The coverage of a US Airways plane landing on the Hudson River was a watershed moment in the evolution of social media.
You may remember that on January 15, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549, piloted by Captain Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger and First Officer Jeffrey Skiles, made an emergency landing in the Hudson after multiple bird strikes caused both jet engines to fail. All 155 occupants, the passengers and crew, successfully evacuated from the partially submerged plane as it sank into the river; they were rescued by nearby watercraft. The incident came to be known as the “Miracle on the Hudson,” and Captain Sullenberger and the crew were hailed as heroes.
CNN began its coverage that day by saying “as reported on Twitter” — marking the transformation of social media from communication channel to a source of news and information. Today, as more and more people turn to social sites for news, content marketers have an even greater opportunity of finding and connecting with new audiences.
Both B2B and B2C marketers know that social media marketing lets you amplify your content to a highly targeted audience. As reported in Forbes’ recent article, 35 Content Marketing Statistics You Need to Know in 2016:
- 90% of B2C businesses report that social media is their most popular content marketing tactic.
- 66% of B2B marketers rank LinkedIn as the most effective social media platform for their business. Other effective platforms were Twitter (55%), YouTube (51%), SlideShare (41%) and Facebook (30%).
- 66% of B2C marketers say Facebook is their most effective social platform; followed by YouTube (53%), Twitter (50%) and Instagram (42%).
Yet very few businesses understand how to dive into the social data and maximize social with the right tactics.
We shed some light on this issue in our webinar Proven Social Media Tips to Amplify Your Content Marketing. Our guest Neal Schaffer, author of Maximize Your Social, the definitive book on social media marketing, is a social media guru. The event was packed with tips and I’ve grabbed six of my favorites for all of you busy content marketers.
1. Go for the Share
Especially if you’re a B2B company, content has to be resourceful, engaging, likable, and most importantly, shareable. The key to shareable content is evoking emotions. If people feel a strong emotion they will feel compelled to tell the people they know about the experience.
2. Reformat, then repurpose
Content marketing requires you to showcase everywhere. Therefore your content for social media needs to be repurpose-able. The best way to leverage social media is to utilize each platform’s functionality to its fullest. That means republishing using different formats. Take videos, for example. If you’re only using Youtube, you’re missing out on Facebook. Facebook sometimes even gives priority to videos. Why not take videos and shorten them on Instagram or Vine? Or start with a podcast. A 20-minute podcast has a two- to three-thousand word script. From that you can create different blog posts. For every blog, create multiple status updates. From the engagement you can create follow-ups. Or repurpose into an eBook, SlideShare, etc.
3. Always use visuals.
You need visuals for the best effectiveness on social media. Tweets and posts with visuals simply perform better. Every time you publish any kind of content, you need a feature image. Optimize the dimensions of the image for the network. For every piece of content, you need five visuals or five different size visuals. It can be eye candy or a text summary, depending upon your product and brand. And don’t just a use cover image, embed additional images in the post.
4. Have a visual voice.
Ninety percent of all information transmitted to the brain is visual, and this information is processed 60,000 times faster than text. Don’t just use visual, have a visual voice — a consistent angle or point of reference that strengthens your brand. What will your visual voice look like? Product photos or behind the scenes images; user content from fans; images from events; quotes or memes; how to videos; Throwback Thursdays; hashtag contests — choose the voice that’s right for your brand.
5. Curate content.
Obviously you can rebroadcast content you have already created. But what else will you talk about every day? This is where content curation comes in. Content curation is important for establishing thought leadership. This is especially true for B2B. You’re not just talking about yourself all the time. You’re creating content that people want. Try to share as much of others’ authoritative content as possible — the content of your advocates, influencers, supporters, customers, and partners. This helps build trust, shows that you’re not a self promoter, and increases the likelihood of sharing. It also makes people more tuned into your content when you do post.
6. Leverage paid social.
Yes, you need to pay to play. Content is a commodity. It’s supply and demand. Paid social is the fast pass for social media. It’s like turning on the spigot when you want more traffic for a particular initiative. It helps the effectiveness of content media and social media marketing. It helps you to meet KPIs. Also it allows you to handpick your audience because we can micro target depending on diverse characteristics, political affiliation, interests, behaviors, demographics, ethnic affinity, and generation. From a marketing perspective, it is second to none.
Read the complete transcript of the WriterAccess webinar with Neal Schaffer Proven Social Media Tips to Amplify Your Content Marketing
This is a sneak preview of what Neal Schaffer will be presenting at Content Marketing Conference. Join us at CMC this May!
Ginna Hall is the Director of Marketing at WriterAccess. An experienced marketing writer and editor, Ginna has helped start-ups, non-profits, and agencies develop strategic messages and roll-out content that connects with audiences of all types.
