The Importance of Social Strategy in Content Marketing

This is a writing sample from Scripted writer Nicholas Giallourakis

Often I hear from clients and internal marketing teams that we need to add social media to a content marketing campaign. "Let's just add in some tweets, Facebooks posts, LinkedIn posts, etc.," they'll say.

But how much strategy is really going into "just add in some tweets?" Is this something that's truly going to generate the right kind of traffic? This can cause negative results—or no results at all.

To start off, when looking at using social as part of any content marketing strategy, a brand or client must look at: How many followers do you really have? And of those followers, are they qualified/truly engaged in the brand?

Here are five quick steps to get a brand's social media audience off the ground (Courtesy of Brian D. Evans):

  1. You have to understand why you're doing it in the first place.
  2. Let your audience see the real you.
  3. If you're not creating every day, don't be surprised if your audience engagement slowly diminishes.
  4. Respond, engage, repeat
  5. Collaborate with other influencers.

Here is another way to look at these five steps—how do we all want to "socialize" with our friends and family? If you take the five steps above and think of them as socializing, it would go something like this:

  1. You love your friends and family and want to have a good time with them.
  2. Relax—enjoy the ride—be yourself while showing off who you are.
  3. If you stop calling your friends on a regular basis, they stop wanting to hang out with you–always keep the line open and check in on how they are doing!
  4. Do it all over and over again because it's a darn good time.
  5. Bring new people that are "cool" into the group. It helps keeps things lively and attracts others.

Now that you have the socializing part down for social media and building an audience—what kind of content works best for any content marketing campaign? Snackable content. What is snackable content, you say?

Snackable content is short, to the point, and damn good. As attention spans decrease, consuming media in bite-sized pieces becomes more favorable. We snack on media simply because we need something to keep our attention. Target these needs by creating easily digestible and delicious content.

Here are some snackable content examples:

  • Infographics
  • Graphs with stats from a research study
  • Quick Tips
  • FAQs
  • Top 3 Lists
  • Blog Posts (short ones)
  • Vines/short videos

Social media is ultimately a fantastic tool to add to any content marketing campaign–if done correctly. Again, it needs to have some serious thought and foundation building but at the end of the day sit back, relax, and enjoy it–it can take any campaign to a whole new level of marketing genius.

"Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is relax." – Mark Black

Written by:

Nicholas Giallourakis
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Nick has been writing and presenting on digital strategies for Folio Magazine, Informa, AAMP (Association for Audience Marketing Professionals) and his own website over the past 2 years. Nick Giallourakis is the founder and CEO of Gilly Media where he educates, writes and advises on digital strategies in the B2B media world. Nick previously worked for Informa (formerly Penton Media) within the central marketing services division as Program Architect and Solutions Specialist working with the sales team on larger strategic accounts across Informa. He was also responsible for writing/creating...
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