What Kind of Content Should I Create on Social Media?

During my meetings with clients, prospects and other kinds of marketers, I often get the same questions or remarks about social media. Most brands ar not happy with the results of their social media campaigns. Not enough likes, engagement and in the end not enough leads or sales.

So brands tend to give up on social media. People ask me a lot of questions about social media, and the main important question is : "What kind of content should my brand create on social media?". If you ask yourself that question too, it means you are on the right way. Because it is not that social media do not work, or that people are not on social media. It is just that brands post on social media like brands advertised during the early ages of television. 

When television became popular, brands started advertising on that platform. The first advertisements were just spoken radio clips, but filmed. Not one brand used the possibilities and the potential of television. The brands that managed to start to use all the creative possibilities of television, scored well and grew exponentially. Others died, trying to advertise on television like they used to do on the radio. Brands needed to adapt. It seems obvious now. But it was not that obvious back then.

Today, the same shift has happened between classical advertising and social media marketing. What most brands do today, even (or "especially") the big brands, is posting the images of their classic advertising campaigns and post them on all the social media platforms they know.

It is not only wrong to post the same content on every social media platform (see our previous article on how behaving on social media is similar to behaving in a bar). It is also wrong to use social media as a classic advertising platform. Before you start, you need to know WHY people are on social media. They are there for 2 reasons : CONNECTIVITY (chat, messenger, engagement, making new friends, keeping in touch,...) and ENTERTAINMENT (fun, education, inspiration, games, voyeurism, escapism,...). And we can be clear, they (like you and me) are not there for watching advertisements.

But yet, that is what brands do. They put out all kinds of advertisements : buy now, get now, look at my new product, watch my car,... But they do not fulfill one of the two needs, connectivity or entertainment.

Let me help you on the entertainment part. By entertainment, I do not only mean pure fun, but also education, escapism and inspiration. It is there that your brand can bring value.

Create content that is related to your brand DNA. Create content that is talking around your business and not about your business. "About" your business is advertising. "Around" your business is entertainment. So, think like a journalist in your business. Entertain around the business you work in. Be a part of the entertainment that the people in your business are looking for.

If you are a bank, you can create a weekly piece of content in which you interview great entrepreneurs. If you are a popular beer brand, you can create a show around football. If you are a solid car brand, you can create weekly episodes about the journey of truck drivers or about the daily life in a gas station. This seems strange, but people want to see this. Your prospects like this. 

This way, you will have the attention. And this is where it all starts. By gaining the attention of your potential customers. After that, you can start selling. I will tell you more about selling through entertainment marketing in a next blogpost.

Hope you enjoyed!

Feel free to share, would help me a lot. 

Written by Laurent Lootens - Lapin Quotidien, owner and Founder of Lapin Quotidien and So-Phi.