How to optimise your content on social media
A common mistake that many people make when posting on social media is that they believe it’s okay to upload the same content to each platform. However, this is simply not the case. After all, every social network has features which allow you to optimize a post specifically on that platform. In the same way that you’d act differently around your friends at the club than you would at home with your parents, the same goes for social media. Essentially, it’s still you – but showing a different personality. But how do you decide what to post on each social platform? And what type of content is good to upload on each social network? That’s exactly what we’re going to cover in this article. One fact you should remember is that every platform has a different audience, and thus their own expectations of what they expect to see within their favorite platform. For example, here are some general guidelines for content that work well:
- Instagram: Stories, quotes, and high-quality images.
- Facebook: Curated content and video.
- Snapchat: Authentic storytelling via stories.
- Twitter: Blog posts & news.
So now that we have a general overview of what to expect, let’s dive into the details of how to optimize your content for each social media platform:
Live videos and general video content seems to be one of the best ways to create engaging content for your audience. As the algorithm prioritizes average high watch times, long-form video content can be a great tool to help your posts go “viral”. When uploading a video to the social network, try and optimize it for your audience’s viewing device. For example, the majority of content is now viewed on a mobile device without sound. Therefore, portrait videos with subtitles are a great way to engage with your community. As the video is larger on their screen, it makes them less likely to scroll past extremely quickly.
With several hundred million active users, Instagram is undoubtedly one of the largest platforms out there for users to share content amongst a community. If you are a company within the entertainment industry that sells headphones (such as Pioneer), you should be posting photos of people wearing your headphones so that viewers can vision themselves also wearing the product. If you wish to grow the accounts following, in this example we would recommend using DJ’s as influencers to wear the product and then running ads against their fanbase. Behind the scenes content also works extremely well as fans love to gain an understanding of what happens in the daily life of their favorite DJ/producer. Therefore, posting videos/photos of studio sessions and backstage glimpses at festivals etc would be extremely engaging. Once again, if you wish to grow the following of your account, you could create behind the scenes content & target people attending that event with ads on Instagram. Finally, quotes (often motivational) seem to work extremely well. Due to the platform being optimized for photo content, a great background and bold font are absolutely crucial to maintaining a steady stream of success with this tactic. For reference, check out @millionaire.dream on Instagram for great examples of quotes and formatting.
Snapchat
With millions of people using the app on a daily basis, it’s certainly a platform that you should be using if you wish to have an extremely successful social media strategy. With it’s main Unique Selling Point (USP) focusing around Augmented Reality (AR), that’s a feature that you should be paying attention to. For example, you could look at creating custom Snapchat filters and running them at events in which you are doing a show at. Likewise, authentic storytelling is an important feature within the application. With DJ Khaled being world-renowned for his ability to narrate on social media, the ability to grow your music brand within the platform is truly exponential. Just by talking directly to the camera, it allows you to engage and build a relationship with your audience.
There has been a recent fall in engagement on the popular platform but if you don’t have a Twitter strategy, it will limit your ability to social commentate on events. For example, if you go to the search function and type in an event you’re playing at (eg. Tomorrowland), you can instantly engage with everyone talking about attending that event. In general, blog posts and general news stories within your niche seem to be great content that you can post to Twitter. But more importantly, you should be focusing on engaging with people & commenting on events.
Stories
Despite all the above platforms being important, stories are a great way to share further content from your page. With the ability for users to swipe up and view an external link, stories are a great way to drive traffic. But despite there being loads of ways to engage with your audience via stories, here are a few that you may find beneficial:
- Promoting an article/blog post about your music
- Announcing a competition (eg. Free festival tickets)
- Quick music production tutorials
- Sharing your favorite quotes
- General updates from your daily life
With social media becoming used by an increasingly growing percentage of the world’s population, optimizing your content is key to standing out in such a crowded space. We hope you find these tips useful for optimizing your content for the widest reach.