Growing a social media following is all about understanding your customers and what makes them tick so you can create content that attracts them. This takes some trial and error to find out what works best for you however there’s one question that you can ask yourself that will help you grow your following.
“Why would somebody follow my page?”
Understanding the answer to this one question will help you create engaging content that not only attracts more customers but also ensures they’re more likely to take further action with your business.
Customers Follow Social Media Pages for the Value it Provides Them
Think of your favourite Youtubers and ask yourself why you’re subscribed to them. In most cases it’ll be because they provide value to your life in some way. This thought process goes for all walks of life from who we’re friends with to what businesses we deal with. It’s all about the value that they provide to our life.
I believe that there are 3 core pillars of value that all content falls into. These are:
- Informative Value
- Comedic Value
- Life Value
All social media content must provide the customer with at least 1 of these values to have an effect on them. Content that does not provide value or provides terrible value (just think about all the TV shows that are not needed at all) does not translate into social media growth.
The 3 Pillars of Value
Informative Value
Content that’s informative will give the customer information that they might not have already known. This could be anything from your thoughts on matters, to fun facts about topics, to information about products of a business.
In most cases, informative content will be of an educational nature (such as this post) with the goal of educating and acting as a figure of authority. For businesses this works because the customer needs to trust that the business knows what it’s doing and can do what it offers. If a flower shop shares content on the different types of flowers and goes into detail about each, then it will be presumed that they know what they’re on about.
In many other cases, informative content will be of a sales nature in the form of deals or products/services. The goal with this type of content is to simply make the customer aware of them and what they do/provide. A lot of marketing comes down to the right person seeing the right thing at the right time so by putting out sales type content a businesses increases their chance of the perfect encounter happening.
How to Include Informative Content in your Social Media Strategy
Informative content can be easy to put together and post which makes it great for a social media strategy but, as with all content online, the more effort you put into each post the more engagement you’ll get.
The easiest way to take a simple fact and make it more engaging would be to put it into a graphical form. This makes it much more likely that the customer will notice the post, the picture can be saved and shared externally, and it works well for sharing content across platforms (such as Facebook – Instagram).
How Often Should you Post Informative Content?
In most cases, no one wants a social media feed that’s just full of sales information and I personally wouldn’t follow a page that just promotes themselves.
Most companies tend to follow the 80/20 rule regarding social media content throughout the day. This is 80% “fun” content and 20% sales content across 5 posts (4 fun, 1 sales). This strategy works because most customers don’t want to see sales information in their social media feed if they’ve already brought from the business.
I personally like to post 2 hard sales posts a day, one in the morning and evening, and then 2 informative posts in the middle of the day around lunchtime. I share hard sales posts in the morning and evening because this is when people are most likely looking for that information. Posting “fun facts” around lunch is a great way to get shares and engagement because people who are on their breaks will see them and maybe talk about them with others.
Comedic Value
Content that’s comedic I nature will aim to get an emotion out of the customer which then makes it more likely that they’ll engage with the content. This is because humans are naturally drawn towards humour and if we see something online that’s made us laugh, we’re likely to share it with our friends to make them laugh too.
Whilst I think that most serious businesses that are attempting to be funny just aren’t, see this post here for why, there are still some ways that humour can be achieved on social media. The most common way is with memes which offer a comedic look on a serious topic. For businesses this works because they can take a light hearted approach and appear more human while still having that impact on the customer. For example, McDonalds making memes about going to McDonalds.
How to Include Comedic Value in Your Social Media Strategy
The best way to make some comedic content is to make memes. This is easy enough and I go into detail about how a meme works in, How to Make a Hilarious Meme, but I’ll share the basics here:
- Memes take something (such as a line of text or a scene in a film or an image) and add a new context to it
- The more departed the new context is from the original context the funnier the meme is
- Consider the tone you use in a meme since this adds a lot to the comedy (a childish tone can be very funny when mocking authority)
- The internet respects creativity and originality and will reward you for putting in the effort
Making memes can be a time-consuming process since it does require a lot of research and then careful finicking of elements however memes are more likely to be shared than any other content.
