4 Types of Content to Increase your Social Engagement

Writing a great post and posting it over a social network feels like fishing right? You just type something, post it over social media like a fisher throws his rod, and then wait for the target to catch the bait.

Nah, I was just being sarcastic, it doesn’t work that way. :p

If you’re not getting any social media engagement. The problem could be anywhere from your content to your reach and the way you interact.

“What if the problem is in the nature of content?” Have you ever asked this question? What type of content are you producing anyways? Is the idea or concept of your content based on your goals? Are you reflecting what you wish to achieve in your content?

Whoops! Oh well, here are 4 types of content I’ll let you in on. As long as you keep producing your content on one of these types with a clear intention of what you wish to achieve in your mind, you’re going to eventually start climbing the engagement ladder.

1. Inspiring Content
2. Educating Content
3. Entertaining Content
4. Converting Content

1. Inspiring Content

 

I’d like to be sarcastic one more time here. A lot of people over social networks would just superglue Lincoln’s quotes over a snap of Leonardo Di Caprio and expect engagement over the post like moths to flame. It doesn’t work, unless you’re Batman’s official Batmobile supplier.

Anyways, for real engagement, try case studies and real testimonials. Case studies let people relate with the brand sharing the story. People learn a lot from case studies and if it’s helpful, I’m betting my life’s worth of earning they’re going to share it with others. The best part, a portion of your audience will find it useful.

2. Educating Content

Your customer opens her laptop and log onto her Facebook account. As she is scrolling through the posts and feeds, she stumbles upon a post promising to rid her pup off fleas in just 10 minutes – just the thing running at the back of her head. What if this post is from your competitor?

This is why an opportunity to educate people or an opportunity to solve their problems over social channels absolutely cannot be missed. As long as the content is helpful, well-written and share-worthy, it’s going to keep bringing engagement.

 3. Entertainment Content

Inspiring people through content or informing them is great but are you missing out on opportunities to build deeper relationships with your customers?

Brands often post informational posts and act all high because they feel they’re brands, people should come to them instead of the brands initiating interactions. We might go in the books of history as inhabitants of social media era, and this era, brands need to develop relationships at a more social and human level. That is why they are called social channels in the first place. Duh!

Sometimes, a funny post can drive traffic, or encourage people to share your page, even when previous informational posts have failed. You can and should use entertaining posts to fortify the relationship with your customers and become their friend instead of their vendor or service provider.This is how you can have a perfect social media engagement.

4. Converting Content 

You’re writing to build better relationships, entertain them or to help them out. But which one of these types contain a genuine call to action?

Entertainment content aims to target people’s emotion and trigger a response that has more to do with emotions. Informational content does the same, except it targets their rational side. But none of the above have to have a call to action. Sometimes, you have to work out a piece of content exclusively with the intention of getting an action out of your audience. Sometimes, you have to point them in a specific direction.

Content that converts may include newsletters, Mail Sign-Ups and Buy Now actions.

Conclusion?

Here is a good news for you. You don’t have to use them individually. You don’t have to include every element in one either. But you can use them in combination. For instance, you can write a joke on an itchy dog and entertain people. Then make people realize it could be their dog as you near the conclusion of the post and then call them to action. See how you just effectively used three of the four elements in a single Facebook or Twitter post?

That is how you can go out there and come up with posts and comments that will possess the power to captivate, convert and spread the word. I also found this post that looks like a cheat sheet. You can check social media engagement tips as well.