The Ultimate Social Media Content Strategy Guide for Beginners

Download our free Social Media Content Calendar Template here to make applying this strategy simple and effective.

Author: Daniel Knowlton   

This blog will outline a step by step guide on how to apply a highly effective Social Media Content Strategy. Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.

The following Social Media Content Strategy works. It has helped me win £8,000+ worth of business since implementing the strategy in February 2015 (4 months). 

Download our free Social Media Content Calendar Template here to make applying this strategy simple and effective.

The Social Media Content Strategy is broken down into four core areas listed below. For the strategy to be highly effective, you will need to post an equal amount of content from the 2nd, 3rd and 4th core areas. You can post as much content from core area 1 (Converstaion) as you like.

Remember, when using the Content Strategy, you will need to adapt it to your business and target market. You will need to think like your target market. What themes or topics of information would they want to read or see? What style of writing will they be most responsive to? It is worth creating a customer profile before starting out.

This is one of the most important content areas of the four. This is all about engaging with your target market on social media. For a simple explanation of what ‘conversation’ means, it is any two way communication on Social Media. It is using Social Media to actually talk with your target market and engage with their content rather than just posting your own content.

1. Like, comment on, ask questions, share, retweet and favourite other content. (Ensure it is either relative to your business/target market or posted from an account which falls into your target market).

2. From today, add every single customer/potential customer you engage with in real life, on Social Media.

3. Be polite and courteous by actively thanking and promptly replying to people who like, comment, share retweet or favourite your content on social media.

4. Sign up to commun.it for Twitter to send automated engaging Tweets.

5. Ask relevant questions to your target market. Simple one word answers produce the best engagement.

6. Relate your content to current trending themes, events, trending topics or national awareness days. This will make your content more interactive and engaging e.g. local concerts, networking events, industry events, topics in the news, seasonal holidays, trending television programmes, national awareness days (national-awareness-days.com).

7. Join Twitter chats (e.g. #kenthour Tuesdays 7:30-9pm).

Content which provides useful, relevant information and tips for your target market is very important. Giving away free valuable advice and knowledge is what will really build trust and credibility. This will give people a reason to want to follow or like your page, it will keep them wanting more. (This blog is a prime example of me giving away ‘Tips’).

In addition, you need to demonstrate the team behind the ‘digital’ media. People buy from people and are drawn to content which triggers their emotions. Uploading content which tells a story about your business and its journey is what will build trust and relationships with your target market on Social Media.

1. Tips on how to overcome common problems related to your industry (e.g. A car garage could upload tips on how to avoid being overcharged by cowboy garages).

2. Tips on how to achieve objectives related to your industry (e.g. a Driving instructor could upload tips on how to pass your driving test first time).

3. Tips focused around how customers could get the most out of using your business (e.g. a Hotel could offer tips on the best tourist attractions to visit in the local area).

4. Behind the scenes team uploads (e.g. A photo of you employees working on a project together).

5. Photos of meetings with clients.

6. Photos of your business providing its services/products.

7. Inspirational quotes (source quotes: http://www.brainyquote.com/, Create engaging imagery backed quotes: https://buffer.com/pablo).

8. Top 10 facts/statistics related to your industry.

Articles are the next key area of the content strategy. You must post articles which are relevant to your target market. What articles are they likely to read and share with their friends? You must remember that all articles you post on Social Media will reflect your brand image. Don’t post any articles which could offend or put customers off  doing business with you e.g. strong political views. Stay positive!

e.g. If you are a local business targeting local people, use local news articles as a starting point.

Download our free Social Media Content Calendar Template here to make applying this strategy simple and effective.

1. Use Industry related Articles (e.g. A business in the property industry could upload articles related to the UK Housing Market).

2. Use News Articles related to the geographic location of your target market (e.g. A company targeting people in Kent could upload positive Kent News Articles).

3. Sign up to Google Alerts to get the latest content on a particular topic to your inbox. (e.g. I create daily alerts for ‘Digital Marketing News’ so that I am one of the first to post the latest industry news).

4. Use Buzzsumo to find the most popular content on a particular subject. (e.g. I could search for ‘Social Media Strategy’, the possibilities are endless!).

Most businesses over-use this content area, making them unpopular on Social Media. Constantly broadcasting sales messages and promotion is highly ineffective. Making only one out of four posts promotional will provide the optimum balance for your target market.

Using promotional images will reach a much larger audience. Great promotional images which are optimised in size for each Social Media platform can be easily created on a free online tool called Canva.

Check out some examples of my promotional images created on Canva below (click on the image to see how it looks on my Twitter);

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1. Sign up to Canva (an easy to use free graphic design tool which creates perfectly sized promotional images for Social Media).

2. Watch this tutorial video.

3.  Create your own great promotional images for free!

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