The 4 C’s of Social Content Strategy

Imagine your company is a kingdom. A kingdom needs someone (or something) to rule over it and protect it. The question stands, who (or what) controls your kingdom?

Creatives and visuals play an important role in marketing. They’re responsible for establishing a brand, evoking emotion or convincing consumers to think or act in a certain way. The influence content marketing has for a brand is substantial and shouldn’t be taken lightly. Content strategy is the thing that can make or break your company in a social media aspect.

Keep in mind these 4 principles when creating a social media content strategy.

1. Content is King

Your brand is determined by the content that you produce. The media that your brand delivers on social platforms (such as its images, videos, graphics, etc.) is an important aspect of how consumers view your company. Due to the fact that social media is such a powerful tool, having a strong presence that provides valuable content can make your company. On the flip side, having mediocre content that doesn’t pull people in may possibly break it.

Social media marketing brings a new perspective to your company. You have the ability to show others what you’re about as opposed to telling them. Many people are visual, and content provides the value that they’re looking for. Provide new and exciting original content. Engage with users and create a loyal following.

Don’t forget that your brand is determined by your content, which is why content is king.

2. Consistency

I believe that consistency is one of the key elements in creating positive content and a sense of loyalty to a brand. People rely on consistency in their life, and you have an opportunity to provide it for them. Post content on a schedule. Developing a habit of posting consistently is important for consumers and for social platforms’ algorithms.

Make sure the content you post is consistent in representing the ‘why’ of your business. There are two spectrums of posting. The first one is to just throw out content recklessly whereas, on the opposite side of the spectrum, you may not post as often, but what you do post is meaningful and intentional. Create a content calendar. Without creating one, failure is more likely to occur. Social Media Today mentions the “Consistency Pizza” consisting of volume, quality, voice, and topics.

Consistency not only in posting but also in the content itself is also vital. A ‘clean’ feed is ideal. If you’re a photographer, create a feed with similar edits so your future clients can get a ‘feel’ of your editing style. A videographer should also abide by the same principles, so why shouldn’t your brand? The images and graphic style should represent your company. Using the same color scheme for graphics and similar edits on posts with similar content will help assist in creating a great social feed.

3. Culture

Representing a culture is important in social media marketing. What sort of style and “feel” do you want to show your consumers? You may want to portray a specific culture of your company. You may even want to portray a culture from around the world. Identifying a target audience and being able to cater to their needs is an aspect of culture that should be considered. Remember that what works in one city, state or country may not work in another because social media trends are constantly changing and tend to move from region to region.

Referring to a company’s vision and goals will help to guide the social feed in order to create a culture on social media. Is your goal to advocate healthy eating because it makes you happy? Great! Use that as a guide to create content that emulates that. Keeping culture (in all aspects) in mind, will help assist in pulling people towards your brand.

4. Collaboration

Collaborations involve you and another party offering a service and working together in order to both benefit. Collaborating with other important brands, people, groups, businesses, etc. is a great way to gain more exposure for your brand and the brand you’re working with.

Consider creating a brand ambassador program where people from different locations promote your product or service to their own social following in exchange for a discount of sorts. By having brand ambassadors post content featuring your product, you receive free marketing and potentially more conversions because it’s coming from a friend as opposed to a ‘faceless’ company.

Collaborating with local influencers or celebrities (depending on your company and its purposes) will help gain momentum with content marketing. Consumers will see your brand as one that is associated with the influencer and could increase a following and assist in creating more of a loyal following on social platforms. Finding the right influencer can be difficult. Social outreach is one way to contact an influencer, but there are also great tools created to connect you to the best fitting influencer for your company.

Post driving content with the intention to pull people in. When you do this, the goal and one of the purposes of social media content strategy is met. Remember, pulling people in is only half of the battle. How will you captivate your audience and keep them wanting more? Provide value. Be intentional with your posts and promote meaningful reactions. Keep these 4 C’s in mind as you continue in your social content strategy. These efforts will help ensure your kingdom protected from competitors.