High-quality content is vital to social media marketing success, and other factors such as paid ads, profile design and strategies won’t make a noticeable difference if the videos, articles and posts published are not relevant, ad news site Adweek has stated in a new opinion piece by business consultant Larry Alton.
Brands can often lose focus on what really matters when managing campaigns due to the growing complexity of marketing, but Alton claims that content is the “critical piece” in terms of solving the social media puzzle, and digital marketing generally lives and dies on whether engaging pieces can be delivered to an audience at the right time.
With this in mind, Adweek has outlined several tips and tactics for enabling brands to stand out from the crowd, regularly engage with consumers across social media sites such as Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest and drive website traffic, conversion, brand loyalty and other important metrics.
Investing in organic content is crucial to long-term success, as it can continue to provide value for months and even years after it has been published. Social media expert Gary Vaynerchuk adds: “No amount of paid media is going to turn bad creative into good content.”
Brands struggling to cope with the demands of creating great articles, videos and other resources should invest in high-quality copy from a third party such as a digital agency. Alton says that this content spend should provide a better return on investment than paid media, as the latter only gives momentary satisfaction and short-term results.
Quality over quantity is a well-worn mantra in content marketing, and it still rings true, especially with the emergence of “influencers” and sharing across platforms. Great content will, therefore, generate more likes, shares and impressions, which are the metrics that really matter for driving positive customer actions.
Alton also urges brands to “go visual,” as interactive content and other creative clips have a better chance of having a meaningful, lasting impact on a consumer. Getting the right mix of written content in the form of blogs and articles to educate and inform and videos to entertain is one of the challenges that marketers will need to meet to maximise the potential of their campaigns.
