How to master the art of writing effective social media content

writing effective social media content

A guest post by Kevin Nelson. 

Have you ever wondered if you could make money from content marketing?

Apparently you can, as revenue from content marketing in 2016 stood at $28.1 billion, an increase from the previous year by 14%, while the 2017 to 2021 period could see a similar double-digit growth.

According to PQ Media this shows how much businesses can benefit from writing effective social media content for their marketing. Therefore businesses who wish to succeed focus on taking appropriate measures in this field.

Here are 5 steps to achieve just that:

1.  Publish unique and original content

All readers crave for new and informative content online. So if you’re a blogger, take time to research your content and plan well before writing.

Make sure you create original and unique content. Plagiarism is an offence and discredits your content’s legitimacy. Original content requires research, so it’s worth investing time into doing this.

Unique content fares better with your creativity and point of view. When you add your voice to the material you publish, there is a higher chance of writing effective social media content that draws in readers.

2. Have a target audience in mind

Writing useful content should focus on the readers’ needs and aspirations and not the author’s. Successful posts are so because they are written solely for the reader.

Remember you are writing effective social media content to communicate with your audience. Having a target audience in mind while drafting your content allows you to write better with an objective. And it’s a good idea not to deviate from it.

If your posts are without a goal, they are less likely to make a proper point, or they may contain random ideas that have no sense.

3. Identify the platform and format to use

Before you start writing effective social media content, identify which social media sites you will post it on.

If you are contributing on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram, each will have specific requirements articles need to fulfill to make them effective.

For example, publishing on Twitter or Instagram require different strategies. You will need to formulate your content differently, and vary it in length and the kind of vocabulary used. Twitter is restricted in the number of characters used, and Instagram is mainly image based.

Before you publish on a particular platform, it’s worth adapting your content into the most appropriate format before it is posted.

4. Focus on quality of the content

When it comes to writing effective social media content, it’s best to remember content is king.

The better the quality of your content, the more likely you will attract an audience and generate leads and traffic.

Content needs to fulfil specific requirements before it can be considered to be of high quality. This means fulfilling the rules of grammar and eliminating any spelling errors.

It is vital your writing is proofread before it is posted. Readers prefer reading content that has had some effort put into it. In fact, some audiences are offended if they read articles that contain many mistakes.

To keep your audience keen on what you post, your content also needs to be informative and trendsetting.

Take an example of a literature review. The information is logically written to provide a flow, while at the same time making it easy to understand the data.

Creating a flow helps when writing effective social media content.  A logical fluidity makes it easier to communicate with your audience.

5. Make your content shareable

There are numerous platforms, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus, where you have the opportunity of reaching an even more significant audience.

If you want to be most effective in posting across all these platforms, you need to make your articles shareable. This is a vital step in writing effective social media content.

Remember that your goal is to reach a larger audience.  Creating shareable content increases its chances of succeeding. One way is to repurpose your content to make it more preferable for your readers, such as producing Infographics or eBooks.

How good are you at writing effective social media content?

New content is being uploaded online every minute. This means competition is stiff if you want to obtain and maintain an audience.

Although there is no end of poorly written articles, you can set yourself aside from the rest. Invest and plan your time well to succeed in writing compelling content.

More than 40% of the world’s population has access to the internet. Grasp this opportunity to reach a bigger audience by writing effective social media content using the steps above.

About the author:

Kevin NelsonKevin Nelson is a professional educator and a private tutor with over 8 years of experience. He is also a content writer for various blogs about higher education, entertainment, social media and blogging.  During his off time, Kevin enjoys travelling and cooking. Feel free to connect with him on Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+.

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Alice Elliott has been explaining blogging to beginner bloggers for almost two decades, specialising in using ordinary, everyday language to make the process as simple as possible so that anybody can understand.
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  • den quat tran says:

    Thanks for sharing. Hopefully there will be more posts in the near future!

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