created?
Final Thought
The bar continues to be raised for social media content. So don’t settle for the same boring, bland content that’s easy to produce and schedule. Think outside the box and come up with unique ways to leverage all of your great social media content.
