You’ve got a strategy, and know what platforms you’ll be using, but now you must consider creating good content for social media.

Post types

There are so many different types of posts; text updates, images, videos, gifs, links, replies, graphics, quizzes. The list is endless. What is right for you depends on what you are trying to achieve, but it is important to have variety and quality to keep your audience engaged and happy to follow you.

Sometimes, it can even be better NOT to post. Before clicking ‘share’ just think – ‘will posting this have a positive or negative effect on my goals?’. It’s about quality and not quantity.

Consider a mix of content based around your goals; Perhaps some of your posts will be aimed at sending people to your website to learn more, some could be about brand awareness and your business culture, some might be direct selling and sending visitors to your sales funnel, while some posts might be about your industry, sharing content from other sources.

Nobody likes the ‘hard-sell’ so constant ‘buy here’ posts may not work for you. But testing and analysis will help understand what’s working and what isn’t.

As a starting point, try the 80/20 rule:

• 80 percent of your posts should inform or entertain
• 20 percent of your posts can promote your business

Or maybe the rule of thirds:

• One-third of your content showcases your business to generate revenue.
• One-third of your content shares other content from within your industry.
• One-third of your content interacts and engages with your audience, perhaps through customer relations.

Creating Posts

You may not be an expert editing images or video using professional software like Adobe Photoshop, Premiere Pro or After Effects, but it doesn’t mean you can’t create some interesting media to add to your posts.

Tweets with images have a higher engagement rate that tweets without images, so it’s recommended you include one with posts you would like to get people reacting to. There are some great free apps you can use online, on your desktop or on mobile that help you create some nice images and graphics.

Tools like Snapseed and Adobe Elements can help you edit and tidy up your own photos. Pexels, Pixabay and Unsplash are among the raft of photo libraries offering rights-free images if you are looking for more professional, stock imagery.

If you want to add text or create graphics, you could give Canva, Crello or Adobe Spark a go. Animated gifs are available from Giphy, while you could create your own videos and animations using Spark, too, as well as Legend, Adobe Rush or Ripl.

If you have Twitter Cards activated on your website, when you post a link to one of your pages, the associated image will automatically appear in your tweet, also helping give you a boost engagement.

Optimising posts

When creating good content for social media, consider optimising your posts by accompanying them with appropriate mentions of other accounts (ie @weareborder) or with hashtags (#weareborder) to help them go further, particularly with Instagram.

Using relevant, targeted hashtags on your posts is one of the best ways to for new audiences to find you, which can mean more engagement, more followers, and more customers.

Hashtags can organise or categorise posts with a topic, of sorts, such as #Superbowl or #digitalmarketing, which allows people to easily find similar posts in the same topic.

Tweets with one hashtag, for example, are more than 30 per cent more likely to be retweeted than those without. Likewise, the placement of any url links within the middle of a post’s text, rather than at the end, can also have an upturn in engagement.

Instagram loves hashtags, not just in posts, but in bios, in stories, and really help people find your content.

For example, a football blogger might post a picture of Cristiano Ronaldo, and then use the hashtags #CR7 #ronaldo #soccer #football #juentus #portugal #GOAT when it’s uploaded to Instagram.

With Instagram Insights, you can analyse how effective your hashtags are in getting more views (or impressions) on your posts, which is a great indicator of whether or not you’ve chosen the right hashtags for your strategy.

Posting and Scheduling

When you have a calendar in place, there are many tools that can help you schedule your posts when creating good content for social media, enabling it to go out live even when your accounts aren’t manned.

Many of these apps are free, or offer free versions, and are great at helping you manage multiple accounts. Try such as Tweet Deck, Hootsuite, Buffer, Sprout Social, Social Oomph, Social Report or one of the many other options.

Many businesses schedule and automate content, but you need to exercise caution that you are following the rules of that platform, that it’s still relevant by the time it goes live, and that you’re not throwing out too much duplication.

If you need help with your company’s digital marketing? Then download our FREE Social Media top tips guide with some great advice to help give you a head start!

Our Social Media top tips guide gives you advice on some of the key areas of consideration when running your company’s own social media channels.

From understanding your audience, to creating the right types of posts that will engage your followers and help promote your brand the way you want to. It’s a handy guide to help any social media manager.

Just download fill out the form and we’ll send you a link to this great free resource…

We Are Border is a digital marketing and social media management agency based on the Essex and Suffolk border near Colchester, aimed at help small companies and large promote their business online.

As we are a small social media company, we can combine our years of experience working in the social media, digital marketing and content industry with a personal approach that many other agencies and social media management companies cannot off.

If you would like us to help your business or brand grow, contact Border Media here.