Content Marketing on Social Media: Best Practices and Examples

One of the age old marketing questions is, “Is social media a type of content marketing?” The answer is unequivocally yes. In addition to the content that’s made specifically for social media channels, there’s also an immense distribution network for all of the rest of the content you produce, from blog posts to videos.

Then there’s promotion, where you can use your owned media channels to advertise more specialized content like ebooks or white papers.

But plenty of the content that’s produced in the marketing world these days is produced exclusively for social media, to encourage an audience to engage, react, and perform other actions that the brand wants.

Let’s look at a few examples of content marketing media designed specifically for social channels.

Why is Content Important in Social Media?

One hesitation some small brands have in creating content exclusively for social media is that it seems fleeting. Social media is made for scrolling. You flip by dozens—even hundreds—of posts or images every single time you log in. And while that’s true, brands are often rewarded in a big way when they can get a user to actually stop their scroll. Whether it’s a like, comment, or if you’re really lucky, a share, these little social interactions translate to a lot of good brand equity.

Another perk of creating content for social media is that you’re using your owned channels to distribute it. You don’t have to pay (unless you choose to for a boost) to share the content you’re creating. In a sense, it’s like free marketing, outside of the costs associated with creating the content and the time spent sharing and curating.

In addition to this “free” marketing, consider the sheer size of your potential audience. No matter which platform you choose, there are millions of people. Facebook alone recorded 2.7 billion active users in the second quarter of 2020. Instagram has over 1 billion monthly active users. Think of the wide array of potential customers that could be in your audience, and it’s clear why creating exclusive content for your social media channels is the right idea.

Finally, social media content converts. It’s shown that it gets an audience thinking about your brand, and it’s easy to drive people to your website from there.

What Type of Content is Best for Social Media?

When you’re creating content marketing media for social platforms, you no doubt want to produce the type of content that tends to perform best. In short, the best way to create content for social media is to create a variety. That includes videos, standard text posts, reactions, photos, stories or reels, and more. An active account often stretches to a wider audience.

That said, some types of content do perform better overall.

• Visual Content - Some platforms, like Instagram or TikTok, put a lot of emphasis on the visual. They still let you add captions or titles on screen, but visual content has a way of capturing short attention spans better than lengthy, wordy posts.
• Interactive Content - Ideally, any of your content elicit some kind of reaction, whether it’s a like or share. The goal of interactive content is to get people to actually interact with you—and maybe others. Whether it’s a question asking for opinions or stories, or a quiz, or a contest. In fact, you’ll see lots of accounts offering some kind of prize giveaway to people who follow, like, and share a post.
• User-Generated Content - Some companies, like camera manufacturer GoPro, have a social media strategy that leans heavily on images and videos that their own users and followers make and share with them. There’s no better way to advertise your brand than to show it in action through others. You can almost consider user-generated content like a mini case study.

Social Media Content Examples

With the above in mind, let’s look at a couple of excellent social media content examples.

• New York Public Library - Using Instagram’s Stories function, NYPL took several beloved books and turned them specifically into social media content, where followers could click into a book like Alice in Wonderland or A Christmas Carol, and read right on their phones without leaving the app.
• Wendy’s - Not every brand can get away with a voice that’s both wise-cracking and quick witted. But the old-fashioned hamburger joint does, and it does it well. On Twitter, they’re known for their witty retorts to both fans and smart alecks alike.
• King Arthur Baking - When the pandemic hit in 2020, few might have predicted that so many would take up quarantine baking as a hobby. The exceptional social media team behind King Arthur Baking already had a leg up, as they’d been sharing astoundingly high-rated recipes, hosting social takeovers with well-known bakers, and live lessons from the get-go.

Automate Your Content Strategy

DemandJump’s Insights show you where you are winning and where you are losing to your competitors around any topic. The platform will point out gaps and opportunities to take traffic share, and with one-click SEO-optimized content outlines, you’ll save time in the process.

Save over 50% of your time while creating better content - content that works!