How To Create A Content Strategy
You're all over social media. You've been sharing posts, offering tips and tricks and engaging with your followers. Yet, you're still not growing your business. The sad truth is most of your social media networks are probably not providing the return on engagement that you need to grow. This can be particularly true for smaller companies who just don't know how to get started on social media and are looking to increase their traffic.
To make your social media work for you it takes more than consistency. You hear about consistency all the time and while that is an important factor, more than that, it’s about better connecting with your followers, creating content capable of converting leads into clients, expanding your network and so much more.
It sounds like a lot, but by designing a content strategy that work for you, you can make a much larger impact and start seeing results!
It is vital to define your message and how you want to portray your services, and brand. With a plan in place, you can create content consistently that resonates with your target audience.
If you were to do a basic google search you’ll find thousands of sites showing you different content strategies and while some of them may work, you get the best results when you design your own strategy based on your niche audience and what you’re trying to achieve with your social media.
A common “strategy” you might hear about is providing your audience with value. While this is definitely an important PIECE to an effective content strategy, providing value alone is not a strategy and not going to be enough to get the job done.
When I help my clients create their strategies there are a couple things we take a look at, so to give you some help to design your own content strategy, here are a couple things to think about…
What are the most important points you want to hit
How are you going to establish yourself as a trustworthy, expert
How can you provide value without giving too much away
How can you be more original than the competition
Choose 4-6 types of content that you can create consistently that will help you achieve all of the above and resonate with your niche
Now like we just mentioned above, there are different types of content, or social media copy, that can contribute to your overall social media strategy. Once you’ve managed to answer the above questions, creating a schedule for the types of content you want to be sharing is the next most important step.
Types of content you can consider including:
Personal
Storytelling
Inspirational
Displaying leadership
Providing Value
Presenting your offer
Encouraging engagement
Informational
The above topics are vague for a reason… you can create a million different types of posts and social media copy that you can repurpose for other social media platforms with these topics. You can hit the same point, same topic but create something completely different each time! Keep in mind that each post you create doesn’t have to only hit one of those topics. Don’t be afraid to mix it up, you can create content that hits anywhere from 1 to all of the above in a single piece of copy. Just be careful not to over do it, you don’t want to confuse your audience. Remember that each post should have a specific purpose.
Two of the most important that everyone should include in their strategy are ‘Presenting your offer’ and ‘Encouraging engagement’ and heres why:
If you want to convert your audience into clients, you can’t always expect them to be the ones to reach out to you. While this may happen from time to time, you need to be more proactive than that. You need to be ASKING for their business by presenting them with your offer, on a regular basis. If you’ve heard of the Marketing Rule of 7, it’s essentially a principle that states a prospect needs to “hear” the advertiser's message at least 7 times before they'll take action to buy that product or service.
The second reason is because when you are looking to convert your audience, you want to be able to identify the followers who are most likely to do business with you. The best way to do this is by keeping an eye out for those who most frequently engage with your content. This can be those who comment on posts, like or react to your stories, ect. To encourage engagement, it’s similar to presenting you offer in the sense that you are ACTIVELY asking your audience to do something while simultaneously giving them a reason as to why they should. (ex. “To reach your real estate goals this year, comment XYZ below for a free consultation!”).
You may have heard the saying “if you’re too afraid to ask, the answer will always be no”, well when it comes to gaining more business it’s the same way. If you’re too afraid to ask you clients for their business, you’re never going to get it! And if you’re too afraid to ask, then you should probably look deeper into why that is… Are you afraid of being too ‘salesy’? DON’T BE! Selling something to your clients is not a bad thing, you’re there to offer you clients a service that will HELP them, that will IMPROVE their lives, if you don’t believe in yourself as the expert, as the person capable of getting the job done, how are they supposed to trust you?
If it’s not already on your New Year’s Resolutions list, here are 2 things you need to add:
Get your mindset right to fully trust in yourself, your skills, your ability to help your clients and your ability to succeed.
Create your new content strategy and make sure you NAIL it this year!
OK, I lied, there’s ONE MORE THING I want you to add to your list….
NO MORE POSTING THE SAME INFOGRAPHICS THAT EVERY OTHER AGENT ON INSTAGRAM HAS ALREADY POSTED!
It’s not original, it’s not aesthetic, and it’s a lazy way to share information with your audience, so this year let’s just not :)
If you want a FREE template to help you create your new social media strategy and schedule, with tips on how to set up systems to make it an easy task you can consistently keep up with, click the Instagram button at the very bottom of the page and DM me “Free Template”
HAPPY NEW YEAR!