Find your social content sweet spot

I want to help you find your social content sweet spot. Allow me to explain what that is.

Last week, I gave a workshop on content marketing, here in Yellowknife. The workshop was a great success, and I touched on one thing briefly and I want to expand on that and that was what I’m calling the social content sweet spot.

When we create content online. Whether it’s on our website, or whether it’s on our Facebook page, we always have a couple things that we’re trying to accomplish.

We want people to connect with our content. This might mean liking it on Facebook, sharing it on twitter, going to our website, or ultimately buying your product or using your service.

To get these results we just have to look at what people are interested in and what our goals are, and how those two things can align together.

The use of a Venn diagram is very important when talking about the social content sweet spot because there are two different types of content that we can categorize most content into.

The first category is the educational content. This is the content that you want people to read and see. This is information like how you do what you do, how you get the results you get, why people like your product, how people use your product, your history and your passion behind what you do. It might not be the most interesting content, but it’s valuable content because it’s your story. It’s what makes you do what you do and why you do it. This is the content that when someone reads it they will be more connected with you. They will feel like they are longtime friends with you. And they will be more apt to use your product or service than if they didn’t know anything about you.

The problem with this content though, like I mention above, is that it’s overwhelming, it might be a bit stale, and there might be a lot of. So for the consumer it is difficult to actually consume. And that’s where our second category comes in the play.

The second category is what I referred to as viral content. This is the content that you see shared on Facebook all the time. It’s funny, it’s quick, it’s entertaining, it’s bite-size.

To really understand viral content we need to look at Buzz Feed. Buzz Feed is a popular content website of really widespread content. What is so interesting about Buzz Feed and what makes it ultimately so good is how they look at the content. Not only do they have content writers and content researchers, but, they also have specific people that research trends among content. People who look at the data and analyze it to determine what content gets shared and seen the most. Buzz Feed recently promoted one of these people to be their overall publisher. You should check her out she’s a brilliant woman. I only wish I was half as smart as she is.

While I realize we can’t all be Buzz Feed, and we don’t have sufficient time to sift through data. We still need to approach our content like Buzz Feed does. We need to examine the content we have and figure out how we can make it well received. 

Here are some ideas for sweet spot content:

• Make lists
• Reference pop culture
• Use great photos
• Make good, short videos
• Leverage current memes

In addition keep these in mind when producing your content. Pick one and use it:

• Make it happy 
• Make it funny
• Make it heartfelt - A feel good story
• Make it sappy
• Make it macho 

My mind runs wild with many content ideas that can be produced and it excites me. Whatever your organization, send me a quick email and I’ll gladly share an idea or two with you.