Social Media for Content Marketing – Your Social Content Plan [+5 Examples]

If you own a business, you know that one of the best ways to become an authority in your industry is to create informative, beneficial content (like our video on repurposing content below).

There are a lot of ways to deliver your content to your target audience, but one of the best ways is with social media. Social media for content marketing is a dream come true because it helps you:

• Increase brand awareness
• Inform your social media audience
• Reach new audiences
• Guide users back to your website
• Increase content shares
• And so much more

On this page, we’ll help you put together an effective social media content strategy and even share a few social media content marketing examples! If you want to learn more about social media for content marketing, feel free to give us a call at 888-601-5359. Otherwise, keep reading!

We foster and form long-term partnerships so that your business has long-term results.

Over 90% of WebFX clients continue partnering with us into year 2 of their campaign.

Hear from Our Happy Customers

How are social media and content marketing related?

Before we dive in, it’s important to note the connection between social media and content marketing.

Social media

Social media refers to any social media platform including, but not limited to:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Snapchat
• Twitter
• Pinterest

Social media is home to billions of users, and the numbers continue to grow every year. For example, Facebook alone has a staggering 2.45 billion users. There are a few things you can accomplish with social media marketing including:

• Increased brand awareness
• Increased conversions
• Increased website traffic
• Improved customer service
• And more!

When you use social media properly, you reap a wide array of benefits from increased brand loyalty to increased website traffic. However, the key to obtaining these benefits rests on the content you post.

Content marketing

Content marketing refers to the process of creating, implementing, and sharing written content, video content, and more. When you market your content, the goal is to increase your customer base by informing your target audience about topics related to your industry.

You can accomplish a wide variety of goals with content marketing including but not limited to:

• Increased website traffic
• Increased conversions
• Increased revenue year over year
• Improved online authority

The similarities between social media and content marketing

If you look at the goals of social media marketing and content marketing, you’ll see that there isn’t too much of a difference. Both aim to inform your target audience, improve authority and brand awareness, and increase website traffic and conversions overall. When two different marketing strategies have the same goals, it makes sense to use one to improve the other, and that’s exactly where social media for content marketing comes in to help.

Creating a social media content strategy helps you get the most out of your website content and accomplish all of your goals — two times over. Let’s talk about how you can create a social media content plan that combines your current content marketing efforts with your current social media efforts. Haven’t jumped into either marketing strategy yet?

Don’t worry! WebFX has a full team of social media marketing specialists and content marketers who know how to create specialized campaigns for your unique business. Give us a call today at 888-601-5359 to learn more about what we can do for you!

Creating a social media content strategy that helps you get double the benefits

You can reap benefits from a social media marketing strategy, and you can also reap benefits from a content marketing strategy, but what happens when you create a social media content strategy?

Not only will you make your content available to two different audiences, but you’ll likely see increased metrics across the board. Let’s go step by step to create the perfect social media content plan for your business.

Step 1. Take inventory of what you already have

Before you can get started, it’s crucial that you determine what you already have in place. Here are a few questions you can ask yourself, and what to do depending on your answer:

• Do you already post content to your social media accounts?
  • If yes, great!
  • If no, consider working with a digital marketing agency like WebFX to establish your online presence with social media! If you don’t yet have your social profiles set up, do some research and determine which social platforms would be the most fruitful for your business. Then, set up your free profiles and start posting content!
  • If no, but you already have social media profiles, keep reading, because this page can help you!
• Is your social media content successful?
  • If yes, great! This means you’re doing something right. Keep reading to learn more about how you can repurpose your website content to make your social media content plan even more successful!
  • If no, consider working with a digital marketing agency like WebFX to help you improve your social media content! Or keep reading to learn more fantastic social media content strategy tips!

After you establish the answers to these two questions, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what you have and what you need.

Step 2. Determine what your audience wants to see on social

The name of the game when it comes to marketing is catering to your target audience — after all, they’re the ones that buy your products. It’s important that you don’t create content because you think it’s important, but rather create content that you know appeals to your target audience. For example, if you own a bakery, you might be tempted to post the brands of icing tips that you use to decorate, but make sure you think long and hard about whether or not that topic is important to your target audience.

If you own a bakery that is known for children’s cakes, a better content topic would likely be something like options for boys’ birthday cakes. You don’t need to guess what your audience wants to read, though. Here are a few ways to determine what your target audience wants to see on social media:

1. See what the competition is doing

Make sure that you always pay attention to the competition and take note of what content performs best on each of their social platforms. Also, keep in mind that just because something works on Facebook doesn’t mean that it will get the same reaction on Twitter. Looking at your competition who already posts content on social platforms is like testing different types of content without creating it.

