Shopping for Content? Go Organic.

Consider yourself an organic shopper? Today’s educated consumer has more than likely heard the phrase ‘organic’ as it’s become quite popular during the health revolution of the past decade. Take a trip to any of your local grocery stores and you’ll see ‘organic’ signs running along nearly ever aisle. However, it wasn’t always this way. For years, companies neglected to respond to the damaging effects of using harmful chemicals on food being shipped to market. This all changed during the health surge as companies had to respond to their consumers’ concerns or risk losing profits. This valuable lesson can be applied to the digital marketing revolution.

Consumers demand organic content, in fact they crave it. Which is why it’s painful to see so many companies make the mistake of trying to force feed generic, pre-canned content down consumers’ throats and then get confused when they don’t take the bait. Couple that with an ever growing list of social networks to send content over and you have a recipe for frustration from a lack of results. Developing organic content that catches the eye of consumers and gets them to engage with your brand isn’t as difficult as it sounds. Try implementing these 3 tips when crafting your next social media strategy.

Post Appropriately

It’s important to understand that each social media platform has it’s own intricacies and many brands make the mistake of not adhering to the proper etiquette that each medium has. Essentially each platform has it’s own culture and users expect the content to conform to the customs of that platform. For example, Facebook tends to be quite flexible in the types of posts that get traction. You can post a picture, cross promote another brand by sharing their content or even embed a video that you think your subscribers would enjoy. Twitter has a completely different culture and tends to feature quick updates with links to an external source or retweets of other posts. These two examples show the difference in each platform and how content performs differently depending on the format that the content is provided in.

It’s also crucial to consider what times to post at depending on the platform and your target market as this can vary by channel. For example, it’s widely considered that the best time to post on Instagram is at 5pm on Wednesdays. However, LinkedIn’s content tends to get the most traction from 8am to 12pm from Tuesdays to Thursdays. Remember to also factor in when you believe your consumers will be online as a 35 year old mother of two’s schedule is likely to be completely different than that of a 20 year old university student!

Organic Content

Now that you’re posting at the right times and getting accustomed to each social media platform’s culture you’re ready to inject life into your content. This is the step where, for a variety of different reasons, many businesses falter. However, it’s not that difficult if you simply put yourself in your consumer’s shoes and think about what they would want to see. It’s also imperative to avoid scheduling posts too far in advance as it becomes more and more difficult to generate organic, engaging content. It can even become outdated as a big component of organic content is it’s time sensitive nature. Relating posts to trending events that likely relate to your user segment is a great example of connecting to your audience.

Respond

If you’ve followed these two steps then you should be able to generate solid content which will begin to yield interactions from consumers. This is what makes the time investment worth it as you have the opportunity to establish a connection with consumers. Remember that effective communication is a two way street and you need to treat every single interaction as an opportunity to spread your brand’s message. Answering consumers’ questions and engaging with them will put you at the forefront of their minds should they need your expert advice again.

Today’s technology has allowed us to reach consumers in an endless number of ways. At the same time, creating an effective content marketing strategy has never been so difficult because of the barrage of content that consumers receive on a daily basis. Couple that with consumers who are more educated, savvy and resourceful than ever before and it truly is a tough road to navigate. The key is understanding that, as humans, we crave social interaction. So cut the generic nonsense and craft quality content that matters. Your organic loving consumers will thank you for it!