To make a meme you’ve got to first find a format (format is the original scene or text or image) and capture that. Then add text that changes the context of the format. For example, below, where I have taken the famous Hank Dies scene and added some new context to change the meaning of his last words. On Tik Tok, this video has some added background music and other affects but for a picture these are not needed.
How Often Should you Post Comedic Content in Your Social Media Strategy?
Given that comedic content is more likely to get engaged with and shared, I advise to post 2/3 comedy posts a day if possible. Usually, 1 around the morning commute time, 1 around lunch, and 1 towards the end of the day. This way, customers are likely to see the content when they most need it and it’s going to have a greater effect on them than if they saw it when they’re at 100%.
For businesses that follow the 80/20 rule, they’ll often dedicate 1 post a day to comedy. This strategy can work since good comedic content is hard to make and so they’re not using up all of their funny stuff in a couple of days, but this does lead to them posting more “boring” content. If you can’t come up with comedic content very fast, then posting 1 a day around lunchtime will work best for you.
Life Value
Content that offers life value is content that’s motivational or inspiring with the goal being to inspire customers who see it. This could be anything from motivational quotes to motivational videos to just some uplifting music. It works on a similar level to comedic content by having an emotional effect on the customer which makes it more likely that they’ll engage and share the content.
A lot of the time, life content is used to simply fill a “slot” in a day because it’s easy to put together and is often shared by customers (especially older people). The best way it’s achieved is through an image with a quote superimposed over the top with the authors name underneath. This looks classy while still being inspiring.
In a professional setting, such as on LinkedIn, many people will share their life story in a motivational way. This can work for a personal brand because it creates a connection between the customer and brand however in most cases there aren’t any lessons shared, just the story. If you’re going to share your personal story, then make sure to sum up each “chapter” with a lesson.
How to Include Life Value Content in Your Social Media Strategy
Life value content is easy because it can look good in a graphic or as a text post.
For graphical posts, it’s best to create your own graphic. To do this, find a scenic picture that has a lot of “empty” space because this is where you’re going to put your text. Then find an appropriate font, an appropriate colour for the text, and a good quote that fits with the image. A lot of the spacing relies on the image but if you play with elements then you’ll find something that works.
For text posts, keep it simple and clean. Have the quote and then reference the author afterwards. Don’t say or do anything else.
How Often Should you Post Life Value in your Social Media Strategy
Most businesses will post at least 1 life value post a day, normally in the morning, and usually on a Monday to go with “Motivational Monday”. This strategy can work however most businesses put no effort into these posts and they normally don’t get much engagement. As I’ve said, they’re posts to fill a slot.
The best method for life value content is to create a load of graphics and then post then post 1 in the early morning and 1 towards the end of the day. If we think of the reasoning for motivational content, which is to motivate, then it makes sense to share those messages when they’re needed most. This will also have a greater effect on the customers which leads to more change of engagement.
How Many Times Should You Post on Social Media Per Day?
Throughout this article I’ve spoken about how many times you should post each type of content, but I haven’t spoken about how much you should post per day.
Most businesses will post 3-5 times per day and follow the 80/20 rule. This works because it’s about the right amount of exposure, posts can hit all the big times (like lunch/early evening), and a strict schedule can be made and kept to. There will be 1 sales post which will usually be between 9-10, and then the rest will be “fun” posts throughout the day.
While each social media site operates different, with it being more acceptable to post more on Twitter than on LinkedIn, you should aim to stick to a daily schedule on all platforms. You should also aim to mirror your posts around midday you increase the chances of the right post hitting the right person no matter when in the day they’re online. For example, by focusing all of your comedy content at 11 and 1 you’re almost guaranteed to be seen by someone as they’re on their lunch break as apposed to just posting at 12.
In Summary
- Ask yourself “why would somebody follow my page?”
- Content falls under 1 of 3 categories: Informative, comedic, and life
- Graphics catch the eye so make as many graphics as possible as these get more engagement
- Comedic and life posts have an emotional effect on the customer and are more likely to be engaged with and shared
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