You’ll learn a lot without even lifting a finger!

2. Emulate what works

Although you should never copy content word for word, you can learn from and emulate your competition’s social presence. For example, if you see that your competition gets a lot of attention on their posts including a cake decorating video, it can tell you that your audience values videos. However, if you see limited interaction on posts that talk about “quick baking facts,” you can draw conclusions from that as well — either your audience prefers longer content, or they don’t care to learn quick facts.

You’ll also come up with some ideas of your own by looking at your competition. For example, you might see that a page about quick baking facts isn’t fruitful, but quick baking tips might be a topic with opportunity. Test them for yourself!

3. Learn from the past

If you’ve had a social presence for a while, it’s important to learn from the past and analyze how your previous content performs. When you use analytics to determine how previous content performs, you’ll not only save yourself time, but you’ll save yourself the effort. When you know exactly what kind of content works on what social platforms, you’ll be able to create it without hesitation.

Step 3. Create informative website content

Don’t worry, we’re still talking about social media!

You must create informative website content first to create a social media campaign for your content. This content varies from article pages to blog posts, to videos and everything in between. When you create informative website content, not only will you be able to rank in search engine results pages (SERPs) for important keywords, but kill two birds with one stone by posting your site content on social media.

But how do you create informative website content that will grab the attention of your social followers? Check out our tips for writing fantastic web content that you can share on any platform:

• Do keyword research: Keyword research is crucial to any content creation strategy. That’s because it allows you to see exactly what terms your target audience searches for, and create content based on that. Keyword research is the hidden key to creating content that appeals to your target audience.
• Focus on long-tail keywords: There are two kinds of keywords that you’ll find when you perform keyword research — long-tail terms and short-tail terms. Long-tail keywords are detailed key phrases unique to specific niches. Short-tail keywords are extremely general.

  Your target audience is typically more interested in content that targets long-tail terms since they’re more detailed. You’ll also find more success with long-tail keywords since they spur more conversions. Why?

  When users click on your longtail-targeted info, they’re more likely ready to buy instead of just peruse. That’s because when users search long-tail keywords, they have a very specific idea of what they want, and they’re ready to make a purchase. Long-tail keyword searches typically indicate the end stages of a buyer journey which is why they are great for signaling a potential purchase.

• Include a video: The popularity of video has skyrocketed in recent years and continues to grow. When you include a video in your website content, you’ll be able to double-dip on social media by posting your video natively, and then also providing the link to your website page that hosts the video.

Not only do users see your video on their social feed, but to learn more, they’ll be encouraged to click the link to your website where they can learn more about the topic.

Step 4. Create a content calendar and get sharing!

Creating a content calendar helps you stay on track when it comes to social content. When your account goes silent for a while, users are less likely to trust you and your brand.

A dry spell on your account might make your brand seem lazy, or too busy to handle your social accounts. Either way, it’s not a good sign to potential customers. On the other hand, when you post often, they’ll trust you as an authority and look forward to when you’ll post again.

Creating a social media content calendar isn’t hard! Whether you create fresh content specifically for your social platforms or repurpose content that you’ve already posted on your site, you can include it all in your social media content planner!

5 social media content marketing examples to inspire your campaign

See how other companies are utilizing social media for content marketing!

1. A recap

Susquehanna University posted one of their most popular pictures of 2019 on their Twitter feed — a genius move for engagement since users liked the photo in the past. They also provided users with a link that directed them to their Facebook account where they could see more popular 2019 images.

2. A video

ABC reposted a video from a fellow social media user that showed their giant snake slithering up a banister. Not only is this a great example of shock value for engagement, but the video is sure to grab users’ attention as well.

3. A peek inside

Buzzfeed Food posted an article that not only takes users to their website, increasing site traffic, but to entice clicks, they gave users a peek inside the article that makes clicking hard to resist.

4. A special offer

CVS previews their pre-sorted Rx packs in their video content — an offer that is sure to get CVS loyals buzzing.

5. A piece of user-generated content

The modern toothbrush mogul Quip posted a piece of user-generated content to gain the trust of their followers. Not only do they show that others love their brand, but they show followers that their product is a must-try.

Ready to dive into the world of social media for content marketing?

WebFX can help!

We’re a full-service digital marketing agency that has over 500 marketing specialists who are well-versed in social media marketing and content marketing. We can help you create campaigns that improve your brand awareness and your client base by using cross-channel marketing to seamlessly integrate your content marketing strategy with your social media channels. To learn more, contact us online or give us a call at 888-601-5359!