Types of content on social media
Content! Have you been hearing this word floating around on the internet every now and then? Well, then let me tell you are that you are on track with the evolving digital era that is driven by social media and its ‘content’. But what is content anyway? In simple terms, content is any piece of information or experience directed towards an audience. And since social media is a platform built for communication, almost everything that you browse on it in is content.
However, this was not the case before. Before the social media platform was acquired by people with different agendas and goals, before the rise of influencer marketing, we were all users. Gradually, there were two groups: people who posted really often and people who didn’t. Well, that’s a layman nomenclature. The appropriate nomenclature today will be content creators or influencers and audiences. Eventually, the pictures became content and the users became the audience. So, this is the journey of how ‘content’ creation began.
Now, with different niches of influencer marketing come influencers from all walks of life. But today, it’s not just influencers that create content. Even brands are creating content for their respective social media pages. And when brands work with influencers to create content, we call that influencer marketing. That’s one of the ways influencers can monetize their content.
But if you are a small business on Instagram trying to make it big using social media, then you must know about all types of content that you can use to build your online presence. Similarly, for all the micro-influencers out there, who are just starting out, knowing the areas of content that you can explore will help you be diverse and define your personality on the internet. Gradually, you can find the content type that suits your the best. There are two ways to find that out: by knowing what your audience likes and by knowing what you like. It’s as simple as that.
Before getting into the types of content on social media, let’s understand different content appeals in marketing. What we know as content appeal is also known as advertising appeal which has been a core of both digital and traditional advertising. But the same can be seen in today’s content creation on social media. It’s always better to know what kind of impact you want to create from your content and for that, you must know the types of content appeals.
- Personal appeal
The personal appeal in content is when you try to connect to people using personal anecdotes, facts, or emotions. This helps your audience connect with you on a deeper level. This appeal can be used by any type of brand. However, it can make a bigger impact in the case of organizations with humanitarian objectives.
- Romantic appeal
Romance is one emotion that we all can connect with. And it can be used to connect with not just couples but individuals as well. It makes people feel warm, nostalgic, and they leave an impact on the minds of your audience.
- Endorsement appeal
You may have come across celebrities or influencers promoting brands from a different niche. The reason is that sometimes the position of the individual who is endorsing the brand is strong enough to get the audience involved and sell the product.
- Humour appeal
Humour wins hearts. Today’s comedy influencers know it very well. They use humour as an appeal to connect with their audience and when brands collaborate with them, they maintain their streak by combining their humour with brand promotion.
- Transparency appeal
As of 2022, one of the top influencer marketing tips that both influencers and brands can use is to stay transparent with their audience. It’s because of honesty that influencers have made it so far with an ever-growing audience.
Coming back to the type of content that you can use on social media, let’s look at the top 5!
- Video content
Given the amount of time we spend on reels, it is needless to say that video content rules social media at this point in time. So, it’s only fair if you integrate video content into your marketing strategy. There are many ways to do that. You can create both short-form and long-form video content. Usually, short-form videos are easier to create because they might not need a lot of production. But it completely depends on the type of content you want to create. The best way to know if your video content works for you is to switch to Instagram business (for brands) or creator’s account (for influencers). There are many benefits of an Instagram creator account and the same can be said for the business account. Thye both give insightful analytics about your social media activities. You can use that to know the performance of your campaign. For more benefits, you should connect your Instagram to Facebook and make the most of the analytical features.
- Long-term collaboration content
Long-term collaboration content helps build trust. This is beneficial for both, influencers and brands. Sometimes, just one post of the collaboration is enough. But a long-term collaboration becomes a journey and the audience stays connected. When they see a constant brand or product, they are intrigued to know more about the experience of influencers with the brand, so they too can decide if they want to buy it or not.
- User-generated content
User-generated content is the best way to involve your audience in your process. One of the best tips to create a UGC campaign is to understand your audience. It is important that you know about their preferences, what kind of content they like, and then you can create a killer campaign idea to build UGC content.
- Live stream content
Live stream content has been an integral part of every social media platform. Be it Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, Discord, etc. You can choose to be active on all these platforms by keeping one of them as your primary platform. You will find a different set of audiences on each platform. You can use influencer marketing tools to track them all and get analytical information to understand your content performance.
- Blog content
If you think that the world today has fallen prey to short span attention and is deprived of readers, then let us tell you that you are missing out on a big set of audience. You can write blog posts anywhere. You can build your own blog website, you can use Instagram for that, or you can use platforms like Medium, Blogger, etc. If you have something to write about there are people out there waiting to read your content.
No matter what kind of content you use for brand promotions or just content creation, you can use WORD Marketplace, an influencer marketing platform that has all the features to help you create all kinds of content that you want. This is a platform that is built for both influencers and brands to find each other to create quality content for any type of influencer marketing campaign.
Using these types of content, you can not only build an audience but also create an impact on them.