3 Steps Our Team Follows to Create Engaging Social Media Content Ideas
In the dynamic realm of social media, the art of creating content that captivates, resonates, and drives engagement is a cornerstone of success. Our team's journey toward consistently engaging social media content revolves around three essential steps. These steps lay the foundation for fostering meaningful connections and delivering value to our audience.
Take a look at your brand’s social media and then think of the overarching mission and vision statement. How can you translate that into TikTok? What would content pieces look like translated onto TikTok? How do we keep the brand but adapt content or trends? These are all great questions to ask before you start creating content.
Step 1: Understand Your Brand and Audience
Before embarking on the creative journey, it's crucial to have an in-depth understanding of your brand's identity and the audience you're aiming to reach. Consider how your brand's voice, values, and essence align with the specific social media platform you're using.
Brand Consistency: Your brand's identity should shine through in every piece of content. Whether it's your brand's colour palette, tone of voice, or core messaging, consistency helps build recognition and trust among your audience.
Platform Relevance: Each social media platform has its own unique culture and user base. Adapt your content strategy to cater to the preferences and behaviours of the audience on that platform.
Audience Analysis: Delve deep into your target audience's demographics, psychographics, and pain points. Understand their needs, aspirations, and challenges to create content that resonates on a personal level.
Step 2: Think Like Your Consumer
Shift your perspective from that of a creator to that of a consumer. What content would truly engage you if you were in your audience's shoes? This shift allows you to create content that adds value and genuinely impacts their decision-making process.
Value-Driven Content: Consumers seek content that addresses their questions, solves their problems, or entertains them. Craft content that provides value, educates, entertains, or inspires. We share tips on all things marketing on our TikTok. One example is our brand colours video. We really put ourselves in the shoes of the consumer and explain step-by-step how brands come up with certain colours for their brand and how that affects us as consumers.
Relatability: Develop content that connects with your audience's emotions, experiences, and aspirations. Sharing relatable stories or user-generated content can forge a strong sense of community.
Authenticity: Authenticity is the currency of social media. Share behind-the-scenes glimpses, real-life stories, and unfiltered moments that humanize your brand and foster trust. In our case, we wanted to show the “personality” behind the face in our videos, hence we filmed an authentic “Get Ready With Me” to show our viewers.
There’s also a big difference between SHOWING and TELLING. Everyone knows how to talk about something that they’re passionate about, but being able to show what you mean is a greater skill. For example, we wanted to show this amazing teleprompter function on CapCut that we came across. Instead of just saying that we found this tool and users can find it in the CapCut app to try it out, we actually were able to show how the tool can be used. We pulled out our phones and filmed the process of opening the app, finding the tool, and using it.
To put it in another perspective, imagine watching a video on hairstyles. If you were just shown the “finished product”, it would be hard for you, as a user, to come to that conclusion and magically understand how to style your hair in that certain way. Rather, if the video showed you a step-by-step tutorial on how to style your hair to get that final product, this video would be more useful to you as a consumer.
This is a snapshot of our weekly content schedule, but essentially you need to create something like this for an entire month at a time. Make sure that not all of your content is too similar to avoid an overlap of content information.
Step 3: Create a Strategic Content Calendar
A well-organized content calendar is a compass that guides your social media journey. Creating content without a strategic approach is like navigating without direction. By categorizing content into content pillars, you ensure a balanced and purposeful mix of topics that keeps it interesting for your audience.
Content Pillars: Identify key themes that resonate with your audience and align with your brand's objectives. These pillars can range from educational content and product showcases to user testimonials and industry insights.
Diverse Formats: Diversify content formats to keep your audience engaged. Incorporate images, videos, infographics, and interactive elements to cater to different preferences.
Timeliness and Consistency: Craft a content calendar that aligns with your audience's online behaviour and platform trends. Consistent posting maintains audience interest and maximizes visibility.
Adaptability: While planning is essential, stay open to current events and trends that may require adjusting your content strategy to remain relevant and timely.
The journey to creating engaging social media content is a delicate dance between understanding your brand's identity, empathizing with your audience, and strategically organizing your content creation efforts. By following these three fundamental steps, you can build a content strategy that not only resonates but also establishes a genuine connection with your audience, fostering long-lasting engagement and brand loyalty.