*2-3 minute read*
Content Creation for Beginners [Marketing]
Content creation may seem daunting if you’ve never done it before. There’s a fine art to getting the correct balance of inspirational vs. promotional content when you’re trying to market a brand or product, so below we share our beginner’s guide to content creation.
Step 1: Define Your Target Audience
Choosing the correct demographic is important when creating content because it will help you define your voice. Look at your brand or product, define who would be most likely to engage with it, and create content that targets that demographic.
Facebook and Twitter are generally good platforms to start with, though other platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, and even Tumblr could be a good fit for your brand. Here is a general rule of thumb for choosing a platform:
Facebook – pretty much anything and everything goes on this platform. With 2 billion people on Facebook, this is a must-have for every brand.
Twitter – a good account for younger audiences, celebrities, and trendy brands.
Instagram – a very visual platform. If you have a product or brand where images tend to resonate with your core demographic, Instagram is a good pick.
LinkedIn – only if you are a business or organization and will have corporate content to share; B2B focused.
Snapchat – generally a younger demographic, though this platform can be effective for organizations who make use of video and images.
Pinterest – images with short captions and hashtags work well—recipes, blog images, any image you can link to a webpage or another social media platform. This generally targets a wide audience of young adults all the way through to older generations and is female orientated.
Tumblr – for bloggers with a younger target audience.
Below we’ve listed four main platforms that you may be crafting content for:
Facebook: Text, video, images, GIFs, and link posts all work very well on Facebook – pair a strong quote with an eye-catching graphic for top interactions.
Twitter: Twitter has a 140 character limit so quick, catchy lines are best here. For promotion, make sure to include a shortened URL, potentially a graphic, and a carefully chosen hashtag.
Instagram: Instagram is an image-based platform so creating an eye-catching graphic or photo will help you receive the most engagement. Your post text should be short and to the point, including about five to seven carefully chosen hashtags.
LinkedIn: This platform is very business focused. Corporate content, work events and updates from your company will be well-received on LinkedIn. This platform isn’t very image friendly so keep that in mind when creating content.
When looking for content to post on these platforms, ensure that you create a decent balance of inspirational vs promotional content. Posting too much hard-promotion will drop your follower count very quickly. Remember to share content from other pages and brand-influencers to create a community and hopefully garner some followers from outside sources.
If you do not have a strong background in graphic design, we suggest keeping your images very simple. If your agency has a graphics team, make use of them, if not, we suggest using organic images that you’ve taken yourself. If you want to create clean, simple text on inspiring backgrounds, making use of a free stock image site such as Pexels, and a creation app such as Canva, will allow you to create basic, beautiful images with little effort.
Step 5: Measuring Statistics
As a content creator, make sure to take a look at your best performing content on a regular basis, as this will give you a good idea of what your audience responds well to. Promotional content will never receive as many interactions as an inspirational post, for instance, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t perform well in other areas, such as link clicks or impressions. Find out what works, keep up-to-date with the latest social media trends, and create a brand that others want to follow.
For more tips and tricks on content, graphics and everything social media, follow our MCP Blog.
*Shout out to Kuso Design for the adorable social media images used in today’s blog.
This post was written by Kirstin Venn. Kirstin is a Social Media Content Specialist Lead with Media Connect Partners.
