— May 22, 2019
Since the inception of Social Media Marketing many business owners think they can manage the strategy themselves and that by posting anything to their page, especially company related content, will generate good engagement and reach. Mistakenly thinking that just keeping the page active will keep their audience interested.
Not true!
Adobe recently conducted a study of 1,000 consumers in the U.S. that outlines what annoys these folks most about the content businesses are sharing socially. They found that 3 out of 5 people experiencing one of the situations below would prevent them from making a purchase.
- Content is too wordy or poorly written.
- Content is poorly designed.
- Content is old or stale.
- Content isn’t personalized or relevant.
- Content isn’t optimized for a particular device.
- Content doesn’t contain any videos or images.
1. Too Wordy/Poorly Written
While grammar errors happen, it is important to note that people find updates that are too wordy or poorly written a big turnoff.
80% of people skim content when reading online. And the average person only reads 28% of text on a website (Nielsen). Thus, it is imperative that you are concise and accurate with your language, explain what is necessary and review the content for spelling or grammar errors and make sure it is understandable. While perfection isn’t always practical, keep in mind consumers what easily digestible and understandable content.
2. Poor Design
The brain likes images far more than it likes text. In fact, visuals are processed 60,000 times faster (3M).
Create content with eye-catching and interesting images will help to convert Social Media consumers into customers. Unattractive content will lessen the effectiveness of your message and lower your potential for conversions.
3. Old/Stale Updates
Updates don’t last forever, in fact while Pinterest posts are valid for 4 months and YouTube updates last for about 20 days. A LinkedIn update is good for about 24 hours and Facebook posts are visible for around 5 hours. Twitter tweets have roughly an 18-minute lifespan.
If you are using Facebook or Twitter to market it is necessary to create content that will grab users’ attention, in addition to creating fresh content throughout the day. Though it is a fine line, you don’t want to create too much content, but you need to create enough to stay relevant and visible throughout the day. Keeping content fresh daily is a must.
4. Personalization and Relevance Matter
People prefer content that relates to their personal situations. It is important to consider your audience when creating content for your updates. Stay true to your industry and your brand, while meeting the needs of your audience. Relevance and relatability of your content will make your business the resource for consumers.
5. Optimization
There are countless devices people use to access their Social Accounts online. While each has a different screen size or format, you still need to take this into consideration.
Facebook recommends creating content for mobile devises as a best practice as most Social Media is accessed via mobile device.
Make your content generic enough to fit most devices, while still making it eye-catching and engaging.
6. Video and Images Matter
93% of all human communication is almost non-verbal, which means that our brains prefer to perceive visual cues (DMP).
Consumers prefer content with a video or fun imagery to just plain text-only updates. Each Social Media platform is skewed toward using photos and videos. Good design and video should be a standard in your content strategy.
Minimize the risk of irritating your Social Media audience by avoiding implementing these 6 tips and make sure that your content is encouraging engagement and interaction and ensure your audience is more likely to buy from you.
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