Using Social Media as a Content Touch Point

There are so many places on the web a customer can discover your brand. Which makes the question of how to engage them across all these touch points more complicated than it sounds.

You may have great content stockpiled for this purpose, or you’re ready to begin producing them. But which ones do you use, and how do you use them?

And, since no brand that wants to be taken seriously ignores social media, you have to align your content to that one big cog in your marketing mix.

Naturally, this is going to depend on the platforms you use. But first consider the two ways you can use your social media platforms for content distribution.

Share content on them directly

Using a platform as a direct publishing point automatically means aligning yourself with its rules and norms.

Whether that means Twitter brevity, or Facebook gamification, or LinkedIn thought leadership, your guiding principle is to tailor your content (and its delivery) to the social media crowd.

The obvious benefit of this is putting you where your audience is. You can engage them at their level, and field inquiries off the cuff. But on the other hand, you’re operating within restraints. Long-form content, for instance, is not a good match for social media.

Content directly rolled out on social platforms tends to be shorter and snappier, aimed at brand awareness and customer retention – although there is evidence to suggest a rise in B2B lead generation on social media.

Or just use them to link elsewhere

If it’s clearly leads you want, there’s the option of hosting your content on another touch point – say, your official or corporate website – and using social media simply to point the way.

And that works because you’ve put the content into a different context. Free of pesky character limits and other unbendable rules, you can showcase what you really want to.

This is where you capture leads with gating. But like we previously talked about leads versus demand, you have to evaluate your own content first. Publishing off-platform does not automatically mean adding forms to fill up.

What does it come down to?

Two things:

• the nature of your content,
• and what you want to achieve with it.

Some content marketing assets are better received outside the boundaries of social media. If it’s something easily digestible, like an infographic or a listicle, it’s usually safe to introduce it to your audience directly rather than add the extra step of clicking away.

But even so, that may have to take a back seat to your goals. Want to build demand for something not widely known yet? Flesh out the related content and put it on your blog or website – sans gates. And then stick a compelling teaser on your social media platforms.

That’s just one way to go about it. What’s your own methodology behind content and social media?

Explore other content marketing and social media solutions from GetIT Comms.