Melonie Dodaro in her article “The Psychology Behind Social Media Engagment” draws on insights from the world of psychology and the keys to a successful social media program to highlight ways that marketers can be more influencial on social.
“We hate to be in debt,” she writes. “It always leaves us with a nasty feeling whenever we commit to something we eventually neglect to do. In a way, this is another observable phenomemon on social media. If you don’t post consistent updates, your followers are likely to forget about you, or even unfollow you.”
Not only do you need to be posting on the right platforms, but your stream of content should be consistent and constant. To pull from when I promoted content for The Appalachian, it is important for users to look to you as a brand or information leader. If your content is good, and clearly positions you on top, then when you add social media to that it becomes an aggregate for your own thought leadership.
This could come in a few ways, according to Dodaro:
- Emotional connections
- Questions that spark conversation between you and users or between users themselves
- Using humor and viral content
- Good storytelling
- Newsworthy content and updates
- A variety of content types and topics
- A motivating call to action
These elements can all work together to create the best type of content for the goal in mind. For example, a feature on an employee that illustrates a point of pride could drive an emotional connection through human empathy, would be best done in a journalistic/ bio-pic format, and would be a better video than written information. However, advertising an event that has yet to happen would require some emotion (let’s say it is a Thanksgiving meal pre-order), would need good photos, but also written content which lends itself to maybe screenshotting on mobile to remember for later, and a link to “add to calendar.”
The quality and frequency of content can make or break even the best social media plan with every imaginable data to back strategy up.
If you need assistance in creating effective content, email us to see how we can help!
STEPH SANS LEE 