Why Your Social Media Content Might Be Killing Your Brand Image

You may have heard the phrase “content is king” in the past. I consider this the most misunderstood phrase in the marketing world. Most companies interpret this as, “let’s release as much content as possible so that we are constantly reaching people; we wouldn’t want to lose our kingship!” But this strategy is largely misusing, your social media content might be killing your brand image in the process.

Here are some signs that your company’s social media content might be on the wrong track:

• You release many posts each day, very few of which are related to your business, industry or target audience.

• All of your posts are text-oriented, with lots of it.

• You post many articles within a short period of time, followed by large gaps in the day without any content being released.

• You post content randomly, without any sort of regular schedule to follow.

• You receive very few comments or interactions, and your followers seem to be slowly dropping off.

If you fall under any one (or all five) of these categories, the good news is that you aren’t too late; you can still perform well on social media! Here are five ways to improve your content and begin to truly reach your target audience.

1. Quality > Quantity

This cannot be emphasized enough; you do NOT need to post a huge amount of content in order to be relevant on social media. Many of the best companies in the world only post every couple of days on Facebook and Twitter (Starbucks is an excellent example of this). Their content is visual, engaging and it aligns perfectly with their brand image and target audience.

Many companies have really great content; your company might even fall under this category. But if it’s swimming in a sea of irrelevant posts, nobody will ever see it. Publish only your absolute best, and you won’t push your audience away. In fact, you’ll likely draw them in.

2. Make a Good First Impression

A recent study claims that you have only 7 seconds to grab your visitor’s attention when they come to your website. And this is for a consumer who is choosing to visit your website. This amount of time is significantly less on social media, where thousands of other companies are also trying to reach your target audience. It is incredibly important to grab the attention of those who tend to just quickly scroll through their timelines.

The best way to do this is to be visually captivating; appeal to the senses and intrigue of your followers, enough that they are willing to stop and view your post. This allows for your brand to be creative, while choosing graphics that reflect the identity of your brand. A picture is worth 1,000 words, which is far more than a consumer is willing to read in a post.

3. Become Schedule-Oriented

More and more in the world today, people’s lives are revolving around their tightly-knit schedules. As a brand, it is important to do the same, in order to meet people where they are when they are online. Having posts released on the same day every week allows your content to become a part of your audience’s schedule, instead of constantly trying to squeeze into theirs.

Also, try to identify which time of day your audience best responds to posts. This may change on different days of the week, but experiment until you discover which times generate the best response.

4. Pick a Voice – And Stick With It

This is especially important if you have multiple people working to run a single social media account, or if you have different people running each social media account for a single company.

As a brand, it is essential to choose a company voice, tone and style of presentation. This voice should make your brand seem more personal (and even human) to the people who read your posts. And like the voice of a real person, your brand should have a clear, consistent personality associated with it on social media. Your readers are far more likely to feel an emotional connection to a brand that they can relate to.

Keeping your company voice consistent across social media platforms is essential, but it is also crucial to keep this voice among all digital content, including website, blogs, newsletters and even ads.

5. Engage With Your Audience

An area that many brands fail on social media is consumer engagement. This social world is a rare opportunity for brands to directly engage with their own customers, which is much more difficult to achieve offline. Social media is also a great place to quickly – and publicly – handle customer complaints and concerns. On the other end, having interaction and mentions from satisfied customers can easily be used as free promotion.

So, if someone engages with you on social media in a meaningful way, don’t ignore it! A simple ‘like’ or ‘favorite’ can go a long way. A quick retweet or share can showcase your customer satisfaction to the world. And turning dissatisfaction to joy publicly can speak volumes to the importance of your customers. Don’t miss this opportunity!