Why content is fire, and social media is petrol

By Prudence Glorious

Social media is the most impactful marketing medium that has ever existed. With over 3.6 billion people in the world using social media, it has become easier to go to market by targeting communication towards an online audience that demands your supply. The four distinctive factors that differentiate social media from all other communication channels is that it is in real time, multimedia, two-way, and hyper-targeted.

On social media, the old adage that content is king still stands. Social media and content have to work together. You can create great content, but if you don’t have the followers to “consume” and share it, the content can be compared to a billboard in the middle of the ocean.

If you have a social audience but you don’t feed them what they’re interested in, there is no reason to follow you, and they’ll leave.

Content is fire - and social media amplifies it, much like fuel.

So how do you know that your content is working? Metrics. The way for you to know what content is working on digital channels is to monitor insights and analytics at least once a month. And on both your website and all social networks that your brand has a presence.

And when considering content to create with great return on interest (ROI), ask yourself four things:

1. What do my followers need help with?

2. What does my audience value?

3. What kind of relationship do we want to have with our followers?

4. When is a valuable time to be in front of our consumers?

It all comes down to strategy. Understand your audience and then create content that will add value to their life. And if you create valuable content it will catch that social media petrol and spread like wildfire. The other upside of having a social media strategy is that, whilst you can’t guarantee that every piece of content will be effective or engaging, you have a set of metrics in place for each piece of content. As with every strategy, revisiting and reviewing it over time will help you to approach your objectives and make adjustments as needed.

A good strategy and great content will ensure that the social media fuel will ensure the spread of your content far and wide. And this will enable you to convince and convert new consumers.