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Content Marketing Examples: Thinking Outside The Box

As you may have seen in our previous blog post Effective Engagement On Twitter we talked about the 20% – 30% – 50% split when it comes to tweeting. Whilst I am sure you understand the percentage split, I have a funny feeling you maybe sat there thinking, ‘this is all very well, but what the hell do I say?’

Content is the crux of all social media, it is what gets people interested in your brand, it is what demonstrates your companies personality and it is what gets people talking. To help you step outside of the traditional content shaped box you maybe in, which is telling you to say things about your products, to be serious and sensible and to run in fear of people who disagree, this article will show you some content marketing examples and how to step outside the box.

This method and these content marketing ideas apply to a range of social media platforms. The only things you will have to bear in mind are the constraints of platform, e.g. Twitter only allows 140 characters.

Getting Started on Content

Whilst this article will help give content marketing examples and new perspectives to look at social media, the best way to get started is with a pen and paper. On a large piece of paper start sketching out all the possible things you could talk about. Ask yourself the following questions…

Who are your audience? What gender are they? How old are they? What else do they like?

What promotions are you running? Do you have any planned for the future?

What culturally relevant topics/news stories are of interest to your followers?

What is your USP? What makes you stand out from your competitors? If your sell a product or service, where would it be of most use?

Who else do these people follow?

Who is in your team? What’s great about working where you work? Do you go on team outings? Are there pictures?

What do your customers say about you?

Do you have a blog you post to?

Just by brainstorming these ideas, you’ll start to see one idea spark another. Once you have a a broad spectrum of places you can find inspiration for your own content marketing examples, you can start thinking about adding in additional content such as pictures, links and promotions.

Don’t be confined by traditional marketing do’s & don’ts. Social Media is all about personalising your company to your audience and imparting a 360-degree vision of what your company sells, who they are and most importantly what they are about.

People buy from people they like and trust, if your social media content doesn’t make them like and trust you then no amount of special offers will convince them otherwise.

Additional Types of Content

Pictures

Did you know that over 65% of people are visual learners?

Pictures are a fantastic form of content. Images stimulate people in a different way to words and depending on what type of learner you are will remain in your memory longer too.

Visuals are a great way of expressing something quickly and more effectively. For example, a picture of your team on a work night out, all smiling and happy  with the caption “Team Night Out!” is much more effective than a message which says, “team on a staff night out, having lots of fun”. Which are you more likely to believe?

Pictures are also great for engagement, have you thought about caption competitions as a form of engagement? No prize necessary just encourage people to get involved.

team

Again as mentioned in a previous post, people love quotes!

The internet is littered with inspirational/motivational/humours quotes which can all be used in posts. 50% of your content has to be engaging, nothing says it has to have anything to do with your company.

If you do want to keep your voice more formal, you can still use images – have you thought about making visual testimonials? Images with client quotes overlaid? Or Images with industry stats on them? All effective content marketing examples and all very engaging.

Links

Why write huge long posts when no one will read them?

Each social media platform has an optimum post length, go beyond that and you might as well of not bothered. What people will do if you tempt them with a good sentence or captivating statement though is click the link you’ve included to your blog or product page for example.

As mentioned in a previous blog post Tweets which contains links have an 86% chance of being clicked. Just think of all that extra exposure your blog is getting or more hits your website will receive.

You don’t just have to link to your own blog posts or pages either. Linking to articles from well respected, highly ranked websites will add value to your company too. Choose news sites like the BBC or CNN for general news, try the specific sections of newspapers like the Guardian or The Telegraph for more specific news or interest pieces and then work out from there.

Are there well respected bloggers within your industry? Why not link to them? How about magazines or communities?

Quizzes, Captions and Competitions

Engagement is the number one priority for all businesses using social media (see Facebook Page Management). What better way to get people involved than to ask them a question or set them a challenge.

These can be competitions with prizes attached or just for fun, it’s up to you. More often than not the prize isn’t the incentive, the participation and acknowledgement of participation is.

Caption

The important thing to remember with content is it doesn’t act alone. Social Media and SEO are now so intertwined that Google have amended their algorithm to value the interaction on social media posts more highly than ever before. Think carefully about your keywords and the pages you are trying to rank and optimise your social media posts accordingly.

We hope you found these content marketing examples helpful – try these links for more Social Media help.

Related Social Media Marketing Content

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