Private communication mediums have come a long way since the origin of smoke signals and pigeon mail, but the essential value has persisted as the same: human connection. Fast forward a few decades and human connection has become so effortlessly obtainable through social media channels that it is practically intolerable to go a few hours without a new blog, tweet or post.
The origin of tech-savvy social scavengers and the blogs they read is music to the ears of content marketers, as this association delivers them the seamless platform to distribute their content.
The social media challenge
Creating and setting up a Facebook page or Instagram account and producing a few likes and followers is one thing, generating a complete social media tactic is quite another. Before embarking on a social media task, content marketers should decide precisely what they want to attain from each social page, whether that is creating traffic, enhancing visibility or increasing brand value, and how they are planning to achieve this. Digital marketing is all about these aspects.
Creating brand value
Creating an exclusive brand name cannot be attained by imitating what other brands are doing. Christopher Szczepaniak, Chief Content Officer at Stratego House, holds that in order for content marketing to move beyond the memes of social media, it needs to use more cultured social and content marketing tools, such as podcasts, infographics, eBooks, videos and animations.
In addition, content marketers need to provide material that people can use, to the point where they will jump to consume more. Social media scavengers have moved past the look-at-me phase and are more attentive to what you can offer them.
Less might not be more
Socially optimised firms are far more in tune with the wants of their spectators than those that are not, but how optimised do you really need to be today? Having numerous social media networks for one firm is now usual practice. Remember, there is more to social media than just Twitter, and different channels are ideal for different brands and their goals.
Enter the community manager
Much the same as reporters are now essential to a company's editorial strategy, community managers are a vastly sought-after participant of the content marketing and social media package. 2019 is the year for businesses to move past the social media rookie who fiddles around on Facebook, and let a skilled community manager take complete charge of the content marketing networks.
